[HN Gopher] DNA tests are uncovering the true prevalence of ince...
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DNA tests are uncovering the true prevalence of incest (2024)
Author : georgecmu
Score : 83 points
Date : 2025-08-07 17:40 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/Sgjb7
| zahlman wrote:
| The article doesn't appear to be paywalled and I'm reading it
| just fine without JavaScript enabled. Is an archive really
| necessary?
| voidnap wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please edit out swipes from your comments. This is in the
| site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| tetromino_ wrote:
| Paywalled here - can only read 2 paragraphs. Possibly paywall
| is triggered conditionally, for example if you read multiple
| articles in some time period?
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It used to be 5 free a month when they first introduced it
| years ago. Not sure the current mechanism and policy.
| john01dav wrote:
| Many paywalls rely on client side JavaScript to work. My
| guess is that this has something to do with search engine
| indexing.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I got a "sign in or start a free trial" wall that blocked
| most of the article.
|
| I suspect these sites don't put up that block until articles
| reach a certain popularity. That encourages early readers to
| enjoy and share the article, and everyone else gets to think
| that the person that shared it with them has an account, so
| maybe they should too.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| The block is built-in from the get-go.
| foresto wrote:
| Not everyone can be bothered to disable JavaScript by
| default.
|
| It's a pity that archive.today walls off their saved pages
| behind a Google CAPTCHA, which requires JavaScript. I would
| think avoiding that kind of fingerprinting/tracking would be
| a common use case for an archive site, but the Google-wall
| renders archive.today useless for that purpose.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| There are those of us here who haven't a clue what it means
| "to disable JavaScript by default" -- much less what
| JavaScript is.
| boston_clone wrote:
| This makes me super curious - could you share how you
| came to find this site and decide to sign up? It's called
| "hacker news" with the implication that content posted
| here is intellectually stimulating for hackers - or,
| those who hack together computer programs.
|
| If you do already program, have you never been exposed to
| JavaScript _at all_? If not, I think you should use that
| curiosity to find out what JavaScript is and what effects
| disabling it may have.
|
| Even more odd when I see that the majority of your
| comments are really just posting archive links to bypass
| a paywall. Not an issue with me per se, but even more
| surprising to be ignorant of JS at that point.
| bn-l wrote:
| Wow that was very touching.
| searine wrote:
| This is a tragic story, but I think the bigger issue is some
| places have high levels of cultural acceptance of consanguine
| relationships.
| 0xcafefood wrote:
| It's extremely common in South Asian communities (https://www.r
| eddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10yx3va/...). The UK has
| a large South Asian diaspora.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Pakistan doesn't represent all of South Asia.
| 0xcafefood wrote:
| None of India is looking particularly good, but each state
| in southern India looks to have 20-25% rates of first-
| cousin marriages. Pretty high.
| lazide wrote:
| Southern India it's even higher
| jandrese wrote:
| The crazy thing is India has ample population to avoid
| this problem. It's not some isolated tribe or small
| island community. The reasons have to be
| social/political.
| lazide wrote:
| It's the caste system + specific social factors.
| dismalaf wrote:
| You mean it's extremely common in Muslim countries. https://e
| n.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middl...
|
| I love this site down voting facts if it doesn't conform to
| preconceived "progressive" notions.
|
| https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Cousin_Marriage_in_Islamic_Law
| 0xcafefood wrote:
| Seems so. Or more to the point of how data collected in the
| UK might reflect this trend (from the article you link):
| "According to a 2005 BBC report on Pakistani marriage in
| the United Kingdom, 55% of British Pakistanis marry a first
| cousin."
| secondcoming wrote:
| There was a recent debate in the UK Parliament about
| whether cousin marriage should be banned. It did not
| succeed.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztHyjdyWUOA
| mnw21cam wrote:
| But there was a BBC documentary called "Should I marry my
| first cousin" for which the main conclusion was basically
| no.
