Talk:Incest taboo

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[edit] Clean it up

This article reads like a badly written research paper. Maybe someone with more in-depth knowledge of the issue can give it a rewriting or better yet, further contribute with a NPOV. I find it hard to understand where the original author was going with this.

-Smuglife 22:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seperate Page

Why a separate page?

Because the concepts of "incest" and "incest taboo" are very, VERY different. The latter is a myth perpetrated by counter-transferring anthropologists. The former is a reality all too familiar to therapists. And in practice, discussion of the reality is bogged down whenever people get mirred in the myth. That's why they need to be clearly separated.

For example: why does what anthropologists do or do not believe about an "incest taboo" matter at all about the reality of incest today and throughout history? It doesn't.

If someone wants to argue that the incest taboo exists, they're welcome to try.

you think an incest taboo doesn't exist? try walking up to someone on the street and ask them "hey, incest is totally kickass, right?" and see how they respond. if you want to argue that it is not a genetic/inherent taboo, and only exists socially, you could probably make a strong case, but to call it a myth is naive. --dan 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] debate moved from Ed Poor's page

Hi Ed. I just want to clarify a couple of things concerning your recent comments on the Incest page. First, whatever the "incest taboo" refers to (marriage, sex, or both), and whether it is truly universal or not, it does not mean that people do not engage in incest. In other words, one who claims that the incest taboo is universal is not claiming that incest does not occur, rather, they are claiming that in all societies incest, or certain forms of incest, are considered wrong. As a matter of fact, I think most anthropologists understand the universailty of the incest taboo to mean that incest is also universal. "Taboo" doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, just that when it happens people think it is wrong (for example, every country I know of makes murder illegal, yet murder occurs in almost every country. It is because murder happens that people have to come up with a rule against it -- does this make sense to you?) Second, when anthropologists try to explain the incest taboo or its universality (and there are a lot of different arguments that are hard to prove conclusively), I don't think any of the anthropologists meant for their explanations of the taboo to be understood that incest is a good thing. Maybe I am confused by the exchange on the talk page, but at least as far as the discussion by anthropologists and others concerning the "incest taboo" is concerned, I do not know anyone who has ever claimed that incest does not happen or that incest does happen and is good (I am here defining incest very narrowly, to mean intercourse, of course if you define it more broadly the arguments get a lot more complex). I think this last point is the real issue -- whether one has an absolute or relative definition of incest, and a broad or narrow definition of incest. Thus, one can say "incest is always wrong" while defending some behaviors by saying that they aren't really incest, or one can say "incest is sometimes wrong and sometimes right." Does this make sense to you? SR

Thank you for your clarifications, SR. Perhaps the biggest problem was that "taboo" seemed to be taken in the sense of "non-existent", i.e., it never happens. What I personally mean by "taboo" is something that is forbidden because it's very bad, so bad in fact that it is rarely even talked about.

Yes, I think you and I have the same understanding of taboo -- and for what it is worth I think all anthropologists share your understanding of taboo, at least in this case.

Perhaps it's not a clear enough word for an encylopedia article. We might do better by saying:

  • Many societies have rules against behavior X. It's considered immoral, exploitative, etc.
  • The annual incidence of behavior X is 25 per 1 million population in society Y.

We can, if necessary, insert into the article a comparison between incest and murder. Perhaps this will help distinguish between (A) the rule against the action and (B) how often it occurs.

In any case, the edit war seems to have subsided, and I hope we all (Vicki, SR, ark, and me) can cooperate to make a good article. --Ed

The problem with the claim that the incest taboo as a taboo is universal, is that it's not true. Most primitive societies see nothing wrong with incest. In fact, the argument "the tribe doesn't consider it incest so we won't either" (IOW, they see nothing wrong with incest so we'll just dismiss it) is a common one among anthropologists.

The further claim that anthropologists understand the incest taboo to mean the universality of incest is also false. If they did, Lloyd deMause and his followers (who maintain precisely that incest was universal) wouldn't have been viciously oppressed by mainstream academics. And further, this contradicts them dismissing all cases of incest.

So both of SR's central claims are wrong. His supporting arguments are equally wrong. It is not true that primitive societies see anything wrong with murder. There are recorded cases of stone age tribes where the people see absolutely nothing wrong with murder. In fact, "war" in the context of a primitive tribe is nothing but mass murder; an ambush of unprepared and helpless civilians leading followed by a total massacre.

