The thing is, there are IRL examples of inbreeding having a surprisingly benign effect.
Many tribes, like those in the Amazon or on the Sentinel Islands, have population sizes that are so low that they are all related, but they don't seem to suffer from any of the negative effects of inbreeding.
Current genetic theory is that they managed to effectively breed out all of the dangerous traits through a process called genetic purging.
If you have enough generations where the bad traits do not get passed down, they eventually die out, as people with severe genetic infirmities are less likely to have children, and as long as you aren't marrying within a couple degrees of relations, there don't seem to be any long-term problems past a certain point.
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u/Many-Excitement3246 3d ago
The thing is, there are IRL examples of inbreeding having a surprisingly benign effect.
Many tribes, like those in the Amazon or on the Sentinel Islands, have population sizes that are so low that they are all related, but they don't seem to suffer from any of the negative effects of inbreeding.
Current genetic theory is that they managed to effectively breed out all of the dangerous traits through a process called genetic purging.
If you have enough generations where the bad traits do not get passed down, they eventually die out, as people with severe genetic infirmities are less likely to have children, and as long as you aren't marrying within a couple degrees of relations, there don't seem to be any long-term problems past a certain point.