Rebuilding civilization?

[1,000,000]

The zombie thread sparked this thought I have.

Say something catastrophic happened, but kept the world intact and left only two surviving humans, one male and one female, both of the age of 18. Knowing these two are healthy and perfectly capable of creating babies, do you think it would be possible to eventually rebuild humanity?

Would they have enough time to teach their children what they need to know to survive? Would the grand children be too messed up from splicing the same genes? I suppose there are too many factors to take in.

I don't believe it would be possible. If it were possible it would obviously take centuries. Or if you want to view it in the biblical sense then it is completely possible.

What are you thoughts AF?

[Koopaking]

Umm since there are only 2 humans that would mean by the 3rd generation they would all be retarded from the incest. So humanity would be retards and probably monkeys would take over or something.

[Corwin]

actually it would depend, mostly on how willing and how self sacrificing the woman is, b/c if all those vitro clinic supplies survived, and the knowledge of how to more or less make test tube babies or at least perform vitro fertilization, we would have a wide variety of genetic material to choose from, meaning that it is possible, but those two ppl would have to raise like 30 kids in a period of about 30 years and teach them quite a lot of stuff that they probably wouldn't be qualified to teach, but if they worked hard, and everything worked out, then yes it might be possible, unless of course the world was irradiated, then the odds plummet drastically to almost zero

[1,000,000]

Assuming these two don't have the knowledge for vitro fertilization.

I was more or less getting at people disappeared, not blasted away from radiation. Though that would make a lot more sense.

And is it proven that fornicating and creating a baby with a member of the same family causes retardation in the fetus?

[Corwin]

I assumed that they did not have much practical knowledge to begin w/, but if the internet were still functioning they'd have tons of information at their fingertips, or they could even use that place, where you can go to borrow books, I know many of you may not know what this crazy building is, I mean who'd want to read a book when you can watch tv, but it's called a library, you should remember that, just in case you are the one guy or girl left behind in this scenario, on second thought, if you don't know that much, don't bother reproducing, apparently the human race screwed up once, they don't need you repeating the mistakes, and yes to the best of my knowledge it has been proven that having children w/in a limited genetic group has been known to cause retardation, in small communities but more prevalently w/ family members having children together, as there is no new source of genetic material, adverse genetic code and physical traits are reinforced w/ each new birth, making birth defects and health problems such immune deficiency more and more likely, long story short, don't have sex w/ your sister, although your sister's friend is fair game if she doesn't find out

[1,000,000]

Woah! Struck a nerve did I Corwin? Even with the internet and libraries I doubt anyone could just learn vitro fertilization.

And I read a lot, thanks.

[Corwin]

no nerve was struck, I was just gently mocking the millions of ppl in the us who have never so much as stepped inside a library except on forced excursions in school, and you're probably right, but if ur motivated enough who knows what can be accomplished

[Awakening]

dude above has a point no offence to american but you really dont do much as for rebuilding civilization screw doing that i mean it just wouldnt work cos there could but some mutated animal that would kill them even if you could rebuild civilization they would die off eventually the whole incest thing wouldnt work i mean they a girl they have to wait for her to grow up she would have to sleep with her own dad creepy then wait all over again

[Ariya]

It would take a long time, and it's possible that the children and grandchildren could get some pretty bad genetic disorders, Dominant and Recessive, since they're marrying closely related family members, most likely. I mean, look at the Royal Families in Europe and Russia. Many of them had Hemophilia, and passed it on to their children, since they married carries or someone who had it.

Plus, how would they know if they were a carrier? There's no geneticists left to tell them. :/ Lucky guesses?

Plus, there's a chance that the first mother could die in the labor process, or have a miscarriage.

It's possible, but it would there's loads of risks. :/

Too bad there isn't 2 girls. Make things a little better.

[Corwin]

yeah but what if only 2 women survived, or just 2 men, or just to be evil, what if 1 guy and 1 girl survived, but she was 100% not a chance in the world she'd let him touch her lesbian(no offense intended) I just think that would be funny, guy sitting there thinking, great situation trying to repopulate and she just looks at him like not going to happen