Do you believe eugenics is a valid philosophy and practice?

[Varabently]

(and you were talking about 0.000012%)



Game, set, and match.

I frankly was not aware of epigenetic modification. Clearly I should have read what I quoted before I backed myself into a corner. It's a fair point. I would pirouette the point by saying the manner in which your stem cells react to these modifications could be resultant of specific DNA pairings. Indeed anything that goes on in your body is a result of the instructions embedded in DNA right? I will admit my argument is not from a place of expertise. I have a BA in Psychology, not genetics or biology. To me, all this change means is that the resultants of your DNA differences are not always immediately apparent at birth. You still change over time, which I would argue is rooted in your biology, rather than nurture. I don't possess the expertise to fully respond to that point, so I'll take it as such. It could very well be detrimental to my argument.

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How exactly would you even go about proving that? Do they have a faulty "money making" gene? You're sounding more like a phrenologist now.

Again, let's design an experiment where we have 100 kids and we put 33 in good homes, 33 in bad places and 33 in middle of the road "control" environments and see what happens. Like I said, I can't prove this is true, but you can't prove environment has impact either for the same reasons.

And yes, some people are naturally entrepreneurial, or natural leaders. I would argue there's clearly a leadership gene, which allows you to be more successful than other people.

[Charge me Doctor]

The type of person who lives in a bad surrounding AND has kids into that bad surroundings are not likely to be the most up-standing citizens. They are also probably more likely to engage in risky behaviors while pregnant, thus potentially reducing their capacity to succeed. The types of parents who choose to have kids into those circumstances also aren't likely to have the best genes. That's how the argument goes.

Aaaand this argument has nothing to do with eugenics.

[Varabently]

Biases aren't genetic, they are learned behavior. There is no 'bias' gene. You give far too much importance to genetics and far too little to the environment in which the person was raised.

Here's the thing, when I say everything is genetic (here I go moving the goalposts again right?), what I mean (and I am frustrated that I have to explain this AGAIN) is that everything can be DERIVED from genes. For instance, biases are present in every environment in the world. The self-fulfilling prophecy is present everywhere and isn't only in a certain part of the world. These are evolutionary traits that we've picked up over time. Biases as absolutely genetic as is the capacity to accept things on insufficient evidence (I'm gonna regret bringing that up aren't I?). Clearly some people are more prone to making these type 2 errors than others. I don't think making certain types of logical errors is a learned trait, but I could be wrong there.

I think much of the problem with this argument is that as many have critiqued me on this very point: it's simply not testable. Or rather, it's not ethically testable. So I can argue all I want, but I don't have any hard evidence. I can only appeal to logical arguments based on the minimal research I've done.

[Stormdash]

Eugenics is pretty much the peak of all human evil and hubris, as far as I'm concerned. It's most notable fan in world history was Adolf Hitler, for crying out loud.

[Varabently]

Aaaand this argument has nothing to do with eugenics.

We are quite off topic, sorry for the derail. I'm off to bed now anyway. I appreciate the lively responses. Eugenics isn't tenable for our culture. We could get to the point where the gene pool is so limited that we start to move in the other direction.

[AeneasBK]

Eugenics is pretty much the peak of all human evil and hubris, as far as I'm concerned. It's most notable fan in world history was Adolf Hitler, for crying out loud.

Which on its own is a spectacularly lame argument.

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We are quite off topic, sorry for the derail. I'm off to bed now anyway. I appreciate the lively responses. Eugenics isn't tenable for our culture. We could get to the point where the gene pool is so limited that we start to move in the other direction.

Sleep well

[Kaleredar]

Again, let's design an experiment where we have 100 kids and we put 33 in good homes, 33 in bad places and 33 in middle of the road "control" environments and see what happens. Like I said, I can't prove this is true, but you can't prove environment has impact either for the same reasons.

