Eugenics, realy so bad?

[Simon Darkshade]

Not a lot, it would seem, given mistaking films for video games, and missing the point behind quotes. :ack We on the right are already in power, both here and over the sea, and slowly, almost invisibly, we spread our tendrils about you...

 

[Abaddon]

Space him Simon.. he does not know.

 

[potatokiosk]

Sounds hypocritical. I'm sure everyone has some sort of genetic deficiency somewhere.

 

[Syterion]

I wouldn't feel too bad about sterilizing those who agree with eugenics. Seems like a trait that needs to be eradicated.

 

[Mr Moron]

It's costly and relatively unpredictable. Hard to implement. If i was going to pick a method to enhance the human race, I'd look into cybernetics long before messing with genes through forced breeding.

 

[jalapeno_dude]

Eugenics is already practiced to some extent. Most people pick who they marry and have children with, right?

But eugenics in the sense of creating a master race is bad.

 

[Evil Tyrant]

Eugenics is a lot like Communism. In theory it will create a heaven on earth, but when people try to put it in practice, it ends up creating a hell.

 

[FredLC]

I wouldn't feel too bad about sterilizing those who agree with eugenics. Seems like a trait that needs to be eradicated.

Boy, doesn't this bring up memories...?

The only people i'd agree to prevent from having kids are the ones advocating eugenics. A group worthy of exaustion, if there is any.

Regards .

 

[Vietcong]

perhaps experments of it chould be implaminted on small scale, such as on a small comunity over a period of generations to see how implamitable it chould be.

the one that wont be able to have kids are the ones who are hardly human in the first place.. i realy dont understand what many of u are saying.. its for the good of mankind and thay should be proud to do it for thear fellow man.

 

[El_Machinae]

But those people are unlikely to breed anyway. A eugenics program that scrapes the bottom of the barrel is redundant, mostly. A more expansive program is what people object to. I mean, if the siblings of a handicapped person were also sterilized, you'd root out poor genes more aggressively.

However, everyone has poor genes. And if you limit the gene pool too much, you have inbreeding problems anyway.

 

[JerichoHill]

It is too far of a slippery slope to head downwards. It is an infringment on that which is basic to humanity (the urge to procreate).

And honestly, how many of us are perfect genetic specimens. I have bad ankles. Should the fact that I sometimes sprain them just walking prevent me from having kids?

There's always something just being that line that is drawn in the sand that's then easy to pull over to the other side. And the line keeps shifting... (intelligence tests, dexterity tests?)

No, a horrible idea, and an affront to humanity. I'll not have anyone decide who can and who cannot have kids

 

[Leonel]

As for Gattaca, let us by all means be influenced by science fiction films on matters of public import. Carousel is a lie!

No I think he has a point! In the movie Gattaca, the world is a mix of pure bred human's and completely natural humans. However in this world, employers only hired the pure breds because the pure breds were better than the natural human's in everyway, alotting natural human's to subservient tasks even if they were completely specialized in a particular field. Basically the natural human's were second class citizens.

There is the very realistic possibility that natural human's could live lives of second class citizenship if there were pure bred human's with perfect genes and all undesirable traits weeded out. I mean providing health insurance for a pure bred human would be some kind of economic insentive to hire pure breds over natural humans.

 

[FredLC]

perhaps experments of it chould be implaminted on small scale, such as on a small comunity over a period of generations to see how implamitable it chould be.

the one that wont be able to have kids are the ones who are hardly human in the first place.. i realy dont understand what many of u are saying.. its for the good of mankind and thay should be proud to do it for thear fellow man.

And who are these you suggest that aren't "hardly human anyway"?

 

[JerichoHill]

And who are these you suggest that aren't "hardly human anyway"?

Who is he to to suggest that someone is hardly human anyway?

 

[ChrTh]

I think the whole Eugenics debate (not the one herein, just in general) is pretty dang silly. For millions of years homo sapiens and its ancestors practiced eugenics naturally. We finally develop our intellect and culture to such an extent that it's no longer necessary ...

... and people want to bring it back. Unbelievable.

 

[FredLC]

Who is he to to suggest that someone is hardly human anyway?

Don't rush, me, man, I was getting to that...

 

[croxis]

Anyone who just quotes in all reality has nothing to say for themselves.

To the topic: yes, eugenics is silly because who's version of "better" are we talking about? The qualities I think are good are very different than some-one elses version of Quality. Who has the right to say their version is better than mine? Also where would the line be drawn? Everyone carries around 6 recessive genetic disorders. I happen to have a dominant one (club foot for those who care, mostly correct by this time). Would I be weeded out? Would I have never been born even though I have been a very productive and active member for the human race?

The second reason eugenics is bad is because people who support it have a poor understanding of biology. Humans tend to get more sick more often than many other species. One of the leading ideas as to why is because our gene pool is already extremely shallow (it seems other species with shallow gene pools are also rather sickly). Eugenics shallow this further and I would argue that Eugenics would make the human race more sick. [another argument is that the low genetic variation allows genetic deficiencies to pop up more frequently, however I read a couple of papers which gave good arguments why this is not the case, alas tracking them down again would be rather difficult]

 

[Stile]

Overcoming adversity (genetic in this case) builds character. What's the joke from Shallow Hal (a movie): the plain girl in highschool who later becomes beautiful would have a better personality or sense of humor?

Besides, carried to the extreme, I bet this would lead to a society without compassion. Would it serve humanity more to help your neighbor or is his lack of success evidence of inferior genetics that need to be eradicated?

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

is it really so bad??

If you're talking about early eugenics, up until about 1930, it has no scientific validation today, because it failed even to distinguish heritable traits from environmental traits. (For example, it equated black race with lower intelligence.) This failure eventually lead to its association with state-sponsored discriminatory policies, by extension Naziism and after WW2, it gradually lost public favor. Its only effect was to transform Eurocentric prejudices into scientifically justified practices. Also, after 1957, with the discovery of DNA structure, genetic research shifted from selective breeding to direct manipulation of genes.

Genetics has advanced considerably since then, so that we are better able to gauge not only what is heritable, but also how to manipulate it. We now know that you can't apply one simple policy of selective breeding and necessarily hope to weed out some trait. In some ways, eugenics already exists, but in the form of non-coersive means, such as genetic testing and counseling.

IMO, the only effective way to remove undesirable genetic traits from the population is to directly manipulate germ line cells, which is a technology that is in infancy right now. Coersive selective breeding is bound to fail, not only because it's a violation of personal rights, but also because it's not guaranteed to work for every trait even when applied properly.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Another problem is that we can't say what superior genes are. Remember, genetic fitness is relative; if we weed out the "bad" genes and then the earth's climate changes or something, and it turned out that the only way we could survive is with the now-extinct "bad" genes, well we're screwed.