Further, the proper definition of incest includes any kind of sexual stimulation. If you want a "broad" definition of incest then you can include a parent deliberately giving their child to a stranger to be raped. The feelings on the part of the child (they betrayal, fear and anger) are the same as if the parent did the raping. The reason why the parent did this (because they have incestuous desires but fear indulging in them themselves) are also the same. THAT is an example of a broad definition of incest. SR's suggestion to limit incest to only sexual intercourse is total bullshit. If we did that, then lesbian sex would not qualify as sex! And in any case, it would be pointless since there are many recorded instances of sexual intercourse, as well as genital fondling and sucking. So none of this advances SR's position.

And finally, there are plenty of anthropologists who think that incest is good. In fact, the mainstream argument was (is?) that "it can't be incest because it's a good thing" in clear cases of incest (with or without sexual intercourse) between a parent and young child!

The issues involved are really very simple. Yes, incest exists. No, there is no such thing as an incest taboo. Yes, anthropologists both deny its existence and see it as a good thing. Which is why they think there is an incest taboo. The issues themselves are very simple but they're the complete opposite of what most people believe. Which is why people who are not ready to accept reality insist on making everything "complex". So the issues are only really simple for people who are willing to reject everything they believe about society and morality.

People are welcome to say that the universality of incest is a radical and controversial belief. As long as I get to say that it's the only belief that's based on any actual evidence.

And here I'll provide some simple and incontrovertible evidence for my position that anthropologists are fuckups. Anthropologists aren't the only fuckups with respect to child abuse:

If you look up pedophilia in the DSM-III and DSM-IV you will notice a curious difference. The difference is this: in the DSM-III, pedophilia is having sexual desires for children. In the DSM-IV, that's not sufficient. You also have to have a problem with those desires. So if you merely have sexual desires for children, yet don't feel at all troubled by these desires and have no legal difficulties because of them, then you are not a pedophile! -- ark

There are two related issues: what does "incest taboo" mean -- does it mean that incest does not occur, or does it mean that people consider incest wrong? and do anthropologists deny that incest occurs? Here is a quote from Bronislaw Malinowski's 1929 The Sexual Life of Savages. Malinowski was a pioneer of the ethnographic method and is considered a founding father of modern anthropology; moreover, this book is considered one of the founding texts in the study of kinship. In it Malinowski makes clear that incest does occur, and that it is taboo:
The most important person on the father's side is obviously the father himself. here we meet the second fundamental fact in household morality: though the father is not a kinsman of his children, secual intercourse between father and daughter, though it occurs, is not only illegal and improper, but is viewed with definite moral repugnance. Marriage between father and daughter is not allowed or even imaginable to the native (page 528).
Perhaps the most important text in the anthropological study of kinship is Levi-Strauss's The Elementary Structures of Kinship. In this book, Levi-Strauss cites an earlier (and today practically unknown) anthropologist, Levy-Bruhl. Levy-Bruhl in fact made the argument that ARK is suggesting anthropologists make: "The famous question of the prohibition of incest...whose solution has been so sought after by ethnologists and sociologists, has none. There is no purpose in asking it. In the societies just discussed, it is useless wondering why incest is forbidden. The prohibition does not exist [because ... incest] is something that does not occur." Note that it is clear that "taboo" does not mean that something does not occur, only that when it does occur people consider it wrong. Like ARK, but unlike the anthropologists ARK refers to, Levy-Bruhl is suggesting that there is no "incest taboo." But unlike ARK, and unlike the anthropologists ARK refers to, Levy-Bruhl is suggesting that incest does not occur. Levi-Strauss quotes Levy-Bruhl in order to rebuke and admonish him. Levi-Strauss states that incest does occur, and that is precisely why there is a need for a social taboo. SR

The problem is that even this much is a delusion. It's not true that prohibition of sexual intercourse between very close family members is universal.

Also, as far as the incest taboo goes, we've gone from discussing the existence of sex between family members, to the official prohibition against sexual intercourse between very close family members. If that's what you call "the incest taboo" now, nobody else will recognize it as such and we might as well junk the concept entirely.

Now here's why even that much is untrue.

