Fewer White People than Other-Than-White-People are being born in the US, which means eventually there won't be too many white people. It's about time.
Almost all societies in the world allow, often encourage, marriage between cousins. There are reasons for this which I shall blog about if you remind me to. But for now, here is a discussion on the topic you will find interesting.
- Log in to post comments
I get the sense that the distribution of "similar to me" vs "different from me" in mate choice is pretty bimodal. (Talking about similar in a physical and perhaps MHC/pheromone sense.)
I suspect there may be alternative evolutionary strategies at work. I'd love to see the math on this, but never had the time to do it myself. And yeah, I'm including cultural evolution as well as biological.
The linked to discussion was not very interesting, except that as anthropology types, we might be curious to know what the rabble thinks or to talk about the cultural issues. I'd rather hear about genetics though. I'd like estimates of societal costs and benefits of marriages to relatives from serious students of the subject.
In my evolutionary training of old, the common thinking was that cousin marriages would reduce classical fitness, so the puzzle was why they happened. Part of the answer was thought to be such unions lead to more pregnancies. About inclusive fitness, I'm not sure anyone was sure. Perhaps too complicated for comprehensive modelling.
This a nice work. I'm interested about your post. Good job.