smudboy

Well that's fascinating -- BobbyJoeCool just posted the same question...!

This is not a question on the technical engineering feat to repopulate the world. What I'm curious is this: what is the minimum number of people required to repopulate/create a healthy, genetically diverse community? That is, the offspring will not have negative characteristics that would otherwise compromise normal meiosis (abortion, retardation, mutations, etc.), and the community could thus genetically constitute itself, without any external people? I recall hearing lots of silly debates about Adam and Eve, incest, a Slider's episode (a female world where men were in short suppy->sex farms) and a Star Trek episode (season 3, with Pulaski, they found a cloned world) stating the base number of humans required to get diversity up and running was something like 300. Anyone know the numbers/sources?