The neolithic primitives don't think in terms of incest and social (family) relations. They think in terms of sex. When they say that too much sex between a mother and child is wrong, they mean precisely that too much sex is wrong. They do not say that there is anything wrong with incest at all. It just happens to coincide with "too much incest is wrong" because that's the kind of sex they have. They're incestuous so when they say "too much sex is wrong" that happens to be identical to "too much incest is wrong". And here's why we must consider them incestuous: if you ask them whether non-incestuous sex (between an adult woman and a child who isn't her son) is okay, they'll tell you it's completely forbidden. (Why? Because an infant is the mother's personal dildo and they don't like to share!) So incestuous sex ranks higher in their twisted minds than non-incestuous sex.

The situation is equivalent to the hypothetical case where someone prefers oranges to apples, but says that too much fruit gives you diarrhea. Are we supposed to conclude from this that they think eating oranges is wrong? No! But that's the logic you're using for incest among primitives.

If you have a society that already has problems with sex (thinking it dirty and polluting, and capable of killing you) then the fact that they don't want too much incest means nothing.

What it does mean is that, in principle, if you could magically take away their fear of sex, then they'd have absolutely no problem with public incestuous sexual intercourse. That's not something you can explain to people if you persist in using concepts like an "incest taboo".

And in practice, the way to reduce the primitive's fear of sex is precisely to stop all sexual activity between mother and child (intercourse or no intercourse). Once you do that, then they will develop an incest taboo. So your special emphasis on intercourse is complete bullshit and detracts both from the theoretical and the practical discussions. It's simply not a useful concept if you have any desire to truthfully talk about reality.

Incidentally, your long quote about father-daughter relations only furthers my point. Father-daughter relations were of absolutely no importance before the 20th century. You can quote whatever the hell you want about them, anthropologists can study whatever the hell they want about them, and it will still matter about as much as the earth-shattering issue of whether picking your nose in public is taboo. It's completely true that father-daughter incest is unimaginable to the primitives. Just like it's completely true that sex with the neighbor's cat is unimaginable to most people. For them to even contemplate incest between father and daughter, there'd have to actually be a pre-existing relation between them. -- ark

[edit] New Article

OK, I'm totally new to this argument, and my interest was only prompted by the addition of this new article.

Firstly, an "incest taboo" is a taboo about incest, so clearly the topics are related. That certainly doesn't preclude having another article discussing "incest taboo". However, the only thing that makes it worthy of an encyclopedia article rather than just a dictionary entry is the fact that it is regarded as illegal and/or immoral by a very large number of people, and it is generally assumed by most people that this was the case to a greater or lesser extent in most societies. Hence, I would argue that any encyclopedia about incest is going to be largely *about* the various taboos (or nonexistence of such, if that is indeed the case).

There you're wrong. The purpose of the incest page is to discuss actual cases (not specific but in general), incidence rates and results of incest. Not why it supposedly does not occur, nor why people supposedly consider it immoral, nor why society supposedly considers it illegal (if it's so illegal then why the hell don't people get jailed for it?). Incest is an immense topic without even getting near people's preconceptions about it and psychological resistance to accepting its reality.

The only room I could possibly see for a seperate article examining the "incest taboo in anthropology" examining the history of its presence in anthropological research and its current status. I gather that Ark claims that the "incest taboo" is a myth invented by anthropologists. Frankly, I doubt that that is a widely held or actively debated viewpoint in the area - however, I'm not an anthropologist and haven't done any serious reading in the area, so I could be wrong. Even so, I'm still not sure that belongs on a seperate page.

I intend to run a little contest on yet another page. It will start with deMause's accusations that anthropologists are pedophile supporters, and we get to look up all of his references and find out if anthropologists are indeed filthy assholes. That should settle the matter one way or the other.

The current content of the page, moreover, adds nothing to the discussion on the original page, and cites the same external source.

The intent of this page is simple. If someone wants to talk about marriage rules or about a taboo about incestuous marriage, or about why anthropologists supposedly care more about incestuous intercourse than incestuous sex in general (or something else that's as irrelevant and stupid), then they can mess up this page and I can ignore them completely. Sounds like a perfect solution to me. I don't have to be concerned that some idiot messes up the entry on incest, and they don't have to be concerned about pissing me off. A win-win situation.

