A British politician has caused quite a stir with his statements regarding the defective results of the arrangements Asians accede to…
A minister who warned about birth defects among children of first cousin marriages in Britain’s Asian community has sparked anger among critics.
Phil Woolas said health workers were aware such marriages were creating increased risk of genetic problems.
The claims infuriated the Muslim Public Affairs Committee (MPAC) which called on the prime minister to “sack him”. [BBC]
As far as Woolas is concerned, he’s bravely confronting a worrisome issue which is politically incorrect; he has been quoted as saying he has an obligation to bring this up. He isn’t attacking the marriages as illegal or even a religious problem, his point is that this is a cultural practice which should be examined. Children of such unions are 13x more likely to suffer from recessive disorders.
“The issue we need to debate is first cousin marriages, whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children]. If you talk to any primary care worker they will tell you that levels of disability among the… Pakistani population are higher than the general population. And everybody knows it’s caused by first cousin marriage….Awareness does need to be raised but we are very aware of the sensitivities,” [BBC]
Critics wonder about his motives, since his political position deals with the environment instead of health. The timing for this hullabaloo in the empire’s orchard is awesome:
His comments follow the storm sparked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who suggested some aspects of Islamic Sharia law could be allowed in Britain. [mirror]
Anti-green team, please note, both Woolas and the the cabinet minister who has his six, Geoff Hoon, are taking pains to point out that this conniption about cousin-coupling doesn’t involve the “wider Muslim community”; oh no, this backwardness is alll Asian.
The junior Minister has other vocal supporters besides Hoon:
Ann Cryer, MP for Keighley, said she was delighted that Phil Woolas had triggered a public debate on the issue which she said affected some sections of the Pakistani population in her constituency.
An expert in genetics, Steve Jones, also defended Woolas today, saying that first-cousin marriages doubled the risk of babies being born dead or disabled. [Guardian]
Cryer, like Woolas, reps significant numbers of Pakistanis. She has plenty of gasoline for this fire:
“I am delighted we are talking about. I have been fretting about this for 10 years and at last we are having a debate about something that is having a very large impact on my Pakistani constituents,” Cryer told the Today programme.
She stressed that she was only talking about “certain sections” of the Pakistani community. The problem related to families who engaged in “trans-continental marriages” because most of those marriages were between cousins.
There was often “a price to pay”, she went on. “The price to pay is often babies being born dead, or babies being born very early or babies being born with very severe genetically-transmitted disorders.” [Guardian]
“This is to do with a medieval culture where you keep wealth within the family.”
“I have encountered cases of blindness and deafness. There was one poor girl who had to have an oxygen tank on her back and breathe from a hole in the front of her neck,” she added.
“The parents were warned they should not have any more children. But when the husband returned from Pakistan, within months they had another child with exactly the same condition.” [BBC]
Anyone seen Razib? 馃檪 Someone page him. He HAS to chime in on this…
Now that’s just
socialistcommie crazy talk!90 脗路 pingpong said
it was explained to me that the phrase ‘cousin-brother’ is a terrible assault on the english language 馃檪
[as is my lack/disregard of punctuation in these sentences].
When will the goverment of England see the light, and changes it immigration laws, to not only saves the lifes of thousands of young south asian women, but also it country in the long run.
How is the country at risk because some jerk is putting pressure on his daughter to marry a cousin? You might find better audience for your self loathing here.
I meant here.
Right. But do any of these religious conservatives volunteer in homes for children suffering from a variety of genetic defects? I mean, if you don’t stop howling from the time you’re born, till the time you’re dead, and you’re constantly in pain (in addition to sight, hearing and severe learning impairments), wouldn’t the ‘costs to others’ argument not even be necessary?
sounds like we had the same English teacher!
How is the country at risk because some jerk is putting pressure on his daughter to marry a cousin?
It’s not just one jerk, it’s thousands of them who are forcing there daughter’s to marry there cousins. By bringing in uneducated people into the country it slows the intergration process by one generation. Also more of these people will have no loyalty to the great country and instead are loyal to there homelands. If there homeland was so great, then why did they ever leave.
I guess I must have missed something, but the Pakistani community in England is doing a great job of intergrating and ever never caused problems that effect other south asians.