| bakul wrote:
| AFAIK this is far more common in muslims but not in hindus,
| jains etc. While growing up I had heard/read that as per the
| Vedas you can not marry someone with whom you have a common
| ancestor within 7 generations. [My scientifically minded
| atheist parents agreed with the idea.] Of course, in practice
| this isn't always followed but in any arranged marriage such
| proscriptions would presumably be checked.
| lazide wrote:
| Southern India has particularly low Muslim populations -
| and definitely doesn't follow that guidance.
|
| The vedas have many sections which get widely ignored.
|
| Edit: HN throttling is terrible. Here is a link to a couple
| studies [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641190/],
| [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trends-in-
| consanguineous...]
|
| AP has the highest rate, around 28%
| bakul wrote:
| I has asked friends who would know more about South
| India. If you have any references about statistics and
| causes please share. Thanks!
| bakul wrote:
| I found one map that may be interest:
| https://araingang.medium.com/cousin-marriage-in-south-
| asia-f...
|
| But note that the article is really talking about first-
| degree incest/pedophila/sexual abuse which is taboo in
| pretty much every society.
| DoesntMatter22 wrote:
| I recently discovered that these relationships are legal in
| France. That's nuts
| mr90210 wrote:
| Same country that banned paternity tests unless authorised by
| a court.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Could you explain why you think that's a bigger issue than the
| one raised in the article:
|
| > In the overwhelming majority of cases ... the parents are a
| father and a daughter or an older brother and a younger sister,
| meaning a child's existence was likely evidence of sexual
| abuse.
| kulahan wrote:
| Incestual children can lead to a pretty significant number of
| medical issues.
| searine wrote:
| Cases like that described are very rare compared to 20-50%
| consanguinity in some communities. The disease burden from
| this is huge.
|
| Not saying SA isn't an issue, but if the issue is incest,
| then cultural acceptance of it is the biggest offender.
| novok wrote:
| I think incest is usually understood as immediate direct
| family relations and means SA or something close.
|
| What your talking about with 1st cousins is called inbred.
| Inbred is the superset of incest. You can get that with no
| incest.
| searine wrote:
| I guess?
|
| Label it whatever you want. It's still consanguinity and
| it causes a tremendous amount of disease and the largest
| offender by far is cultural acceptance if it.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Consensual sex between adult brother and sister for
| example isn't abuse. If it results in a child it is also
| unacceptably likely to result in birth defects because
| that's 50% DNA commonality. Consensual sex between parent
| and (adult obviously) child is more arguable because
| there's a significant power imbalance which would usually
| not be present for siblings, but it might not be abuse.
|
| Cousin sex is just not a big deal, and especially beyond
| the 1st cousins with zero removal, ie the children of
| your parents' blood siblings. When it comes to stuff like
| "She's the daughter of my great-auntie's oldest boy" it's
| negligible. In some societies that wouldn't be tracked,
| everybody is a cousin and nobody is. Americans are weird
| about this. Rudy Giuliani for example married his second
| cousin. I don't even know the _names_ of my second
| cousins. If I met one in a bar I 'd have no idea. But in
| the US somehow that counts as strange.
| watwut wrote:
| When cousin having kids together becomes normalized, you
| get a lot more defects a generation later - when kids of
| cousins have kids with other kids of cousins in the same
| family.
|
| It is not a non issue. The communities where marrying
| cousins is normal do have this issue and have
| significantly more severe disabilities.
| tialaramex wrote:
| "Cousin" is a vague claim. A parent is 50% similarity, a
| simple _first_ cousin is typically 12.5% but may be
| higher if they 're also related on the other side (e.g.
| Einstein married a woman whose parents were,
| respectively, a sibling of one parent and a cousin of the
| other, that's a lot of shared DNA). But second cousins
| may be only 2-3%.
|
| So there's a huge gap between "Your mum and dad both have
| twins, and there was a double marriage, so, she's your
| first cousin twice over" and "She's your great-aunt's
| child's youngest" and yet you might get told both people
| are your "cousin" for lack of convenient terminology.
| novok wrote:
| I think it's implied it's a lot of first cousin stuff and
| if you iterate this it starts building up in goofy ways
| if it is kept self contained enough.