I get the feeling (and I'm speculating here) that what's going on here is that some people feel their take on a topic isn't adequately reflected in an existing article on the topic, and their changes keep getting edited away, so they start a new page where they can push their own barrow in peace. Is this so? If that is the case, that's not how it works. Work together on getting an NPOV rendering of the original article, please.

Close but not quite. I started a new page where I can shove everything I don't want on the incest page off of it. My preferred solution would be to just nuke what I don't like. I've done that but it ended up being a two-day long debate (the end of it is right above). I don't want to have to repeat such debates since they take too long, and I doubt most people will be as willing to accept arguments as SR was.

So, convince me that there is sufficient merit in this topic to warrant a seperate article, otherwise I'm just going to redirect to incest again. --Robert Merkel

And I'll just undo it. Why is it you're willing to start a revision war on a topic you don't seem to know much about? Ark, Monday, June 3, 2002

[edit] NPOV?

I think Ark's policy of "nuking" whatever he doesn't like goes along with his desire to exterminate people he doesn't like. In any event, I revised this article to restore accuracy and NPOV.

I removed a quote from deMause wondering why anthropologists do not write about the universality of "the murder taboo." In fact, anthropologists have noted that in all societies murder is considered wrong yet some forms of murder do exist, and people disagree as to what is justifiable and unjustifiable murder; this is a matter of extensive anthropological debate. I alse deleted a link that is already in the incest page, where it is more apporpriate. SR

Number of hits on google for "incest taboo"? 5710. For "murder taboo? 11.

Like deMause says, one wonders why the hell people keep talking about an "incest taboo" and never a "murder taboo" when murder is in fact much more of a taboo than incest ever was.

Btw, take care not to condemn me too much for nuking what I don't like because that would make you a hypocrite. -- ark

Okay, guys (I assume ark is a guy): help me out, here. Let's all put our cards on the table, and see if we have enough of what my church calls "common base" for us to cooperate.

I think incest is bad (immoral). I think there is a "taboo" or prohibition against it. I believe this taboo is common, although I'm sure the anthropologists can dig up dozens of remote tribes without the taboo. Furthermore, I believe that despite a formal prohibiton or taboo, incest does occur.

Any agreement or disagreement so far?

If we all agree, then the article can state the above as undisputed fact. If not, then I guess we better qualify each statement in terms such as:

  • Prominent sociologist A says...
  • Well-regarded anthropologist B found...
  • Religious leaders C and D maintain...
  • Historians E and F note, however,...

I don't care what order the ideas are introduced in; just attribute each disputed view to its proponent.

If we are all willing to do that, then I think we have a good chance of whipping this article into shape. If not, God help us. Maveric will probably wind up locking it up. Ed Poor, Monday, June 3, 2002

I think SR and most anthropologists disagree with "Incest is bad (immoral)" if by incest we concretely mean exactly what our culture considers incest.

In any case, I use a slightly different definition of 'family' and thus incest. I define a family as "any bunch of people that grow up together in a situation of enforced intimacy and familiarity", as opposed to anything to do with genetics per se. What that means is that "biological sibling" doesn't mean jack if you've never known of that person's existence before you were 30 years of age. So in that kind of situation (what most people might call "unknowing incest") I don't think there's anything bad or immoral about the situation. However, if you are masturbated as a child by a friend of the family at your parent's behest, then that is bad and immoral. I'd call it 'indirect incest'.

Most modern people's views are very close to that, though usually they don't consider indirect incest to be incest. Of course, I exclude backwards people who think that "family" means whoever you're related to up to the 8th generation back. Mercifully, I only know a few such people.

So anyways, there is a very wide disconnect between my psychologically inspired view and SR's amoral cultural relativism.

Going further, if you are concrete with your definition of incest (parents having sex with children by any definition of sex we have) then I disagree that the taboo on incest is common. And I'm not even including spankings as forms of rape (which I think they are since they are inherently sexual) to come to that conclusion.

By the way, since, as SR notes, interest in incest has largely disappeared in anthropology since at least the 70s, and that was long before all the child abuse recognition movement got big (before which there was massive denial on the issue), the opinion of a current psychologist interested in history is worth ten to a hundred times a bunch of anthropologists living in denial a few decades ago.