So, clueless, is it ok if they marry college educated cousins who can spell?
“All Asians are not alike, but all (U.K.) Muslims are.”
So, clueless, is it ok if they marry college educated cousins who can spell?
No it not ok if they marry there cousins. There are enought Pakistani’s in England, that they should marry someone there. And if they want to marry someone from Pakistan, then they could move there and marry all there cousins they want.
And if these young Pakistani women want to marry a guy who is not Pakistani, don’t get mad at them. Blame youself for the way you raised the men in your community. So when are alot of educated Pakistani girls are turned off by them, you can understand why?
109 脗路 Rahul said
rahul, thank you.
I’m not sure that it works out to be equivalent. Pretend that there are three intermediate relatives between A and a prospective B. Now using the odd parity rule, either there should be exactly one ONE and two ZEROs, or there should be three ONEs. However, if the mapping from (0/1) to (male/female) is changed, then the logic appears to invert itself, because the number of intervening links is itself odd (three in this case). In other words, if A and B have three males intervening, while some other P and Q have three females intervening, not both of them can be simultaneously legal according to the parity rule. If the number of intermediate links were to be even (as is the case with most common first cousin evaluations), then the mapping of sex to binary digit shouldn’t matter.
To shay, I shay.
Oh, now you should marry only people inside the country? Which visa categories are allowed? Are tourists who are inside the country for less than 90 days acceptable? What about Canadians who marry Americans? Are they traitors too? Or is marriage across countries acceptable between Western Europeans, and white Caucasians in general?
Really, there is no need to use women as a shield, Shikhandi-style, for a Lou Dobbs argument. Even Lou Dobbs hasn’t stooped that low yet.
this is obviously an attempt at creating a new language–where “there” means ‘Pakistan’ and “not ok” means “Muslim”
Gives “No it Muslim if they marry Pakistan cousins”.
I’m not yet enlightened. 馃檪
Oh, now you should marry only people inside the country? Which visa categories are allowed? Are tourists who are inside the country for less than 90 days acceptable? What about Canadians who marry Americans? Are they traitors too? Or is marriage across countries acceptable between Western Europeans, and white Caucasians in general?
Don’t make me the bad guy. I think most people in England feel the same way about all the uneducated Pakistani’s who come to England though marriage.
Other western European Countries have seen there immigration polices changed to the same issue. Holland and Denmark are 2 examples.
remember, this persnickety approach to immigration forced Mizz Integration Hirsi Ali out of Holland on a technicality.
a frequent theme in your comments is how uneducated all Muslim immigrants are while you repeatedly use “there” instead of “their.” (among many other grammatical and comprehension errors) If you’re so steamed about the ignorant masses coming in, you should feel compelled to brush up on your English grammar.
What about the uneducated citizens of enlightened Western European countries who have single-digit teeth and sit around all day with beer drooling onto their wifebeaters because they couldn’t hold down their jobs, and complain about the bad breaks their country gave them? Should we deport them to Pakistan?
perhaps,this public debate might give rise to taking a medical history prior to arranging a marriage and consequent appropriate premarital medical counseling and prenatal counseling for some of the more common conditions? recessive conditions are not restricted to people from the south asian subcontinent and there already are communities in which this type of counseling is somewhat common prior to marriage. for example(and correct me if i am wrong), ashkenazi jewish couples choose to get tested for tay-sachs and other conditions common in the Ashkenazi jewish community. in several Mediterranean countries, hereditary anemias like thalassemia are common and premarital and prenatal counseling is commonly offered to couples –thalassemia is very common among certain segments of the south east asian population and similar premarital screening/counseling might be a thought
Wait, I’m sorry, there’s a cultural issue at play re: cousin-marriage? I’m sorry, but hasn’t the peerage been breeding across first cousins for centuries? It sounds like this is a point of cultural simpatico between white Brits and (desi) Brit Muslims 馃檪
Punjabi: Mom’s sister: Masi Mom’s brother: Mama Dad’s brother (older): Thia Dad’s brother (younger): Chacha Dad’s sister: Bhua
Hindi is similar.
