Why is it safe and acceptable for animals to inbreed, but it's dangerous and illegal for humans to inbreed

Question

What's the difference between our species?

Answer 1

It's NOT safe and acceptable for inbreeding animals, for the same exact reason it's not acceptable for humans.

Any living thing needs a larger genetic pool than what is available to it when it reproduces with something it is related to.

That's how illness, deformaties and even death occur.

Same with cats, dogs, trees, whales, dingos or people.

Answer 2

Nothing is different. The more related the animals or humans, the more likely for genes to match up - for good or for bad. In animals, they'll often linebreed or inbreed to 'fix' (make more likely) certain traits especially in animals where desirable traits are highly variable.  Any animals that have genetic deformities would be culled.  The same thing is true of humans except that we are rarely willing to 'cull' genetically deficient people. Therefore, it's better to make it illegal to inbreed too closely to avoid (as much as possible) genes from matching up too closely. Obviously, it can still happen by chance but the odds of matching genes gets longer if the people are totally unrelated.

Answer 3

german shepards are a great example of the pains of inbreeding..

any 100% pedigree shepard is inbred.. and they ALL have major problem which lead to premature deaths.. liver, hip, joint, nervous peroblems always leave shepards dying younger than a similar sized mutt..

Answer 4

ive heard that it does cause problems for animals (like physical problems where their joints may hurt or other such things). That its not safe for animals. They only encourage it in zoos if a species is under extinction and the only way to preserve the species is let them inbreed.

Inbreeding in humans: well i mean you can educate humans about the genetic problems it can cause but you cant educate animals so tahts why their are laws for us. They dont want a human child too inbred otherwise it might have genetic defects physical or mental and wont be a contributing member to society. We need humans who will work to continue life. If everyone was having really inbred kids then our hospitals would be really run down and society wouldnt be as efficient.

Answer 5

The reason closely related animals (including humans) are not usually bred together is because they will have a similar set of "bad" genes. This will mean that their offspring will be more likely to suffer from sever genetic disabilities.

It doesn't happen all the time.

With animals, you've got a much better idea of the genetics of the animals you're breeding from, and can go back over several generations and look at genetic weaknesses, but also at genetic strengths. By line-breeding (breeding parents to offspring) or inbreeding, you can also strengthen desirable genetic traits.

The problem comes with human genetics: most of us don't keep much of a pedigree, and even if we did, who is going to be the boss and say "I'm sorry, you can't marry your brother because your children will be crosseyed and knock-kneed" or "Well, you're going to have to marry your dad because then your kids will be super athletes who will be rocket scientists after they've finished winning Olympic gold."

Frankly, I'd be saying "forget the Olympic gold, I"m not marrying my dad".

But you get the idea. Safer just to ban the whole inbreeding thing with humans and leave it up to chance. You still get undesirable genetic results sometimes, like thalassaemia, but then you can get perfectly normal results from close genetic breeding, like in Greenland (I think it's Greenland) where the whole country is pretty much cousins, but they're no worse than anywhere else.

Answer 6

Inbreeding and incest are the same thing. It is not a good idea for any type of animal--humans included--to mate with members of their immediate family. Animals that are the result of inbreeding end up having genetic problems.

Perhaps you were referring to inter-species mating? Like when a horse and a donkey mate to make a mule? Or a lion and a tiger make a liger!

Answer 7

...it can result in many physical deformities in the offspring. Even for animals.

Answer 8

My neighbors had a bunch of inbred cats and they had all kinds of defects. There was a cat that only grew one eye and another one that had super short legs and just wobbled around everywhere. I don't think there is any difference in our species.

Answer 9

I heard that if a mother and a son were to have a baby together it will come out retarded or stillbirth but if a daughter and a father mate the baby will come out OK don't know how true but sound weird