7 ms·

Eugenics, Ready or Not

38 points by yummyfajitas 11y ago

ilaksh 11y ago
I think we can have the idea of improving genetics in a high-tech way without all of the Nazi baggage like Social Darwinism, racism, etc. that comes with 'eugenics'.
- amelius 11y ago
  Well, at least the term "Übermensch" has lost its original meaning, and now seems mostly reserved for a taxi driver.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    Sadly, because the original Übermensch was much better than both what Nazis did to it and the taxi drivers.
  - tosseraccount 11y ago
    Travis Bickle. Übermensch.
- PavlovsCat 11y ago
  "eu" literally means "good". So yes, you can use an English word instead, "improving", but that's still eugenics.
- jerf 11y ago
  The thing is, "Social Darwinism" et al demonstrate that the instant we even thought we might have this power, the Powers That Be instantly started doing things with it that other people found reprehensible, including (using it to justify) wholesale slaughter. If you think people have morally become greatly advanced in the past 100 years, then this might not bother you. But you would also be operating in a regime of aggressively blind faith, because the evidence for that claim is exactly inverted. If, on the other hand, you don't believe that, you might spare some thought for the last time this was popular. And, I mean this entirely seriously, you should seriously take a moment to wonder whether you will be deemed undesirable in any exciting new order of these sorts of things. There is ABSOLUTELY NO NATURAL LAW that your ideological allies will be the ones who get this power. Not even being part of the dominant ideology today shields you from being on the dominant ideology's shit list 20 years from now. To a great extent, it is rational to make sure nobody gets these ideas because you, personally, ilaksh (and jerf) may well discover that you are on the receiving end of the 21st century nastiness. (How many of the 20th century's victims were individually actually on the government's side, right up until they were being slaughtered?)
  - caskance 11y ago
    Or we accept that the net good that will happen is so great that it's okay even for my ideological enemies to have this power, just so long as SOMEONE does. Lots of people would admit this of space travel. Eugenics is closer to the border line.
    - jerf 11y ago
      You're begging the question. We have no great assurance that the net will be good, for any given definition of good, including yours, and certainly not for all of them simultaneously.
      - caskance 11y ago
        We have no assurances of anything in life.
  - Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
    Some country somewhere is going to legalize this. Their citizens will have IQs several standard deviations higher than ours. Dr. Steven Hsu seems to think IQs far higher than 180 (before renorming) are very possible. All countries will be forced to allow (or even subsidize) genetic intelligence augmentation. This is the nature of the incentives that will develop. We have very little choice in the matter. Any country with reservations will become a cognitive backwater, whose intellectuals will be routinely out-performed by grade-school children. From my perspective, it is tragic that some children are born with brains that cannot understand basic arithmetic. It is equally tragic that most are born with brains that cannot understand advanced physics. This technology will allow us to remedy a good portion of our ignorance. It should be embraced. Iodizing salt increased average IQ in many regions by a standard deviation. Reducing lead pollution about 8 more on top of this. Were these great evils? Why is removing deleterious mutations?
SCHiM 11y ago
While I understand the problems that one might have with induced genetic differences between classes (that would be inevitable given a capitalists approach to consumer eugenics) I've never understood the moral problem with tinkering with DNA itself (as opposed to the consequences of tinkering, as stated above). The fact that one might have personal reasons to dislike or abstain from genetic editing does not mean that eugenics are immoral for the rest of the population. Perhaps it's because of how people identify themselves. Most of my friends identify themselves with the 'voice' they hear in their heads, their thoughts and personalities, as do I. My body is more of a vessel and while it's part of me it's not 'me' in any way that matters for my identity. I wouldn't mind tuning a few bits and pieces here and there...
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  There's two options: Either genetical improvement will be only available to top 0,5% (this way nothing changes, they're already separated from the rest of us, we don't interact) Or it will be available to top 70% (middle class) In both cases there's no scary divide. We could have scary divide if this option was only available to 10% population, but economically that's unrealistic. Talking about developed countries, of course.
  - arbitrage 11y ago
    Those are some pretty impressive fake numbers you pulled out of thin air, there. Please try to keep comments to the realm of reality. Just making things up doesn't move the discussion forward.
    - guard-of-terra 11y ago
      Some numbers are better than no numbers. I'm ready to hear your numbers. You also behave rude. Modern USA as a country is based on premise that anybody can afford to buy a car. I don't see why society can't be based on premise that anybody can afford eugenics for their children.
      - 11y ago
cpfohl 11y ago
I never read to the end of the article, because as soon as the 'critics warn about designer babies' line came up I stopped reading. It's a long, long way between "preventing disease by manipulating someone's genes" and "deciding you really wanted a blonde baby". As someone who lost his brother to a genetic disease it sort of pisses me off to hear people try and tell people in my family's shoes that we're on a slippery slope to 'designer babies' when all we want is to keep our family member from slowly dying of a disease with symptoms like Alzheimer's at age 20. If "designer babies" is the price for cures like that, we should gladly pay it. This from a pretty conservative guy, esp. on life issues.
