Tarski wrote:The Nehor wrote:Evolutionary theory as I understand it would require much, much more incest.
why?
what is your point?
As a new distinct species develops it's reproductive options will generally be low leading to a lot of incest. Most evolutionists I've learned from postulate a much shorter lifespan and a lower birthrate and higher infant and child mortality rate. In such circumstances you most likely mate with whatever is available and happens to survive puberty. Incest would proliferate for many, many generations. We're talking about a window of thousands of years with an average of a 30-40 year lifespan IF you survive childhood (using higher-end estimates, I've seen as low as 20-25).
The biblical model gives us Adam and his descendants living over half a century. This gives a huge window in which to have dozens if not hundreds of children. With this high a birthrate only siblings of the second generation would have to mate. The third generation would likely mate with cousins or their parent's younger siblings. By the fourth generation you would have hordes of second cousins to choose from. Traditionally you have the same situation pop up to a lesser degree with Noah's 3 sons. The farthest away genetically you can get is a first cousin. Theologically the first incest prohibitions come in the Mosaic Law and even there the scholars argued about what relationships it entailed. One point of contention I've read something about was whether an uncle/niece relationship was okay or not. Some seemed to think there was something holy about it while others detested it. To both God and man incest taboos seem like a recent change.
My point is that Polygamy is being silly if he thinks that only the LDS/Christian model requires some form of what we call incest.