Population Genetics
Further information: Population genetics and inbreedingThe isolationist practices of endogamy may lead to a group's extinction rather than its survival, as genetic diseases may develop that can affect a larger percentage of the population. For instance, while long serving to preserve their religion, the Samaritans' practice of endogamy threatens this community: refusal to intermarry, in conjunction with their non-acceptance of converts, has led the population of this ethnic group to decrease to fewer than one thousand.
Read more about this topic: Endogamous Group
Famous quotes containing the word population:
“The paid wealth which hundreds in the community acquire in trade, or by the incessant expansions of our population and arts, enchants the eyes of all the rest; the luck of one is the hope of thousands, and the bribe acts like the neighborhood of a gold mine to impoverish the farm, the school, the church, the house, and the very body and feature of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)