Nazism and Modern Genetics

Simple math shows that if we have 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great grand parent and so on, if we go 60 generations back we would have 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 ancestors. Obviously, this is mathematically impossible, so many of those ancestors would be doubles and relatives of one another (for example, two of your great grandparents who married different people can have the same parents). As you go down the line, this happens more and more.

The point is that it becomes mathematically impossible that, at some point, everyone isn't related to everyone else. Modern DNA testing has confirmed this.

How would Nazism, with its extremely unscientific view of race, reconcile modern genetics with their insane traditions?
 
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They'd shoot the geneticists and burn their research.

This.

Nazism wasn't concerned with facts. Facts were created by the party to serve their narrative, not the other way around. They would dismiss any such research as "Jewish science" (the same way they did nuclear physics) and shoot anyone who suggested their views were wrong.
 
The best part about being a Nazi is not having to reconcile 'facts' with 'truth'. if you want something, just 'Do It" and make it happen. The strength of your will will, supposedly, carry the day. They would simply dismiss this argument like any other.
 

Geon

Donor
Nazi Genetic Madness

Nazi racial science believed that the original humans were a perfect race. It is likely that Nazi "science" would develop a theory that races such as the Jews and the Slavs were a clear corruption of the "pure" race of the first humans. As mutations these sub-humans "clearly" needed to be removed from the gene-pool.

Sadly this was already the general view of the Nazis at the time of the Holocaust so it would take very little tweaking to make it fit the known facts on modern genetics (see above.).

Geon
 
They simply wouldn't care beyond a certain point.
IIRC unless at least one of your great-grandparents (or great-great grandparents, can't remember) was jewish or non-white you were considered aryan.
 

Phyrx

Banned
Boy, the circlejerk's started already. That was fast. :rolleyes:

You do realize that, even in OTL, there are millions and millions of people who reject the conclusions of academia, right? A Third Reich would be comparable in this way to, for example, a USA governed by Young Earth Creationists. The evidence itself would probably be accepted - just not the interpretation.
 
Nazi racial science believed that the original humans were a perfect race. It is likely that Nazi "science" would develop a theory that races such as the Jews and the Slavs were a clear corruption of the "pure" race of the first humans. As mutations these sub-humans "clearly" needed to be removed from the gene-pool.

Sadly this was already the general view of the Nazis at the time of the Holocaust so it would take very little tweaking to make it fit the known facts on modern genetics (see above.).

Geon

Wouldn't it be clear that "pure" humanity was lost?
 

Deleted member 1487

Simple math shows that if we have 2 parents, 4 grand parents, 8 great grand parent and so one, if we go 60 generations back we would have 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 ancestors. Obviously, this is mathematically impossible, so many of those ancestors would be doubles and relatives of one another (for example, two of your great grandparents who married different can have the same parents). As you go down the line, this happens more and more.

The point is that it becomes mathematically impossible that, at some point, everyone is related to everyone else. Modern DNA testing has confirmed this.

How would Nazism, with its extremely unscientific view of race, reconcile modern genetics with their insane traditions?

That's a very interesting question. We would have to know what the situation was politically when the science got up to modern standards to really be able to say. They could have 'evolved' on racial issues or even just gone with the modern answer of 'there is still so much we don't know yet' which is very true about modern genetics. We've isolated things like the modern genome, but still don't fully understand how it all works.

In terms of us all being related via a common ancestor the Nazis did not reject evolution, which AFAIK at the time did acknowledge we call came from the same source. So there isn't an issue there as far as acknowledging that some people turned out better and some genomes were just inferior in their ideology. I mean clearly humans of different races could have children so it was clear that humans all had a common ancestor and they were so close genetically that there were more similarities than differences in the races, it was just that some were better than others. So I think they would just cop out by saying there is still something better with the 'Nordic/Aryan' peoples that scientifically hasn't been discovered yet or they might have moved on and just stated that the cultures of the 'Nordic/Aryans' was superior so that gave them the advantage.
 
As Vrykon said, the Nazis accepted anybody who wasn't more than 1/8th Jewish/Slavic/whatever, basically. They didn't believe that anybody was "pure", just that some were "purer" than others.

Is it possible with geneticists they would have the luxury of getting more picky?
 

Deleted member 1487

As Vrykon said, the Nazis accepted anybody who wasn't more than 1/8th Jewish/Slavic/whatever, basically. They didn't believe that anybody was "pure", just that some were "purer" than others.
Theoretically, in practice they adopted 100% Polish children and 50% or even 100% Jewish people:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_children_by_Nazi_Germany
http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Jewish-Soldiers-Descent-Military/dp/0700613587
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Goldberg
 
So, it sounds like they would care less about gene origin, and more about the existence of "aryan genes" irregardless of the ethnic origin of the person?
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
They'd shoot the geneticists and burn their research.

While putting their fingers in the ears and yelling LALALALALALALA.

The Party was never much for science. Pseudo-science yes, actual verifiable experimentation relying on truth and not ideology, not so much.
 
If facts didn't fit with their world view, they'd disregard it or say it was wrong.

"The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be quite uncomfortable if you're one of the facts that needs altering."
 
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