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  You should have continued reading in that case, because it's not like that's the sole point of discussion. Dismissing that argument out of hand is disingenuous. I absolutely, fully support no-holds-barred consideration of all the viewpoints involved here – 'designer babies' is a very real issue that we absolutely must think about in the scientific, social and ethical sense (like basically every bit of science fiction touches on).
  - Taek 11y ago
    Designer babies represent the potential to step forward as a human race. Genetic manipulation can lead to stronger hearts, better immune systems, bigger working memory, etc, etc. In the nature vs. nurture debate, surely people can at least admit that genetics form an absolutely critical foundation. We can stop disease, and we can create children who will be better equipped to tackle tomorrows problems. The education system has very similar goals. It's not a sin for a wealthy family to drop tons of money on private schools, tutoring, and other expensive methods of getting their child ahead. But as soon as genetics are involved, it's a problem that invokes images of nazi's and irrecoverably widening income gaps.
    - creshal 11y ago
      > It's not a sin for a wealthy family to drop tons of money on private schools, tutoring, and other expensive methods of getting their child ahead. Maybe not to the right wing. But to the left wing?
RodericDay 11y ago
Funny, I just started a re-read of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley last night. "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …"
guard-of-terra 11y ago
I think we should be aiming for major positive scenario. We don't have much choice, otherwise genetic malfunctions will get us sooner or later. The way we're having children now (few, low child mortality) is a way to breed genetic defects.
- Ygg2 11y ago
  On the other hand, genetic malfunctions: A) Can lead to interesting discoveries B) Can have paradoxical effects - e.g. muscle degeneration in our ancestors lead to our weaker bit and consequently bigger brains, since skull could expand more because the muscles were weaker. http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.html http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.htm... Imagine if you don't want your child to have ADHD, and you screen for it. But it turns out that people with ADHD hold a mutation to even higher IQ.
  - caskance 11y ago
    Then we will either tolerate the associated defect or find a way to achieve the benefit without it.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    You're talking about human evolution. Human evolution won't work if we have almost zero child mortality and roughly two children per women. All we can do in this configuration is damage control. UPD: This configuration is also prone to splitting humanity into several casts just by biased marriage practices.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  So in other words, we will have to do eugenics anyway - either high-tech by direct DNA manipulation, or the traditional way of having a lot of children and then getting rid of the weakest.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Yeah, that sums it up. Both might lead to civilization failure and new stone age, but in my opinion runaway genetic defects have more chance of causing this
legulere 11y ago
Isn't screening sperm donors for inheritable diseases already eugenics?
- VLM 11y ago
  Its an interesting scalability problem where women not in rape or arranged marriage cultures have been screening sperm donors for inheritable characteristics for quite some time, depending on where they live. The stereotypical sci fi dystopia outcomes don't resemble "American women, turned up to 11" as much as they should, and also don't seem to resemble whatever delta you'd expect to see between populations with different mating standards. Or put another way, if GE and eugenics rants are a century old thinly veiled anti-feminism rant full of codewords and dog whistles, it doesn't seem to match actual outcomes very well, to the point it can't be taken seriously anymore. Its possible that some reversion to the norm signal is stronger than the limited fine tuning individual women can perform when they select mates, and that reversion to the norm effect could be overwhelmed by advanced enough genetic engineering. Possibly. Or possibly not. Usually in soft sci fi and journalistic fiction, genetic engineering and eugenics has been a place holder for cut and paste style plot line of a comic book villain revival of the nazi party. Now that plot line can be interesting as contemporary social commentary or an alt hist if well written, but using genetic engineering as a stage piece is super old and tired and should be retired. Fiction needs a new macguffin to write about nazis or genetic engineering. And at that point somewhat more realistic speculative hard sci fi or predictive social science can intelligently discuss somewhat more realistic predictions, a little less comic book villain.
- caskance 11y ago
  If you want to be pedantic, having sex with people you find attractive is already eugenics.
gglitch 11y ago
What's with the weird righteous indignation on behalf of "moral conservatives?" Has no conservative ever advanced a eugenic cause?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  Promotion of eugenics has primarily been a liberal cause, historically. Supporters include progressives like Roosevelt and Hoover, opponents were conservatives like Chesterton and the Catholic church. "Building a better man" was a major tool of socialists, and it wasn't restricted to education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critic... In fact, the legacy of this exists today - note that the Communist party of China is the main practitioner of eugenics today (see Yao Ming). It's only in the modern era of identity politics, inequality as a real concern, and racial spoils systems that liberals have come to oppose it. If we acknowledge that intelligence is genetically determined, then we might be forced to recognize the tradeoff between individual fairness and statistically equal distribution of spoils. We might also be forced to acknowledge that inequality is a result of inborn meritorious traits (intelligence, conscientiousness) rather than some external unfairness.
- Tuna-Fish 11y ago
