Apparently, Professor Steve Jones, a biologist at UCL, has “enraged” British Muslims and “sparked a political storm”.
The offending comments were made during a talk at the Hay Festival. He said:
There may be some evidence that cousins marrying one another can be harmful. We should be concerned about that as there can be a lot of hidden genetic damage. Children are much more likely to get two copies of a damaged gene… Bradford is very inbred. There is a huge amount of cousins marrying each other there.
It is indisputable that his choice of wording — “inbred” — is unfortunate. But it’s also rather telling that the only papers who have chosen to report this story are the Telegraph, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Star, none of which are noted for their tolerant stance on Muslims.
In fact, this smacks of right-wing newspapers using any excuse to flag up tired stereotypes and demonise Muslims. Less “Muslim outrage” th… >>>
