DNA tests are uncovering the true prevalence of incest (2024)
52 comments
·August 7, 2025robertlagrant
AndrewDucker
Biobank is a voluntary data collection system, I thought. It's not based on whether someone is sick.
(Unless I've misunderstood somewhere)
HPsquared
A bit like the high number of negative paternity tests. Selection bias is huge.
toomuchtodo
zahlman
The article doesn't appear to be paywalled and I'm reading it just fine without JavaScript enabled. Is an archive really necessary?
zdragnar
I got a "sign in or start a free trial" wall that blocked most of the article.
I suspect these sites don't put up that block until articles reach a certain popularity. That encourages early readers to enjoy and share the article, and everyone else gets to think that the person that shared it with them has an account, so maybe they should too.
bookofjoe
The block is built-in from the get-go.
foresto
Not everyone can be bothered to disable JavaScript by default.
It's a pity that archive.today walls off their saved pages behind a Google CAPTCHA, which requires JavaScript. I would think avoiding that kind of fingerprinting/tracking would be a common use case for an archive site, but the Google-wall renders it useless for that purpose.
bookofjoe
There are those of us here who haven't a clue what it means "to disable JavaScript by default" — much less what JavaScript is.
john01dav
Many paywalls rely on client side JavaScript to work. My guess is that this has something to do with search engine indexing.
zahlman
As a test, I whitelisted JavaScript in NoScript for theatlantic.com and the paywall appeared. I revoked it and it disappeared again. It appears to be purely client-side, not reliant on cookies or anything.
So my conclusion is that an archive indeed shouldn't be necessary; people can just disable JavaScript. It doesn't cause issues with the page formatting or anything.
tetromino_
Paywalled here - can only read 2 paragraphs. Possibly paywall is triggered conditionally, for example if you read multiple articles in some time period?
Jtsummers
It used to be 5 free a month when they first introduced it years ago. Not sure the current mechanism and policy.
null
voidnap
[flagged]
dang
Please edit out swipes from your comments. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
fsflover
> Moore ended up creating a private and invite-only support group on Facebook
Sounds like a thing you would never want to share with Facebook given its approach to privacy.
JimmyBuckets
I don't think the invite-only nature of the group is due to privacy but rather moderation. It seems the point of this group is to assuage shame
bn-l
Wow that was very touching.
ChrisArchitect
(2024)
Some discussion then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39765894
nineplay
I think we're going to find that a large number of town sluts are abuse victims. Every so often I see nasty comments that 'she got pregnant at 15' or 'she had two kids before finishing high school' with follow-ups blaming poor sex ed. I think people are side stepping the implications, especially if the father is otherwise unknown. Even in my day the girl who got pregnant by the volleyball coach shouldered the bulk of the blame.
squidbeak
What a term to use about anyone let alone people you suppose to be abuse victims. This is shameful.
dang
It made me wince as well, but I doubt that the intent was malicious.
nineplay
Too late to edit but I meant to say town "sluts". Ah well, a lesson to re-read carefully before posting
tomhow
You should be able to edit it now, or email us (hn@ycombinator.com) with an edit we can put in. Probably best to find a different word/phrase to use. It's upsetting to people even if you didn't mean it that way.
null
searine
This is a tragic story, but I think the bigger issue is some places have high levels of cultural acceptance of consanguine relationships.
giraffe_lady
Could you explain why you think that's a bigger issue than the one raised in the article:
> In the overwhelming majority of cases ... the parents are a father and a daughter or an older brother and a younger sister, meaning a child’s existence was likely evidence of sexual abuse.
kulahan
Incestual children can lead to a pretty significant number of medical issues.
searine
Cases like that described are very rare compared to 20-50% consanguinity in some communities. The disease burden from this is huge.
Not saying SA isn't an issue, but if the issue is incest, then cultural acceptance of it is the biggest offender.
novok
I think incest is usually understood as immediate direct family relations and means SA or something close.
What your talking about with 1st cousins is called inbred. Inbred is the superset of incest. You can get that with no incest.
kilroy123
Not wrong. My Turkish ex's parents were first cousins. Married for 50 years and they had two kids.
No one cared. It wasn't that big deal.
coliveira
This is extremely common in the royal families of Europe. Many of them are the result of incest.
0xcafefood
It's extremely common in South Asian communities (https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/10yx3va/...). The UK has a large South Asian diaspora.
bakul
AFAIK this is far more common in muslims but not in hindus, jains etc. While growing up I had heard/read that as per the Vedas you can not marry someone with whom you have a common ancestor within 7 generations. [My scientifically minded atheist parents agreed with the idea.] Of course, in practice this isn't always followed but in any arranged marriage such proscriptions would presumably be checked.
lazide
Southern India has particularly low Muslim populations - and definitely doesn’t follow that guidance.
The vedas have many sections which get widely ignored.
Edit: HN throttling is terrible. Here is a link to a couple studies [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32641190/], [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trends-in-consanguineous...]
AP has the highest rate, around 28%
thelastgallon
Pakistan doesn't represent all of South Asia.
0xcafefood
None of India is looking particularly good, but each state in southern India looks to have 20-25% rates of first-cousin marriages. Pretty high.
dismalaf
You mean it's extremely common in Muslim countries. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middl...
I love this site down voting facts if it doesn't conform to preconceived "progressive" notions.
0xcafefood
Seems so. Or more to the point of how data collected in the UK might reflect this trend (from the article you link): "According to a 2005 BBC report on Pakistani marriage in the United Kingdom, 55% of British Pakistanis marry a first cousin."
DoesntMatter22
I recently discovered that these relationships are legal in France. That's nuts
mr90210
Same country that banned paternity tests unless authorised by a court.
> And this number is just a floor: It reflects only the cases that resulted in pregnancy, that did not end in miscarriage or abortion, and that led to the birth of a child who grew into an adult who volunteered for a research study.
This might not be logical. If your DNA's in UK Biobank you might be more likely to have had a genetic disease stemming from incest.