So getting back to ranting, even if you use a floating definition of incest (ie, whatever the society prohibits in terms of 'too close' sexual relations) then I do not agree that there has been an incest taboo in all, and probably not even most, societies. The reason why is that in primitive cultures, incestuous sex is still preferred to non-incestuous or adult sex. And if we use a floating definition, then I'll probably insist on including indirect incest. So when Roman fathers exchanged sons in order to rape them, then that would be incest. And even if I don't have that available, then I maintain that incest was prevalent in most societies until very recently.

What I see as the 'incest taboo' is much the same as the 'child abuse taboo': you aren't allowed to acknowledge or ever talk about the fact that incest (and child abuse) exists, or that if it exists that there is anything wrong with it. That I will fully agree with. And incidentally, it better fits the definition of a 'taboo subject' as something nobody ever talks about. -- ark

Been reading the mythology entries and I really wonder how a person can know the mythology and believe in some universal incest taboo. -- Ark

Mainstream academic opinion is that an incest taboo exists. Lloyd deMause, whom Ark is following, is by Ark's own admission a minority viewpoint in academia -- "Lloyd deMause and his followers (who maintain precisely that incest was universal) wouldn't have been viciously oppressed by mainstream academics...", who also accuses mainstream anthropolgists of being advocates of pedophilia.

I think there can be room in Wikipedia for a discussion of deMause's views--however, we must give at least equal (and more likely greater, since they greatly outumber deMause) room for the viewpoints of mainstream anthropologists, which is something that ark seems to have refused to do -- an.

an, as far as I know, only one person who has ever contributed to Wikipedia would disagree with you (but boy, would s/he disagree with you). As far as I can tell that person is no longer participating in Wikipedia. I believe that the main value of this talk page is that it gives some idea as to the very intense negotiation process (that occured over the course of a couple of weeks many months ago) that accounts for the shape of this and related articles (there was an article on early neolithic child-rearing called early infanticidal childrearing, or something like that, that also reflects this process); i.e. Ithink it has only historical value. So far I appreciate your contributions and I bet nearly all other wikipedians do too, without any need to argue. Slrubenstein

Does Notes and Queries really spell "genealogical" as "geneological"? -- Oliver P. 19:00 Feb 8, 2003 (UTC)

To whom it may concern, I was in a incest relationship for a year & half we had child . I would like to find someone to talk with about this because everyone tried tell me to keep it inside or that i could go to jail, I sometimes think that it would be best thing my e-mail is tamacher2002@yahoo.com

You may want to look at the newsgroup alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.moderated. Here is a Google link to the newsgroup that will let you browse there. You can post there if you get a password from Google. --Modemac 12:41, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)

[edit] biological basis

One theory suggest that the taboo expresses a psychological revulsion that people naturally experience at the thought of incest. Most anthropologists reject this explanation, since incest does in fact occur. Alternatively, the taboo itself may be the cause of this psychological revulsion.

Wouldn't it be appropriate to mention the evolutionary psychologists (sociobiologists) who do tend toward the innate psychological revulsion hypothesis?

Do they actually have evidence? Is there any empirical support for this? Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The following is a link to a study conducted by evolutionary psychologists at UCSB -- http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/papers/incest2003.pdf It cites to much of the previous work done on the phenomenon in the field.
Okay, I know most anthropologists reject this research but it certainly is legitimate research and can be cited in the article.

Also the argument that an innate revulsion does not exist because incest does occur strikes me as odd. Isn't it just as likely that there is an innate revulsion in the great majority of the public, and the few instances of incest are the result of either the absence of the revulsion in the individual (as by genetic variation) or of the individual's social background overcoming the revulsion?

What you say is plausable -- but it doesn't matter. We can't put our own views into articles (see Wikipedia: No original research). Do you have any journal articles that address this? If this is an argument that others have made, and that has been published, of course this should be added. Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A similar case is illustrated by and argument Stephen Pinker has made. This is that humans have an innate revulsion to eating creepy, crawly things, such as insects. This revulsion serves an important biological purpose: generally, for humans to gather enough insects to sustain themselves would require an unjustifiable expenditure of time and energy, and their efforts are better spent on larger prey. This revulsion can be overcome if a child is introduced to such foods at an early age, and in areas of the world where larger sources of protein are unavailable, the revulsion is overcome.