  While there were plenty of individual conservatives who advocated for it, pre-war it was mostly a progressive cause. It's hard to understand now, but society back then was quite different than today, and the political divisions of the time were also different. Francis Galton had done some early psychometry, and published his results claiming that the English upper class was the upper class because they were genetically superior to the lower classes. This result was widely accepted by both the progressives and the conservatives. The difference between the left and the right was not opposition to the principle of Social Darwinism, but just what should be done about it. The progressives advocated for eugenics to lift the lower classes from the 'genetic deficit' they were born into, while the traditional conservatives believed that this was unnecessary and that the situation as it existed was the natural order that shouldn't be fixed. Neither side would fit at all into modern common morality.
- wtbob 11y ago
Gatsky 11y ago
There are some pretty big assumptions leading to the hypothesis that increasing mutation burden will render us all dullards in a few generations ('dysgenic fertility'). Reading the latest paper by the guy the author keeps citing, Michael Woodley, I'm astounded at the ad hoc nature of the arguments [1]. Eg - Woodley cites a study that did an analysis showing visual reaction time has been increasing over time [2]. This study compared measurements performed in in 1800, to 1941. Woodley has been citing this article over and over again [3], to the point where the author of the original article wrote a letter to the journal 'Intelligence' saying that Woodley is over interpreting his data [4]. Woodley's conclusions have also been criticised elsewhere [5]. Woodley also tries to justify his 'dysgenic fertility' theory by saying that there are now fewer geniuses in the world because we aren't discovering amazing things like quantum mechanics as frequently - which is clearly complete nonsense. I would be highly sceptical of this based on the evidence presented. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4404736/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4404736/ [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20377125/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20377125/ [3] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?es_sm=93&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=12752224765467895864 http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?es_sm=93&um=1&ie=UTF-8&... [4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613001256 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... [5] http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yury_Dodonov/publication/257310948_Is_there_any_evidence_of_historical_slowing_of_reaction_time_No_unless_we_compare_apples_and_oranges/links/0a85e52d77fa6040b1000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yury_Dodonov/publication...
crusso 11y ago
It's a bit confusing that the term "eugenics" is overloaded. The classic eugenics was about forced breeding or sterilization of individuals or races to produce a "better" society. It was involuntary and racist. The "eugenics" of this article is about rewriting our own programming in a voluntary and targeted way. It seems that a new term would be helpful in avoiding the negative connotations of the word "eugenics".
logfromblammo 11y ago
All we need to do is modify an entire generation of kids to enhance their ethical development, and then grant them exclusive control over the technology when they grow up. It's a foolproof plan. What could possibly go wrong? ~
gyardley 11y ago
We need to worry about 'designer babies' about as much as we need to worry about 'hostile AI' and other far-removed science-fiction concepts. In reality, in-vitro fertilization is a lengthy, complicated, painful, expensive and emotionally wrenching slog that often fails. The idea of choosing between embryos is laughable when so often you're hoping for one, just one, that actually has a viable shot. Anyone who would object to a little screening that helps prevent a woman from finally getting pregnant only to go through a miscarriage a few months later is a monster.
trey-jones 11y ago
As a parent of a child that was born with a "genetic defect" I feel qualified to express myself on this issue. Ethical and moral questions aside, the only question that I need to answer seems to be, "If there were a treatment available that could have spared my daughter the medical issues that she has experienced and will experience in the future (without introducing others), would we have done it?" Of course we would have. Parents want their children to be able to experience life as a "normal" person, and without the distress that lifelong medical conditions bring. If the risks and side-effects are as small as this article seems to suggest, then it's a no brainer.
copsarebastards 11y ago
It's worth noting that there's a huge difference between the eugenics of the past and the eugenics enabled by modern IVF and other genetic technologies. Eugenics of the past primarily reduced the capabilities and rights of people, while the technologies described in the article increase capabilities. Eugenics in the past resulted in discrimination and genocide, but modern eugenics is simply allowing parents to choose their child's genes. I don't see any issue with this. Others have pointed out that this technology will be available to the rich first, but this is a problem with economics, not with the technologies. Economic inequality has gigantic, far-reaching concerns, many of which have nothing to do with genetics. We should fix economic inequality, not its symptoms. Hampering genetic research because it exacerbates a symptom of economic inequality doesn't fix economic inequality, it just creates a separate problem. Of course, there are some places where giving some people capabilities allows them to harm the capabilities of others. Genetic testing for jobs, for example. But these concerns are largely off-base because the science doesn't actually back up that genetic testing for jobs would help the employer. It's a problem without an incentive to cause it.
mapt 11y ago
Part 2: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/eugenics-ready-part-ii/ https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/eugenics-ready-part...

