4/9     "Australian man fathers a baby with daughter"
        http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080407/wl_nm/australia_incest_dc_1
        \_ "I've always admired Lot..."
        \_ Forget it, Jake.  It's Chinatown.
        \_ At least that is a much lower inbreeding coefficient than say,
           two siblings of the same parents. Still safer, and actually
           done very frequently in breeding of animals in order to
           preserve certain characteristics (conformation competition
           where duplicates, not diversity, is highly desired). Look up
           COI or coefficient of inbreeding, linebreeding, etc. It's
           done all the time, and when done well, your line of Championed
           studs and bitches can earn you millions of dollars from breeding
           programs, sponsorships, etc.
           \_ Also, read Survival of the Sickest. Genetic disease, or
              genetic "feature"? You decide.
           \_ Purebred dogs and horses have numerous genetic problems.  -tom
              \_ Short version of below: pure bred dogs (I don't know anything
                 about horses) have genetic problems because the breeders will
                 destroy an entire species to win some lame dog show prize.
                 There is no natural reason for pure breed dogs to have so
                 many problems if they were left to choose their own mates from
                 a larger pool in the same way mutts can.  The other problem
                 for pures (as mentioned) is they often keep a lesser animal
                 for breeding because it has the right look.  The runts will
                 normally die off in a batch of mutts.
                 \_ The key then seems to be whether you kill and/or let die
                    the weak specimens. That's normally how nature works. But
                    We don't do that anymore: we save people as far as we are
                    able and develop technological remedies for weaknesses.
                    I don't think you can extrapolate purebred animal breeds
                    to a single case of incest; that case isn't part of some
                    orchestrated program.
                    \_ Hitler's super Ayran race is purebred.
                       \_ Aryan
                       \_ Purebred Aryan race is genetically predisposed
                          to 21st century obesity.
              \_ No doubt, the potential for genetic related problems is
                 much much much greater in purebreds. Breeders need to take
                 in account of alleles and heterozygous individuals in
                 order to breed a stock that they think will give them
                 more advantages than genetic disadvantages. Case in point
                 a breeder breeds a Champion mustang that wins millions of
                 dollars on the horserace, but it may have a lot of skin
                 allergies and requires a lot of expensive vet treatments.
                 Purebreds are purely mankind's creations, and thus the
                 breeder needs to be very careful about genetic diseases.
                 In many cases a good breeder will breed stocks that are
                 much healthier than mutts. There's also a notion that
                 mutts are much healthier, and while that may be true, it
                 is really a result that mutt breeders tend to discard
                 (neuter, spay, destroy) stocks that are unhealthy, whereas
                 purebred breeders really want to preserve certain physical
                 attributes so they can compete in breed Conformations.
                 Unfortunately, 95% of the breeders out there are BACKYARD
                 breeders (you know, those ignorant neighbors in your backyard)
                 that don't know or care anything about genetics, and they
                 really mess up the gene pools of animals.