Enviornment can be more closely related when the kids that are ALREADY in bad homes are more prone to grow up to be "bad" adults. That's what we observe now. You're claiming that's due to them inhering something as laughable as "criminal genes" from their parents or some such. And strangely enough, when we do things like improve education and help elevate the status of "bad" homes to good or fair ones, the children are less prone to grow up to be "bad" adults. Seems a pretty strong case for environment over them "just being born bad eggs."

[Stormdash]

Which on its own is a spectacularly lame argument.

I prefer things like "if you watched 'Gattaca' and asked 'why can't real life be like that?'" or read an evil monologue by Ra's al Ghul about culling the world population so that it can be ruled and repopulated by the "right" sort of people, then eugenics is a philosophy for you. It's villain fodder. It's so wantonly amoral it's almost like caricature of serious philosophy for people to speak favorably of it. I mean, what makes more sense after learning over the course of more than a century that centrally planning something as trivial as a national economy is an exercise if abject failure each and every time? Why, deciding that the same sort of brain trust who think that would work should centrally plan the (un)natural selection of the human race!

[Kuax]

I think there must be propaganda of voluntary eugenics. For example, if you have severe genetic disease, you should abstain from breeding. If there is an indication that fetus have severe deformities, abortion should be initiated, unless it's too late. It should be encouraged to make analyses of possible negative outcomes before conception. It can be achieved by been looked down by society and in some cases with fines with reasonable amounts to have effect, but not to much that offenders will end on the street. It will be a very long process with not high success rate, but it won't require a lot of work or resources, so I think even some success will be beneficial.

[DeltrusDisc]

It'll probably happen and ultimately work sometime in the future... but I don't like it.

[Graeham]

As it stands I firmly believe that we'd see more intelligence if the education system was genuinely better and wasn't often warped as a tool to push specific agendas. I don't think we need to cultivate intelligence through eugenics - we just need to grant more people the chance to study and receive a solid education without being held back by a lack of wealth to pay for it.

[Varabently]

Enviornment can be more closely related when the kids that are ALREADY in bad homes are more prone to grow up to be "bad" adults. That's what we observe now. You're claiming that's due to them inhering something as laughable as "criminal genes" from their parents or some such. And strangely enough, when we do things like improve education and help elevate the status of "bad" homes to good or fair ones, the children are less prone to grow up to be "bad" adults. Seems a pretty strong case for environment over them "just being born bad eggs."

What's comical to me is you putting things in quotation marks as if they were quotes. Clearly I didn't use any of the words you are quoting, so I'm not sure if you are even responding to me or not. What I said was that if I'm the type of mother who has kids while I live in a shitty neighborhood, that says a lot about who I am as a person. That means I probably have all sorts of traits (dictated by genes) that I am going to pass down that will be detrimental to my offspring. I mean there's this double-whammy effect that happens when kids are born while their parents do drugs. So your parent is not only the type of person who doesn't take care of their body, and is reckless and careless with their kid's future, but you are limiting the development in a directly physical way (this is the type of argument that nurture-ers use against me, but I argue this "double whammy" as I poorly worded it is actually just stemming from one problem). So kids are born without a chance. I'm not saying they are bad eggs. I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying they never had a chance. There's plenty of examples of kids who are extraordinary who rise up out of poverty. They defy the environment.

The fact is you don't choose your parents anymore than you choose whether you have impacted molars or not, anymore than you choose how smart you are. I'm claiming there's underlying genetic predispositions that drive the environmental factors. You can call the drugs a crackhead gives to her child "environmental" but the real cause is the actor in that situation. It's like saying guns kill people. No, people kill people.

[Charge me Doctor]

What's comical to me is you putting things in quotation marks as if they were quotes.

"quotation marks". I think he used them like dr evil did in the movie.

There is some examples of good kids being nurtured by bad parents, but that is mostly due to society affecting him (books, other kids, parents of other kids).

