Incest in a lift

Information Analyst said:
You shifting the goalposts...
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It was an error.

BTW: I note your failure to address that Darwin is a single data point and that I did not say that only the aristocracy ever married cousins so you can shove your smug and smarmy accusation.
 
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RandFan said:
IIRC, marrying cousins was a cultural thing among aristocracy to keep fortunes and power in the family.
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I had no idea that a recollection of something I had read in a sociology book 20 years ago would be the subject of such harassment. "IIRC". This is my understanding. I'm not an expert. I'm not claiming it is true. I'm saying it is my recollection. Some people sure know how to **** up a thread.

Thank goodness for the ignore list.
 
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RandFan said:
I note your failure to address that Darwin is a single data point and that I did not say that only the aristocracy ever married cousins so you can shove your smug and smarmy accusation.
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Darwin was an example. Wikipedia has a whole list of similar "famous people," but they - like royalty - are prominent because... well... they're famous. That said, they married their cousins because it was generally acceptable under the social conditions of the time, not because they happened to be famous. Apparently worldwide it's 10%, even now.

RandFan said:
I had no idea that a recollection of something I had read in a sociology book 20 years ago would be the subject of such harassment. "IIRC". This is my understanding. I'm not an expert. I'm not claiming it is true. I'm saying it is my recollection.
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Except that when your recollection was challenged, you further claimed, "It's just that it wasn't something that people generally did," when in fact it was by no means uncommon.

RandFan said:
Some people sure know how to **** up a thread.

Thank goodness for the ignore list.
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What, for pointing out you were wrong?! Touchy....
 
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Puppycow said:
True, but wasn't it more prevalent? After all, marrying a commoner was out of the question, so their options tended to be more limited.

Queen Victoria's husband Prince Albert was her first cousin.
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Wouldn't have thought so - consider that most people would have been in "extended " families (meaning they lived with or very near to their sisters and brothers) and would have little opportunity to find partners outside of the family's immediate vicinity then I would have thought it wasn't unusual for cousins to marry/have children with one another. (ETA: I don't know that's just my musings on it.)
 
Don't almost all lifts these days have security cameras? They may not be easy to see, but they're there.

One should know that when you get on a lift, Big Brother is watching.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Interesting that the article only says the brother was put on the sex offenders register, and not the sister.
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I suspect that the sexual relationship predated this event. In fact, I suspect it predated the sister turning 18.
 
RandFan said:
I'm not sure you understand my point or maybe it's my fault.

Let me try this, humans are far more likely to have a strong fear of heights than not. Not all humans. It goes from no fear to maladaptive fear with a gradient in between. On the other hand, statistically, humans are much less afraid of driving in cars. It's because we evolved to fear heights. Cars didn't exist during our evolution.

You could say our fear of heights is irrational when compared to the relative risk of cars and you would be right. That fact won't take away the queasy feeling many people get when looking over a cliff.

It's not an intellectual viewpoint I'm talking about but rather an evolved sense.
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I see your point, but you probably also understand that certain senses are easier to evolve than others.

E.g., detecting heights is a by-product of vision and quite easy, while for example a sense like seeing which food or water hole has harmful bacteria would have helped even more but it never evolved because it's hard. It would make a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint to be wired to stay away from that, but it somehow never happened.

It's even harder for incest. it's not easy to recognize that that hot woman over there has a significant number of shared alleles with me, while that other hot woman doesn't. The reaction which would tell you "stay away from that one, unless you want kids with sloped foreheads and flippers" is lacking an input.
 
Puppycow said:
True, but wasn't it more prevalent? After all, marrying a commoner was out of the question, so their options tended to be more limited.
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It's more subtle in that - in theory - royalty wouldn't marry anyone without a title. "Commoners," however, could always acquire a title by marriage or award, so really there was always "new blood" entering the system, albeit it possibly a generation or so down to establish "respectability."
 
HansMustermann said:
I see your point, but you probably also understand that certain senses are easier to evolve than others.

E.g., detecting heights is a by-product of vision and quite easy, while for example a sense like seeing which food or water hole has harmful bacteria would have helped even more but it never evolved because it's hard. It would make a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint to be wired to stay away from that, but it somehow never happened.

It's even harder for incest. it's not easy to recognize that that hot woman over there has a significant number of shared alleles with me, while that other hot woman doesn't. The reaction which would tell you "stay away from that one, unless you want kids with sloped foreheads and flippers" is lacking an input.
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I think if there is a hereditary incest taboo it applies just to family members you were raised with - siblings, parents etc. Wasn't there some research that showed that it is rare for children raised in a kibbutz to marry eachother because the other kids were equivalent to siblings, psychologically speaking. And I think sexual attraction between reunited siblings (due to adoption for example) is relatively common too. So it looks like our brains use a heuristic - if you were raised with them, don't fancy them.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
I think if there is a hereditary incest taboo it applies just to family members you were raised with - siblings, parents etc. Wasn't there some research that showed that it is rare for children raised in a kibbutz to marry eachother because the other kids were equivalent to siblings, psychologically speaking. And I think sexual attraction between reunited siblings (due to adoption for example) is relatively common too. So it looks like our brains use a heuristic - if you were raised with them, don't fancy them.
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Yes is's called the Westermarck EffectWP which serves to combat Genetic Sexual AttractionWP
 
Ian Osborne said:
Can you imagine anything more depraved than this?
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Looks like a commercial for Reebok.

It's not all that depraved, most of the reaction is based on social norms. I don't think it warrants being placed on a sex offenders list (especially if it's incest, is the public really isn't at risk with this particular "crime"?) It sure it weird.

All kidding aside, having seen the offenders, it makes you wonder if it's actually a crime of necessity. I don't subscribe to this notion that there's "someone for everyone". More so now.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
I think if there is a hereditary incest taboo it applies just to family members you were raised with - siblings, parents etc. Wasn't there some research that showed that it is rare for children raised in a kibbutz to marry eachother because the other kids were equivalent to siblings, psychologically speaking. And I think sexual attraction between reunited siblings (due to adoption for example) is relatively common too. So it looks like our brains use a heuristic - if you were raised with them, don't fancy them.
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Judging by the follow-up article, these two were raised together.
 
If I was to judge on that article I would say it might have helped if the mother had paid attention to her kids, but I won't as it's a Sun story. That means I know the "story" is simply the story the journalist decide they were going to write, it will be entirely coincidental if it has any relation to the reality of the situation.
 
L.Y.S. said:
It's 16 in his country too. So I'm failing to understand why he would use 18?
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It's this "consenting adult" meme. Everything sex related that's vile and revolting apparently becomes slight less vile and revolting if the people involved are 'adults' and not 'minors'.
 
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