Maybe we’re just really lazy, but I call all my cousins (of varying degrees) “Bhenji” and “Bhaji” (unless we’re the same age) and all my parents’ cousins accordingly. My favorite terms, however, are things like “Nanibhuaji” (my nanaji’s sister).
Maybe I only know Jat Sikhs, but I’ve definitely seen the same concept. Inbreeding is seen as suboptimal. No wonder, though — Punjabis are all mutts, anyway 馃檪
No, parity and xor both give the same result (you need an even number of both 0s and 1s). Basically, in the case of odd number of hops, all combos are legal (is that too kinky for you?) since you cannot simultaneously have two even numbers add up to an odd number.
I’ve always heard rumors about a high rate of cousin marriages among the Parsi community. But looks like razib’s data doesnt support it, at least amonng the B’bay Parsis
Re: #50, although I’m not fond of the practice, marrying within caste/clan groups is not nearly as bad as marrying within families. Relatedness drops off exponentially, meaning that your odds of picking someone closely related at random from a group of several thousand individuals (where “closely related” means that your coeff. of relatedness is significantly higher than the frequency of some common recessive disease) are pretty low.
If a high frequency of first cousin-marriages over many generations results in a population of “inbred tards”, it’s amazing that Pakistanis are even able to walk around bipedal!
Forgive my defensiveness but I am a Pakistani coming from a family where cousin marriage is the norm rather than the exception, and has been so for generations. Our family is from the Potohar region of Punjab which borders Mirpur in Azad Kashmir where the vast majority of British-Pakistanis are originally from, Yes, we are “country” but we are definitely not stupid, nor are we a bunch of mutant freaks with webbed feet.
As a first generation Canadian, I have struggled with the issue of cousin marriage ever since I learned of the practice. Initially, it was an embarrassing part of my culture that I did not want anyone to know about, but as I matured, I realized it was nothing to be ashamed about. It is a part of my roots. Maybe I won’t marry one my cousins but when I look at the results in my own family, I have to doubt the presumption that the risk factor is inordinate. To use my own family as an example, I have over 100 first cousins and not one of them is handicapped, mentally or physically. My brother also married his first cousin and has three beautiful boys.
In saying all of that, I think the more problematic issue for UK Pakistanis is the practice of marrying from the motherland in itself. This is not only contributing to a plethora of problems within the UK (and for the record, I don’t consider lack of “integration” a problem – a community doesn’t need to be “integrated” within its host culture to be successful, but that’s a topic for another post) but in Pakistan as well, but I’ll have to save these thoughts for a future post…gotta run now.
Look, it all depends on the details of the practice. Occasional marriage with first-cousins isn’t particularly dangerous (and nothing to be ashamed about, really!), but sustained intermarriage over generations with first cousins is very dangerous. So, whether it’s a problem or not depends on how much out-marriage occurs, not on any sort of exogenous norms from religion, class or culture.
Yes, we are “country” but we are definitely not stupid, nor are we a bunch of mutant freaks with webbed feet.
well, if you want to be accurate, psychometric tests show that pakistanis (and other south asians as a whole) don’t do so hot. and pakistanis are certainly underperforming other south asian groups in the UK academically (even bangaldeshis are starting to overtake them!). there is probably some deficit due simply to inbreeding. and there’s a reason that geneticists go to pakistan to study rare recessive diseases such as microcephaly.
My brother also married his first cousin and has three beautiful boys.
they’d be better looking all things controlled being outbred. inbreeding tends to increase fluctuating asymmetry. the key here is that inbreeding is a handicap thrown on top of the base of expectation. if you start out with really good material, it will still work out probably. that being said, it makes the odds a little worse than they would be otherwise.
p.s. just so i don’t forget, uncle-niece marriages have twice the inbreeding coefficient of first cousin marriages.
Parity and XOR are equivalent, but the resulting outcome of whether a match is legal or not does depend on how 0/1 is mapped to male/female in case of an odd number of links. I’m pasting a table below, but be warned the formatting might be screwed up.
