[2012-Jul-19] Polydactyly

[ChaoticBrain]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2677#comic

The Amish have an increased chance of being born with extra fingers?

[Sentient AI]

I'm not sure if the Amish keep families between the communities, and whether those communities are large enough to be genetically diverse enough to prevent inbreeding.
Just a bit of speculation for that.

[sploder]

Its called the Founder effect. The o=founders of Amish communities had a higher than average genetic makeup favoring polydactyly, and if i recall correctly dwarfism in certain communities. due to the isolation of these communities, the prevalence remains or expands.

[Sentient AI]

Ah, that makes sense.
And neckbeards.

[Lethal Interjection]

This was an interesting fact I did not know about.
So I did some wiki-ing on the topic.
There are some interesting versions of the founder effect.
Such as the deaf percentage of Martha's Vineyard.
Or one that I knew of (though I wouldn't have thought about it as founder effect): Ty-Sachs in Ashkenazi Jews.

[tophernator]

This isn't the founder effect, it is infact natural selection in action.
You see barn-building Amish people spend a large amount of time hammering nails to create shelter and pumping butter churners for food. The average Amish man over the age of 14 loses 0.3 fingers per year in nail hammering accidents, and butter churning requires at least 7 fingers. So a "normal" 10-fingered Amish man will be reduced to <7 fingers by their mid-twenties, and thus become an unappealing mate. While a polydactyl man may retain churning ability into the 30s thus producing more offspring.

Science.

[Salacious Schoolmate]

"your comment sounds like a great premise for a comic" - nobody

[GUTCHUCKER]

This nobody fellow is clearly wrong.

[Lethal Interjection]

"your comment sounds like a great premise for a comic" - nobody

I wish that guy would go ahead and make an account.

With pretty much every comic I think I would really like to hear nobody's opinions or comments about it.

[Salacious Schoolmate]

Oh, I think you'll be hearing from nobody pretty soon.

[nobody, i think]

Hey guys, I'm a sock puppet!

[CuppaBro]

I speak for nobody when I say that July 20th's graph joke was effing hilarious.

[Salacious Schoolmate]

STOP DERAILING THE THREAD

nobody haha what a guy

[Keith]

Polydactyly is much more common through inbreeding. I live in an area with three Amish families which are barely diverse enough to call different families. They are borderline inbreeding if not already there.

[Edminster]

thank you for your anecdote it is invaluable to our research