Why does same family mating develop mutated offspring?
In: Biology
Genes have two copies, and one of them from each parent is randomly picked to go to the offspring. One gene is dominant and the other is recessive; the dominant gene always overrides the recessive gene.
If one of the genes mutates into something bad, it’s usually rarer and overpowered by the stronger, normal gene, and doesn’t do anything.
If a parent has one bad copy, it has about a half chance to be part of the child, and the same with the other parent; if two bad recessive genes wind up in the child, they do something bad.
Because having one bad gene doesn’t cause problems (and can even be good sometimes), lots of people have the mutations and pass them down. This means you and your relatives could very well have inherited bad genes from your ancestors. If you and some relative both have one bad gene when you screw, there’s a one-in-four chance the child will have the active mutation. And there are a lot of genes.
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