Relatives XOR(A,B,C) XOR(A,B,C) (A,B,C) (F=0, M=1) (F=1,M=0) F F F 0 1 F F M 1 0 F M F 1 0 F M M 0 1 M F F 1 0 M F M 0 1 M M F 0 1 M M M 1 0
Under the XOR columns, 1 represents a legal match and 0 an illegal one. In both cases, exactly 4 of the 8 combinations are legal, but the two XOR results are bitflipped when the mapping changes. Therefore no combination is legal with both the mappings.
But try it with two relatives instead of three:
Relatives XOR(A,B) XOR(A,B) (A,B) (F=0, M=1) (F=1,M=0) F F 0 0 F M 1 1 M F 1 1 M M 0 0
In this case, irrespective of the mapping, the legal cases are when there is one female and one male in the chain, consequently the mother’s brother’s child and father’s sister’s child are legal pairings.
This was what I meant when I said that it depends on the sex->bit mapping. Was this what you had in mind?
Regarding Divya’s comment about gotra preventing ‘inbreeding’, it doesn’t, because as Ponniyan said, marrying your cousin on your mom’s side is allowed. This is because your cousins on your mom’s side will have a different gotra than you.
Also, if pakistanis underperforming academically has to do with inbreeding, shouldn’t south indians similarly underperform on these tests as well? As razib’s stats show, south indians (with the exception of keralites) have rates of relatedness similar or higher than pakistanis.
“To use my own family as an example, I have over 100 first cousins and not one of them is handicapped, mentally or physically.”
Woah. How many uncles and aunts do you have?
Johnson, I said gotra supposedly prevents inbreeding. I don’t really know what gotra is about, but when I asked, I was told that it’s something people consider when fixing marriages in order to prevent inbreeding. I did not know marrying cousins was allowed either, so there goes that theory.
Absolutely incorrect. In North India mom’s side cousins are still cousin-brothers and cousin-sisters. Marraige with a couson-sister or cousin-brother from Mom’s side would never occur. Oh the generalizations about India !!!! Someone learned once said that “When you are saying something true about India, you are also saying something absolutely false”
Razib,
I’ll be honest I’ve been a lurker of gnxp, and know what you’re all about and frankly I can’t stand you. However, I’ll try to put that aside here and deal with the issue at hand.
On what foundation can the underperformance of Pakistani children in UK schools be attributed in whole, or in part, to the prevalence of first cousin marriages within their community? I’d really like to see the study that can isolate the culture of these children from their “inbred ness”, and make a credible case for that theory. Not only that, how are you going to separate the fact that British-Pakistani school children often have at least one parent with little or no understanding of the English language from the fact those parents are often related. So what then would take precedence in impacting the child’s performance in school?
I know far too much about my culture and my people, the good and the bad, to lend credence to “genetic determinism” being a major source of our problems without substantive proof.
This topic makes me think though how is it even possible for a population where cousin marriages are so frequent to show such a tremendous amount of diversity in terms of expressed traits? We range from dark haired and dark skinned (like black) to blue eyed and blonde haired, often within the same immediate family. So at least in terms of phenotypic diversity, us, Potoharis/Mirpuris show a lot more diversity than the average South Asian or European population for that matter.
Johnson,
I have 12 uncles and 15 aunts.
Both my grandfathers had two wives, and not that’s by circumstance rather than by choice…ha.
Also for the record, my parents are second cousins through my grandfathers and unrelated via my grandmothers. In spite of that, I turned out intelligent and symmetrical.
I know that not all first cousin marriages result in genetic defects. For instance, Charles Darwin married his first cousin and they had I think 10 children who all turned out fine. What I don’t understand is how bad genes from first cousin marriages are passed on if the birth defects can restrict how long the child lives? For first cousin marriages that are not arranged, I think that both cousins should marry only if both decide not to have children. For the arranged first cousin marriages, I don’t understand how families can go through with that when they face the risk of birth defects? If it’s for the sake of inheritance they should consider that their is a chance their heir won’t survive to adulthood.
I’d really like to see the study that can isolate the culture of these children from their “inbred ness”, and make a credible case for that theory. Not only that, how are you going to separate the fact that British-Pakistani school children often have at least one parent with little or no understanding of the English language from the fact those parents are often related. So what then would take precedence in impacting the child’s performance in school?