Well, in this case Pinker is just wrong. Human beings do not have an innate revulsion to eating insects. In many parts of the world insects provide much of the protein in people's diet. (The biological purpose you suggest is really unfounded; insects are rather easy to collect in large quantities in many parts of the world.) I know Pinker has written about his own opinions on these matters, but has he done any real research on this? Or does he support his claims with any research? (not that it is relevant to this article!) Slrubenstein 22:00, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I don't know this specific claim, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was talking out of his navel. While I like a lot of Pinker's ideas in linguistics (assuming this is the same Stephen Pinker, that is), he does have a definite habit of making bad "logical" arguments for his positions when he can't find actual evidence to support it. --dan 19:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anthropology

This article is heavily biased towards the field of anthropology. Opposing viewpoints are raised, discussed in a cursory fashion, and then dismissed with a statement of the accepted view in the field of anthropology. If there is some reason that anthropologists (as opposed to praticitioners in psychology, sociology, or other fields) have the best claim to the study of taboos, then this is acceptable. Otherwise, the article needs to be modified to accommodate other academic viewpoints.

The word "taboo" was introduced into the English language by an anthropologist, and anthropologists are the only scholars who have studied beliefs and practices relating to incest globally. This does not mean that the views of psychologists and sociologists should be excluded from the article, of course. Slrubenstein | Talk 15:02, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "incest taboo" not a thorough--nor neutral--article

1. It ignores--or its author[s] was ignorant of--evidence for towards whom and between what ages the incest taboo develops in humans. For instance, there is a fairly well known example of the incest taboo at work among collectively reared kibbutz children in Israel, who failed to develop sexual interest in their co-reared age mates. This suggests that the development of the incest taboo in individuals is mediated in large part by co-residence. Why isn't this aspect of the taboo discussed in the article?

2. The adverse effects of inbreeding on the very important MHC is ignored; as is the possible connection between the MHC, body scent, and women's preference for scents that are not too similar (nor too different) from the father (or father-figure) she was raised by or around. These interactions are probably related to the development of the incest taboo, but again the article ignores them.

3. Evidence for an incest taboo has also been observed in non-human animals, but the article makes no reference to that either.

I don't consider myself sufficiently informed to revise this article myself, but I've read enough here and there over the years to realize that the current article is woefully inadequate. Does anyone have time to research this topic adequately? It really is quite interesting, but the current article lacks neutrality by lopsidedly emphasizing purely cultural explanations. IOW, it not only omits relevant information, but is very selective as to what sort of relevant info it omits.

Lucky strike 00:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)lucky_strike

    • I agree, the article really does seem one-sided, and there isn't anywhere near enough references or proof to back up the statements. A quick scan of the article just looks like there's one source, to support only one select view of the subject. Irish♣Pearl 01:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
    • Just tagged the article since there does seem to be a general dispute over it. Irish♣Pearl 01:21, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dubious

First, inbreeding does not directly lead to congenital birth defects per se; it leads to an increase in the frequency of homozygotes. A homozygote encoding a congenital birth defect will produce children with birth defects, but homozygotes that do not encode for congenital birth defects will decrease the number of carriers in a population. If children born with this type of heritable birth defect die (or are killed) before they reproduce, the ultimate effect of inbreeding will be to decrease the frequency of defective genes in the population.

This looks odd to me. The idea is, what, that incest is actually healthy for a population? Aren't bad recessive genes sufficiently common that, in general, inbreeding leads to offspring that are at least a bit less fit than normal? How can this be healthy for society under any definition of healthy?

I just can't take this seriously. The defense of incest is so involved that even if it's correct, which I doubt, one would need a fairly advanced understanding of genetics to grasp it, which was surely lacking when incest taboos were formed in any society you can think of.

Evercat 22:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also important to note that there are 2 separate issues:

  1. What is the cost / harm of incest?
  2. By what mechanism do humans gain an "incest avoidant" psychology?


Another theory is that the observance of the taboo would lower the incidence of congenital birth defects caused by inbreeding.

The sentence I've quoted above is about question 1, but completely fails to address question 2. Suppose incest does lead to unhealthy offspring (which I think is well known). How does this lead to the taboo? Via genes and evolutionary psychology, or via society noting the problem and forming the taboo? We're not told what the theory is.

But I'm going to go and interpret it as society forming a taboo for this reason, as it doesn't really make sense otherwise. A "gene for incest avoidance" is only "interested" in its own fitness, not that of society as a whole.

Evercat 22:34, 4 July 2007 (UTC)