38 points by yummyfajitas 11y ago

I think we can have the idea of improving genetics in a high-tech way without all of the Nazi baggage like Social Darwinism, racism, etc. that comes with 'eugenics'.

amelius 11y ago
Well, at least the term "Übermensch" has lost its original meaning, and now seems mostly reserved for a taxi driver.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Sadly, because the original Übermensch was much better than both what Nazis did to it and the taxi drivers.
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  Travis Bickle. Übermensch.
PavlovsCat 11y ago
"eu" literally means "good". So yes, you can use an English word instead, "improving", but that's still eugenics.
jerf 11y ago
The thing is, "Social Darwinism" et al demonstrate that the instant we even thought we might have this power, the Powers That Be instantly started doing things with it that other people found reprehensible, including (using it to justify) wholesale slaughter. If you think people have morally become greatly advanced in the past 100 years, then this might not bother you. But you would also be operating in a regime of aggressively blind faith, because the evidence for that claim is exactly inverted. If, on the other hand, you don't believe that, you might spare some thought for the last time this was popular. And, I mean this entirely seriously, you should seriously take a moment to wonder whether you will be deemed undesirable in any exciting new order of these sorts of things. There is ABSOLUTELY NO NATURAL LAW that your ideological allies will be the ones who get this power. Not even being part of the dominant ideology today shields you from being on the dominant ideology's shit list 20 years from now. To a great extent, it is rational to make sure nobody gets these ideas because you, personally, ilaksh (and jerf) may well discover that you are on the receiving end of the 21st century nastiness. (How many of the 20th century's victims were individually actually on the government's side, right up until they were being slaughtered?)
- caskance 11y ago
  Or we accept that the net good that will happen is so great that it's okay even for my ideological enemies to have this power, just so long as SOMEONE does. Lots of people would admit this of space travel. Eugenics is closer to the border line.
  - jerf 11y ago
    You're begging the question. We have no great assurance that the net will be good, for any given definition of good, including yours, and certainly not for all of them simultaneously.
    - caskance 11y ago
      We have no assurances of anything in life.
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y ago
  Some country somewhere is going to legalize this. Their citizens will have IQs several standard deviations higher than ours. Dr. Steven Hsu seems to think IQs far higher than 180 (before renorming) are very possible. All countries will be forced to allow (or even subsidize) genetic intelligence augmentation. This is the nature of the incentives that will develop. We have very little choice in the matter. Any country with reservations will become a cognitive backwater, whose intellectuals will be routinely out-performed by grade-school children. From my perspective, it is tragic that some children are born with brains that cannot understand basic arithmetic. It is equally tragic that most are born with brains that cannot understand advanced physics. This technology will allow us to remedy a good portion of our ignorance. It should be embraced. Iodizing salt increased average IQ in many regions by a standard deviation. Reducing lead pollution about 8 more on top of this. Were these great evils? Why is removing deleterious mutations?