1) bangladeshis are more foreign-born than pakistani, who are actually a relatively native-born community among brownz. that’s why the pakistani (especially) educational performance is so dispiriting. i think it’s probably a generalized issue with lack of integration and what not.
2) but, i didn’t say it was all due to inbreeding, but i’m saying that the likelihood is that some effect does occur. breeding with close relatives does have a host of depressive effects on expectation. this isn’t something i’m making up, it’s quantitatively well attested. e.g., the risk of deleterious recessive doubles with first cousin marriages. IQs of children of first cousins are about 5 points lower than they should be taking into account heritability, the parents’ IQs and regression to the mean. these are straightforward quantitative genetic calculations and inbreeding is a “correction factor.”
This topic makes me think though how is it even possible for a population where cousin marriages are so frequent to show such a tremendous amount of diversity in terms of expressed traits? We range from dark haired and dark skinned (like black) to blue eyed and blonde haired, often within the same immediate family. So at least in terms of phenotypic diversity, us, Potoharis/Mirpuris show a lot more diversity than the average South Asian or European population for that matter.
you obviously weren’t a thorough lurker. two points
1) inbreeding does not necessarily decrease total genetic diversity as much as you think. rather, it strongly reapportions it. in fact, let’s say that you have two alleles where 1 is dominant to 2. if you have them assorting in the population randomly the frequency of phenotypes is going to be 3/4 of the dominant type, and 1/4 of the recessive type. if you assort those who manifest the recessive type preferentially each generation you will have a situation where 1/2 of the population exhibits the dominant type and 1/2 the recessive, though the allele frequencies remain the same. in this way inbreeding can increase population level variance because of the emergence of distinct genotypic pools.
2) though, on average, inbreeding does reduce effective population and so result in greater power for stochastic forces to fix deleterious recessives.
3) if you read gnxp you know that gene flow is a strong parameter. the persistence of extant phenotypic diverse is an illustration of that. inbreeding coefficients are high in relative senses, most of the loci are still not identical by descent. i’m not implying that your people are selfing clones which are purging all genetic variation out of the system.
4) there is the issue of genetic load. there is some work which shows that repeated cousin-f**king leads to high enough early mortality rates that the burden of recessives is reduced from the population because they are exposed to selection. that might be the case with your inbred clan (there is some data on this with south indian groups who habitually engaged in uncle-niece marriage which is 2 X as problematic as first cousin marriage).
In spite of that, I turned out intelligent and symmetrical.
as i keep saying, i’m not asserting deterministic truths. there are plenty of inbred people who are normal. but a disproportionate number of people with illnesses are inbred. i don’t see what’s so difficult to understand? in any case, it isn’t like the muslim nations aren’t away of this issue, as i noted saudi physicians are getting really good at treating a host of rare recessive diseases. we all carry around recessives that we’re not aware of and rarely manifest in societies we getting it on with cousins isn’t the norm. in societies where around 1/2 of the marriages are between first cousins they expose a much larger proportion of their rare recessives and so doctors have to get good at diagnosing weird ailments. so i guess cousin-marriage is good for people like bongbreaker, keeps them employed 馃槈
What I don’t understand is how bad genes from first cousin marriages are passed on if the birth defects can restrict how long the child lives?
each human has several new bad recessive mutations that their parents don’t have. we then pass these mutations on to our children. so first cousin marriages could be an issue just because new mutations that emerged in one of their grandparent’s generation got passed down to them. also, not all bad mutations are fatal. a lot of them just reduce fitness somewhat. think of albinism.
133 脗路 Noma said
I think this is a bit strong. Why not genetic counselling?
How does risk of birth defects due to first-cousin marriages compare to risk of birth defects due to other reasons? Wouldn’t a part of the risk depend inherently on the kind of genes the couple have to begin with?
Say, pregnant women consuming alcohol. In some cultures nobody blinks an eye when a glass of wine is consumed though some risks exist due to alcohol consumption. Are birth defects due to cousin marriages on par with these?
I don’t think it is rational to dismiss something without a comparison of all risks (no matter how icky some find the idea of marrying the cousins). In general, it is a good idea to know about all the risks while considering children.