And again, even kids born by drug addict mothers can be cured and after that nurtured as good persons, it takes more help, but it works

[AeneasBK]

I prefer things like "if you watched 'Gattaca' and asked 'why can't real life be like that?'" or read an evil monologue by Ra's al Ghul about culling the world population so that it can be ruled and repopulated by the "right" sort of people, then eugenics is a philosophy for you. It's villain fodder. It's so wantonly amoral it's almost like caricature of serious philosophy for people to speak favorably of it. I mean, what makes more sense after learning over the course of more than a century that centrally planning something as trivial as a national economy is an exercise if abject failure each and every time? Why, deciding that the same sort of brain trust who think that would work should centrally plan the (un)natural selection of the human race!

Thats a much more rational argument than "Hitler liked it"

I wasn't disagreeing with you, just commenting that your post contained a really lame argument.

[Jakexe]

You are talking about genetics, not eugenics.

Eugenics is often thought as a form of gene manipulation. It's basically just taking a package of genes (a person) and using them to reproduce instead of focusing on specific genes to alter. It's a simple form of gene manipulation really, my point was that with natural selection has been removed as a viable option. So eugenics and gene manipulation are directly tied into combating this. They have the same goal in the end anyway.

[Charge me Doctor]

Eugenics is often thought as a form of gene manipulation. It's basically just taking a package of genes (a person) and using them to reproduce instead of focusing on specific genes to alter. It's a simple form of gene manipulation really, my point was that with natural selection has been removed as a viable option. So eugenics and gene manipulation are directly tied into combating this. They have the same goal in the end anyway.

No, it's a philosophy about best people mating with best and about "reducing" reproduction of people with less desired traits. What you are talking about is selection, taking strong gene of one individual and "processing" it to other species.

I'll repeat it: eugenics is a philosophy of people with "desired" traits mating other people with "desired" traits to create "better" population.
Two bad parts here: regulation of people reproduction and "desired" traits being too vague term.

Genetics already "absorbed" part about selection of genes that helps us to survive, as whole, eugenics is bad, but some parts (as usual, not everything is 100% bad or good) was good and these "good parts" of eugenics was taken to genetics. There is no need to use this philosophy in practice

[Snuffleupagus]

I'm all for it. I even know how to implement it.

- Take safety/warning labels off things that are blatantly obvious. "Blades may be sharp". You don't say?
- Make all drugs legal. Remove taxpayer funding of drug treatment programs and incarcerate those who harm someone while high.
- Abolish conjugal visits in prison.
- Remove public funding for medical conditions caused by obesity.

These four things will improve the world vastly in a few generations. There's more, but we gotta start somewhere.

[Noomz]

Although I love the concept in theory, I feel that it shares many aspects with communism - the idea sounds dandy on paper but in practice and implementation everything goes horribly wrong.

What are your opinions on eugenics? If you do believe that eugenics can be practically applied, how so and to what degree? Do you believe the negative stigma associated with the concept is due to genuine disapproval, or mostly historical context (i.e. hitler is the reason we can't have nice things)?

It's a disgusting thing. No matter how you twist and turn it, in the end, it's about removing the "undesirables" simply based on redundant, irrelevant physical or mental traits.
Why not rather have a world where no-one is discriminated against, where all ARE treated equal? No, that'd be too much work. Let's just sterilize people, geneticly modify them, kill people who aren't up to the norm and so on. Yeah that'll IMPROVE us for sure. But before it does that, it's gonna turn us into genocidal, ignorant monsters.

[obdigore]

- Abolish conjugal visits in prison..

I honestly didn't think these were a thing. You learn something new every day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjuga...#United_States

[Charge me Doctor]

It's a disgusting thing. No matter how you twist and turn it, in the end, it's about removing the "undesirables" simply based on redundant, irrelevant physical or mental traits.
Why not rather have a world where no-one is discriminated against, where all ARE treated equal? No, that'd be too much work. Let's just sterilize people, geneticly modify them, kill people who aren't up to the norm and so on. Yeah that'll IMPROVE us for sure. But before it does that, it's gonna turn us into genocidal, ignorant monsters.

That's why genetics removed all this "people" thing and work only with genes, instead of people.