SCHiM 11y ago

While I understand the problems that one might have with induced genetic differences between classes (that would be inevitable given a capitalists approach to consumer eugenics) I've never understood the moral problem with tinkering with DNA itself (as opposed to the consequences of tinkering, as stated above). The fact that one might have personal reasons to dislike or abstain from genetic editing does not mean that eugenics are immoral for the rest of the population. Perhaps it's because of how people identify themselves. Most of my friends identify themselves with the 'voice' they hear in their heads, their thoughts and personalities, as do I. My body is more of a vessel and while it's part of me it's not 'me' in any way that matters for my identity. I wouldn't mind tuning a few bits and pieces here and there...

guard-of-terra 11y ago
There's two options: Either genetical improvement will be only available to top 0,5% (this way nothing changes, they're already separated from the rest of us, we don't interact) Or it will be available to top 70% (middle class) In both cases there's no scary divide. We could have scary divide if this option was only available to 10% population, but economically that's unrealistic. Talking about developed countries, of course.
- arbitrage 11y ago
  Those are some pretty impressive fake numbers you pulled out of thin air, there. Please try to keep comments to the realm of reality. Just making things up doesn't move the discussion forward.
  - guard-of-terra 11y ago
    Some numbers are better than no numbers. I'm ready to hear your numbers. You also behave rude. Modern USA as a country is based on premise that anybody can afford to buy a car. I don't see why society can't be based on premise that anybody can afford eugenics for their children.
    - 11y ago

cpfohl 11y ago

I never read to the end of the article, because as soon as the 'critics warn about designer babies' line came up I stopped reading. It's a long, long way between "preventing disease by manipulating someone's genes" and "deciding you really wanted a blonde baby". As someone who lost his brother to a genetic disease it sort of pisses me off to hear people try and tell people in my family's shoes that we're on a slippery slope to 'designer babies' when all we want is to keep our family member from slowly dying of a disease with symptoms like Alzheimer's at age 20. If "designer babies" is the price for cures like that, we should gladly pay it. This from a pretty conservative guy, esp. on life issues.

matthewmacleod 11y ago
You should have continued reading in that case, because it's not like that's the sole point of discussion. Dismissing that argument out of hand is disingenuous. I absolutely, fully support no-holds-barred consideration of all the viewpoints involved here – 'designer babies' is a very real issue that we absolutely must think about in the scientific, social and ethical sense (like basically every bit of science fiction touches on).
- Taek 11y ago
  Designer babies represent the potential to step forward as a human race. Genetic manipulation can lead to stronger hearts, better immune systems, bigger working memory, etc, etc. In the nature vs. nurture debate, surely people can at least admit that genetics form an absolutely critical foundation. We can stop disease, and we can create children who will be better equipped to tackle tomorrows problems. The education system has very similar goals. It's not a sin for a wealthy family to drop tons of money on private schools, tutoring, and other expensive methods of getting their child ahead. But as soon as genetics are involved, it's a problem that invokes images of nazi's and irrecoverably widening income gaps.
  - creshal 11y ago
    > It's not a sin for a wealthy family to drop tons of money on private schools, tutoring, and other expensive methods of getting their child ahead. Maybe not to the right wing. But to the left wing?

RodericDay 11y ago

Funny, I just started a re-read of "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley last night. "Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able …"

guard-of-terra 11y ago

I think we should be aiming for major positive scenario. We don't have much choice, otherwise genetic malfunctions will get us sooner or later. The way we're having children now (few, low child mortality) is a way to breed genetic defects.