| coliveira wrote:
| This is extremely common in the royal families of Europe. Many
| of them are the result of incest.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Not wrong. My Turkish ex's parents were first cousins. Married
| for 50 years and they had two kids.
|
| No one cared. It wasn't that big deal.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > And this number is just a floor: It reflects only the cases
| that resulted in pregnancy, that did not end in miscarriage or
| abortion, and that led to the birth of a child who grew into an
| adult who volunteered for a research study.
|
| This might not be logical. If your DNA's in UK Biobank you might
| be more likely to have had a genetic disease stemming from
| incest.
| HPsquared wrote:
| A bit like the high number of negative paternity tests.
| Selection bias is huge.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| Biobank is a voluntary data collection system, I thought. It's
| not based on whether someone is sick.
|
| (Unless I've misunderstood somewhere)
| 2dvisio wrote:
| Yes. UK Biobank is a voluntary programme.
|
| (I work in Genomic)
| taeric wrote:
| I think the assertion is that most people basically don't
| feel they have anything special genetically. As such, most
| people just aren't entering these databases that are opt-in.
|
| Contrast this to people that do have a genetic oddity about
| them. Just having the traits is often enough to get people to
| find out more about them.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| The UK Biobank definitely has a bias, but it's in the opposite
| direction to that you are suggesting here. It's primarily
| _healthy_ people who are enrolled only when they reach the age
| of 40 and still have no significant health problems. So, if you
| are in the UK Biobank, you are _less_ likely to have had a
| genetic disease stemming from incest.
| nineplay wrote:
| I think we're going to find that a large number of people who
| were shamed as "town sluts" were actually abuse victims. Every so
| often I see nasty comments that 'she got pregnant at 15' or 'she
| had two kids before finishing high school' with follow-ups
| blaming poor sex ed. I think people are side stepping the
| implications, especially if the father is otherwise unknown. Even
| in my day the girl who got pregnant by the volleyball coach
| shouldered the bulk of the blame.
| squidbeak wrote:
| What a term to use about anyone let alone people you suppose to
| be abuse victims. This is shameful.
| dang wrote:
| It made me wince as well, but I doubt that the intent was
| malicious.
| nineplay wrote:
| Too late to edit but I meant to say town "sluts". Ah well, a
| lesson to re-read carefully before posting
| tomhow wrote:
| You should be able to edit it now, or email us
| (hn@ycombinator.com) with an edit we can put in. Probably
| best to find a different word/phrase to use. It's upsetting
| to people even if you didn't mean it that way.
| dang wrote:
| I've edited your GP comment to say what I believe you
| meant, but if I got it wrong, please let us know.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| (2024)
|
| Some discussion then:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39765894
| fsflover wrote:
| > Moore ended up creating a private and invite-only support group
| on Facebook
|
| Sounds like a thing you would never want to share with Facebook
| given its approach to privacy.
| JimmyBuckets wrote:
| I don't think the invite-only nature of the group is due to
| privacy but rather moderation. It seems the point of this group
| is to assuage shame
| usefulcat wrote:
| > Moore ended up creating a private and invite-only support
| group on Facebook
|
| I read GP's comment as being more about the 'on Facebook'
| part, not so much about 'invite-only'.
| sneak wrote:
| Entire countries have ceded their b2b and b2c communications
| channels to WhatsApp.
|
| End users don't give any thoughts to privacy, generally
| speaking. Either they've "nothing to hide", or they have given
| up due to an overwhelming sense of helplessness and loss of
| agency on the matter.
|
| It's not even a decision anymore. They just type their phone
| number (aka permanent tracking unique identifier) into the new
| app and smash "agree".
| Mistletoe wrote:
| I don't want to read the article that will just upset me, can
| someone give a percentage?
| qualeed wrote:
| > _One in 7,000 people, according to his unpublished analysis_
| wincy wrote:
| That's pretty low, I'd say that's a cultural success.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Yeah I expected 10x the rate, but sadly those are the
| "successful" pregnancies.
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(page generated 2025-08-07 23:00 UTC)