Considering an ideal world: Perhaps government could institute genetic counselling if they are so worried about the effect of birth defects on public health. Wouldn’t that atleast make the couple educated on what they could be getting into?
Btw, wasn’t (is?) there a requirement for blood test before marriage license could be issued in some US states?
How does risk of birth defects due to first-cousin marriages compare to risk of birth defects due to other reasons? Wouldn’t a part of the risk depend inherently on the kind of genes the couple have to begin with?
2-3% vs. 4-6% recessive diseases between outbred and first cousins. a genotypic screen would catch things people already knew about (common recessives). the problem is that it wouldn’t catch weird stuff that’s really rare.
the isolated choices of first cousin marriages as those that occur in the USA isn’t as much of a public health issue. but if half of americans married their first cousins it would be an issue. its about numbers. liberty is totally feasible when the impact is minimal. it only because an issue with public health expenses start to be hit by the fact that some people prefer to marry within the family as a “cultural practice.”
136 脗路 razib said
I appreciate the comparison. However, I was getting at other “cultural practices” that could cause different birth defects/diseases and not necessarily only recessive diseases.
(Side note: Compare risk of recessive diseases vs. fetal alcohol syndrome – a pregnant woman in western cultural practice may consume an occasional glass of wine while a devout muslim pregnant woman may never touch alcohol. Would cousin marriage practice and alcohol consumption practice have same public health costs? Could the public health costs be better managed by educating a wider population about fetal alcohol syndrome? — this is just an example for comparison)
The problem is, there is always going to be “unknown” weird stuff. How would I know that too much inhalation of a household air-freshner isn’t causing some fetal defects?. Why should just one thing become a target?
On the other note, I wasn’t particularly thinking of US in context of cousin marriages. This was brought up as a public health issue in UK. I don’t often find completely rational discussions when public health is tied up with issues of comparably low health risk. (e.g., obesity becomes an “epidemic” and Australia seems to have included BMI in health screening for new immigrants – I am yet to understand the relationship between BMI of a new immigrant and the additional increase of public health cost. Shouldn’t obesity of existing population be of more concern? — ok I stop here).
Why does “immigrant cultural practice” of cousin marriage becomes a public health risk when the British themselves had a common practice of first cousin marriage until recently? Couldn’t the risk be significantly reduced with genetic counselling?
Why aren’t other cultural practices (belonging to different cultural/ethnic groups) being listed on the same note? I think that would give a comprehensive insight into cultural practices vs. public health risks instead of targeting just one cultural/ethnic group.
I hope I am coming across clearly on the issue of risk comparison. For example, the risk of a road accident is higher than a plane crash. But still, plane crash recieves high publicity. Is relation between public health risk and the cousin marriage becoming one such thing used for politics?
[Bah, I know. Too many questions!]
RE: consuming alcohol while pregnant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_alcohol_syndrome#Prevention — given the public health costs for a child born with FAS, significant efforts have been taken as far as preventative action is concerned. The focus is generally on alcoholism, as opposed to the occasional drink (see stats in link). And, at least in some western societies, there is significant awareness (even a taboo) regarding the dangers of pregnant women drinking.
As for this, there have been enough studies done, regarding alcohol consumption, and with cousin-marriage, to get a rough estimate on public health costs. The former is discouraged, and from a societal-cost pov, so should the latter.
Noma:
First, genes don’t always directly lead to birth effects. An accumulation of several defects and enviromental factors could contribute to say, a recessive illness. Genes can mask, suppress or stimulate each others transcription. Secondly, the offspring could live long enough to reproduce and THEN fall ill. An example of this is Huntington’s Disease, which only starts showing in middle age, after people have already produced children.
“1) bangladeshis are more foreign-born than pakistani, who are actually a relatively native-born community among brownz. that’s why the pakistani (especially) educational performance is so dispiriting. i think it’s probably a generalized issue with lack of integration and what not.”
Dude, give me a break. If UK Pakistanis are marrying their cousins, they’re marrying them from their ancestoral villages. The culture of the UK born Pakistanis therefore remains perpetually that of the 1960s era remote Punjabi village. This is a culture that never cared about formal education. I would attribute the poor performance of UK Pakistanis to that cultural heritage moreso than their “inbred” genetics, but of course, for someone seeking to justify racism against various populations, even hinting at that kind of socio-cultural explanation won’t do.