Ygg2 11y ago
On the other hand, genetic malfunctions: A) Can lead to interesting discoveries B) Can have paradoxical effects - e.g. muscle degeneration in our ancestors lead to our weaker bit and consequently bigger brains, since skull could expand more because the muscles were weaker. http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.html http://www.nature.com/news/2004/040322/full/news040322-9.htm... Imagine if you don't want your child to have ADHD, and you screen for it. But it turns out that people with ADHD hold a mutation to even higher IQ.
- caskance 11y ago
  Then we will either tolerate the associated defect or find a way to achieve the benefit without it.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  You're talking about human evolution. Human evolution won't work if we have almost zero child mortality and roughly two children per women. All we can do in this configuration is damage control. UPD: This configuration is also prone to splitting humanity into several casts just by biased marriage practices.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
So in other words, we will have to do eugenics anyway - either high-tech by direct DNA manipulation, or the traditional way of having a lot of children and then getting rid of the weakest.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago
  Yeah, that sums it up. Both might lead to civilization failure and new stone age, but in my opinion runaway genetic defects have more chance of causing this

legulere 11y ago

Isn't screening sperm donors for inheritable diseases already eugenics?

VLM 11y ago
Its an interesting scalability problem where women not in rape or arranged marriage cultures have been screening sperm donors for inheritable characteristics for quite some time, depending on where they live. The stereotypical sci fi dystopia outcomes don't resemble "American women, turned up to 11" as much as they should, and also don't seem to resemble whatever delta you'd expect to see between populations with different mating standards. Or put another way, if GE and eugenics rants are a century old thinly veiled anti-feminism rant full of codewords and dog whistles, it doesn't seem to match actual outcomes very well, to the point it can't be taken seriously anymore. Its possible that some reversion to the norm signal is stronger than the limited fine tuning individual women can perform when they select mates, and that reversion to the norm effect could be overwhelmed by advanced enough genetic engineering. Possibly. Or possibly not. Usually in soft sci fi and journalistic fiction, genetic engineering and eugenics has been a place holder for cut and paste style plot line of a comic book villain revival of the nazi party. Now that plot line can be interesting as contemporary social commentary or an alt hist if well written, but using genetic engineering as a stage piece is super old and tired and should be retired. Fiction needs a new macguffin to write about nazis or genetic engineering. And at that point somewhat more realistic speculative hard sci fi or predictive social science can intelligently discuss somewhat more realistic predictions, a little less comic book villain.
caskance 11y ago
If you want to be pedantic, having sex with people you find attractive is already eugenics.

gglitch 11y ago

What's with the weird righteous indignation on behalf of "moral conservatives?" Has no conservative ever advanced a eugenic cause?

yummyfajitas 11y ago
Promotion of eugenics has primarily been a liberal cause, historically. Supporters include progressives like Roosevelt and Hoover, opponents were conservatives like Chesterton and the Catholic church. "Building a better man" was a major tool of socialists, and it wasn't restricted to education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critic... In fact, the legacy of this exists today - note that the Communist party of China is the main practitioner of eugenics today (see Yao Ming). It's only in the modern era of identity politics, inequality as a real concern, and racial spoils systems that liberals have come to oppose it. If we acknowledge that intelligence is genetically determined, then we might be forced to recognize the tradeoff between individual fairness and statistically equal distribution of spoils. We might also be forced to acknowledge that inequality is a result of inborn meritorious traits (intelligence, conscientiousness) rather than some external unfairness.
Tuna-Fish 11y ago
While there were plenty of individual conservatives who advocated for it, pre-war it was mostly a progressive cause. It's hard to understand now, but society back then was quite different than today, and the political divisions of the time were also different. Francis Galton had done some early psychometry, and published his results claiming that the English upper class was the upper class because they were genetically superior to the lower classes. This result was widely accepted by both the progressives and the conservatives. The difference between the left and the right was not opposition to the principle of Social Darwinism, but just what should be done about it. The progressives advocated for eugenics to lift the lower classes from the 'genetic deficit' they were born into, while the traditional conservatives believed that this was unnecessary and that the situation as it existed was the natural order that shouldn't be fixed. Neither side would fit at all into modern common morality.
wtbob 11y ago

