Comment on Why does incest result in birth defects?

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Th4tGuyII@kbin.social ⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

Pretty much...

Recessive malfunctions can hide away amongst carriers for generations before manifesting any deformities, during which time they have no effect on the carrier's survival, so there's very little selective pressure against them.

Dominant malfunctions which cause deformities simply can't hide away, so have enormous selective pressure against them.

Interestingly enough though, there are times where dominant malfunctions can survive that pressure...
For example, having Sickle cell disorder increases your resistance to Malaria, so even though the full form is rarely passed on, the single allele form (which caused partial disorder) is passed on due to a slight positive selection pressure.

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