2) but, i didn’t say it was all due to inbreeding, but i’m saying that the likelihood is that some effect does occur. breeding with close relatives does have a host of depressive effects on expectation. this isn’t something i’m making up, it’s quantitatively well attested. e.g., the risk of deleterious recessive doubles with first cousin marriages. IQs of children of first cousins are about 5 points lower than they should be taking into account heritability, the parents’ IQs and regression to the mean. these are straightforward quantitative genetic calculations and inbreeding is a “correction factor.”
Reference the studies. I would really like to know how MUCH riskier it is, and what basis the conclusion that “IQs of children of first cousins are about 5 points lower than they should be” was made.
I have my doubts that the risk is significant enough to jump to all these explanations on everything from why UK-Pakistanis are not “integrated” to why there’s terrorism in the Middle East, even as a “partial” explantation. It’s foolhearty and smacks of someone with an ulterior agenda.
Besides, there’s frequent enough out-marriage within the Pakistani community to make that kind of conclusion-jumping about us, a much more complicated affair than assumed. Not everyone in my “inbred” clan is married to a cousin, they’ve also married complete foreigners from the Burmese women they brought back during the second world war to men and women from unrelated clans. All fairly common practices within our community, yet apparently that history is to be ignored when applying the findings of a limited number of studies to entire population groups.
A study on inbreeding depression and IQ in North Indian Muslim children found a deficit of 11 points for the inbreds.
http://www.popline.org/docs/1031/091810.html
I’m certain this is a significant factor as to why Pakistanis in the UK underperform academically compared to Indian children.
This just in…
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10640683
Chaz — you take a study on children in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, and use it to determine (“I am certain”) an outcome for British children of Punjabi immigrants? Too much of a stretch.
Ikram, Pakistanis in the UK have IQs 6-7 points lower than Indians. Given that roughly 55% of Pakistanis marry first cousins, is it not at least likely that inbreeding is a causative factor? Regarding academic achievement there may be various cultural factors at work, but the relation to an IQ deficit caused by inbreeding looks pretty likely.
Wrong.
Inbreeding increases intelligence and mental strength. Indeed, most intelligent communities across the world have selective inbreeding as a part and parcel of their culture.
What inbreeding does is to reduce physical strength and endurance. It decreases resistance to common diseases/viruses and makes one more prone to congenital birth defects.
M. Nam
Chaz,
So first you’re going to ascribe this supposed 6-7 pt. average IQ gap between Pakistani and Indian school children in the UK mostly to “inbreeding” and then on top of that you’re going to jump to the “certain” conclusion that this rather small IQ gap is a “significant” reason why Pakistanis are under-performing in school vs. Indians in the UK? C’mon man, you really expect that to convince a skeptic? Do better.
Beyond which if I’m to swallow this propaganda whole, I have to ask myself this question wouldn’t one expect a significantly higher IQ gap than a mere 10 points given the compound effects of generational “inbreeding” …
digitalcaptive
1) Inbreeding reduces IQ. I used the study of North Indian Muslim children because this population is more similar to Pakistanis. Other inbreeding studies of different populations find a smaller IQ deficit of around 5 points, the greater figure for North Indian Muslims could well be due to the “compound effects of generational inbreeding”. If we assume that the inbreeding IQ deficit of UK Pakistanis is similar to that of North Indian Muslims, and 55% of them are inbred we get an IQ deficit of ~6 points.
2) IQ significantly affects academic performance (although I never suggested it was the only factor).
I don’t see why it’s so implausible or controversial that the lower IQ of UK Pakistanis might affect their academic performance.
You didn’t use the word “might” earlier, you said you were “certain”. Big difference.
Also, to say IQ significantly affects academic performance is one thing, but to use that to say that a gap of less than 10 is a) mostly due to inbreeding, and b) that pakistani school-children are lagging WELL behind in school mostly because of this IQ gap simply doesn’t sit well with me.
Where are these intelligent communities that encourage selective inbreeding? Clayton, Georgia?