Gatsky 11y ago

There are some pretty big assumptions leading to the hypothesis that increasing mutation burden will render us all dullards in a few generations ('dysgenic fertility'). Reading the latest paper by the guy the author keeps citing, Michael Woodley, I'm astounded at the ad hoc nature of the arguments [1]. Eg - Woodley cites a study that did an analysis showing visual reaction time has been increasing over time [2]. This study compared measurements performed in in 1800, to 1941. Woodley has been citing this article over and over again [3], to the point where the author of the original article wrote a letter to the journal 'Intelligence' saying that Woodley is over interpreting his data [4]. Woodley's conclusions have also been criticised elsewhere [5]. Woodley also tries to justify his 'dysgenic fertility' theory by saying that there are now fewer geniuses in the world because we aren't discovering amazing things like quantum mechanics as frequently - which is clearly complete nonsense. I would be highly sceptical of this based on the evidence presented. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4404736/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4404736/ [2] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20377125/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20377125/ [3] http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?es_sm=93&um=1&ie=UTF-8&lr&cites=12752224765467895864 http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?es_sm=93&um=1&ie=UTF-8&... [4] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613001256 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613... [5] http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yury_Dodonov/publication/257310948_Is_there_any_evidence_of_historical_slowing_of_reaction_time_No_unless_we_compare_apples_and_oranges/links/0a85e52d77fa6040b1000000.pdf http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yury_Dodonov/publication...

crusso 11y ago

It's a bit confusing that the term "eugenics" is overloaded. The classic eugenics was about forced breeding or sterilization of individuals or races to produce a "better" society. It was involuntary and racist. The "eugenics" of this article is about rewriting our own programming in a voluntary and targeted way. It seems that a new term would be helpful in avoiding the negative connotations of the word "eugenics".

logfromblammo 11y ago

All we need to do is modify an entire generation of kids to enhance their ethical development, and then grant them exclusive control over the technology when they grow up. It's a foolproof plan. What could possibly go wrong? ~

gyardley 11y ago

We need to worry about 'designer babies' about as much as we need to worry about 'hostile AI' and other far-removed science-fiction concepts. In reality, in-vitro fertilization is a lengthy, complicated, painful, expensive and emotionally wrenching slog that often fails. The idea of choosing between embryos is laughable when so often you're hoping for one, just one, that actually has a viable shot. Anyone who would object to a little screening that helps prevent a woman from finally getting pregnant only to go through a miscarriage a few months later is a monster.

trey-jones 11y ago

As a parent of a child that was born with a "genetic defect" I feel qualified to express myself on this issue. Ethical and moral questions aside, the only question that I need to answer seems to be, "If there were a treatment available that could have spared my daughter the medical issues that she has experienced and will experience in the future (without introducing others), would we have done it?" Of course we would have. Parents want their children to be able to experience life as a "normal" person, and without the distress that lifelong medical conditions bring. If the risks and side-effects are as small as this article seems to suggest, then it's a no brainer.

copsarebastards 11y ago

It's worth noting that there's a huge difference between the eugenics of the past and the eugenics enabled by modern IVF and other genetic technologies. Eugenics of the past primarily reduced the capabilities and rights of people, while the technologies described in the article increase capabilities. Eugenics in the past resulted in discrimination and genocide, but modern eugenics is simply allowing parents to choose their child's genes. I don't see any issue with this. Others have pointed out that this technology will be available to the rich first, but this is a problem with economics, not with the technologies. Economic inequality has gigantic, far-reaching concerns, many of which have nothing to do with genetics. We should fix economic inequality, not its symptoms. Hampering genetic research because it exacerbates a symptom of economic inequality doesn't fix economic inequality, it just creates a separate problem. Of course, there are some places where giving some people capabilities allows them to harm the capabilities of others. Genetic testing for jobs, for example. But these concerns are largely off-base because the science doesn't actually back up that genetic testing for jobs would help the employer. It's a problem without an incentive to cause it.

mapt 11y ago

Part 2: https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/eugenics-ready-part-ii/ https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2015/06/eugenics-ready-part...