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You are erecting a strawman. When scientists express concern towards a misapplication of a result, such as eugenic policies that would derive from the identifi

You are erecting a strawman. When scientists express concern towards a misapplication of a result, such as eugenic policies that would derive from the identification of variants associated with whatever trait, they don't just think it is morally abhorrent, they also think it is wrong, misguided and fruitless. When He raised controversy with his CRISPR-engineered twins, it wasn't just because he bypassed all ethics standards, it was also because what he did was reckless and did not in fact protect the twins from all forms of HIV. When evoluyionary biologists express skepticism towards claims made by behavioral "geneticists" or "evolutionary" psychologists, they are in fact pointing out the shoddy assumptions and flawed methodology, independently of whether the conclusions are morally abhorrent or not (they often are, but it's orthogonal to the point). As strange as it may sound, the entire scientific community is not in fact conspiring to hide inconvenient right-wing truths from the common people, and if they do happen to overwhelmingly lean left that does not entail the existence of such a shadowy cabal.

ZhuanXia 7y ago
The gains from engineering human capital are so large they will be plucked. Screaming “eugenics” is not going to change that. One slur does not an argument make. Gains of several standard deviations in mental traits, including intelligence, are looking very plausible with minimal technological progress. We are well past the speculative phase. As we live in a competitive technological landscape and China, Korea and India do not share our taboos against genetic enhancement, we will be forced to embrace this, too. Tar and feathering human enhancement as “eugenics” worked when human enhancement was not possible. We no longer live in that world. The signal is no longer cheap. Whatever nations fail to embrace embryo selection, iterated embryo selection, and eventually genetic engineering for intelligence will find themselves as children, competing in a technological landscape they are too dull to understand. Like Lysenkoism of old, our modern mental Lysenkoism will become unsustainable. We would be wise to discard it now.
- throwawaytkgll 7y ago
  The problem with "eugenics" isn't that it's morally wrong, it's that it's just wrong. He Jiankui screwed up royally and endangered the life of two girls without even giving them immunity to AIDS. If there was a safe way to do "eugenics" without detrimental and unintended effects such as causing cancer due to CRISPR side effects or disrupting hitherto unknown metabolic pathways, believe me we wouldn't have waited for China. In fact, in many countries rudimentary forms of "eugenics" already exist - e.g. you're allowed to abort your fetus if it is found to have an extra chromosome. As for "intelligence" selecting for IQ points doesn't make sense. There's little reason to beleive g is anything but an artifact from factor analysis that's completely unsupported by any neurological data or known causal genetic mechanisms, and in fact a g-like measure can be proven to exist for any set of variables that positively correlate with each other regardless of existing causal links among them. The non-additive interactions with the environment are also just too high. Selecting for IQ would just result in random artificial genome drift (beyond the first obvious gains from developmental defects etc. but we sort of already do this). I think there's a real disconnect between how HN techies think about genetics and biology and the actual state of the art - it's much less grandiose than they think. Science is generally boring.
allovernow 7y ago
>As strange as it may sound, the entire scientific community is not in fact conspiring to hide inconvenient right-wing truths from the common people, and if they do happen to overwhelmingly lean left that does not entail the existence of such a shadowy cabal. A one sided, self reinforcing status quo does not require a conspiracy. All it takes is a majority of well meaning researchers to create a self-reinforcing situation wherin research along certain perfectly legitimate avenues is strongly discouraged through emergent social pressure. After spending a decade pursuing a PHD, it's hard to justify sticking your neck out when the consequences are potentially career ending, and the result is that in Western society we effectively shun any discussion of the influence of nature in favor exclusively of nurture. >When evoluyionary biologists express skepticism towards claims made by behavioral "geneticists" or "evolutionary" psychologists, they are in fact pointing out the shoddy assumptions and flawed methodology, independently of whether the conclusions are morally abhorrent or not (they often are, but it's orthogonal to the point). You don't think it strange to have an unquestionable default position where any study showing innate differences among populations is immediately dismissed as having poor methodology when the results are inconvenient? Is this not indicative of a strong institutional bias? Particularly when all of these same puzzle pieces are taken as legitimate when viewed individually in "safe" contexts? For example, no one argues against the existence of the warrior gene, that cat is out of the bag; but any whispers of different effects on genetic subpopulations and people bend over backwards trying to minimize the influence of such a factor on individual behavior [1] while totally ignoring the measurable consequences for distribution statistics. Here's a legitimate potential consequence of ignoring such questions: if it turns out, hypothetically, that a particular subpopulation is more or less likely to be aggressive in tense situations, wouldn't that necessitate an adjustment in policing practices to ensure fairness in the justice system? What about optimization of treatment for psychological conditions like depression? The assumption that human behavior is purely a product of nurture is not supported by a multitude of individual scientific facts, but institutional social bias is such that no reputable institution is willing to unify these factors, even when doing so is likely to produce more optimal outcomes for all of society. While well meaning, this is ultimately bad science potentially underpinning bad social policy.
- sjg007 7y ago

ZhuanXia 7y ago

The gains from engineering human capital are so large they will be plucked. Screaming “eugenics” is not going to change that. One slur does not an argument make. Gains of several standard deviations in mental traits, including intelligence, are looking very plausible with minimal technological progress. We are well past the speculative phase. As we live in a competitive technological landscape and China, Korea and India do not share our taboos against genetic enhancement, we will be forced to embrace this, too. Tar and feathering human enhancement as “eugenics” worked when human enhancement was not possible. We no longer live in that world. The signal is no longer cheap. Whatever nations fail to embrace embryo selection, iterated embryo selection, and eventually genetic engineering for intelligence will find themselves as children, competing in a technological landscape they are too dull to understand. Like Lysenkoism of old, our modern mental Lysenkoism will become unsustainable. We would be wise to discard it now.

throwawaytkgll 7y ago
The problem with "eugenics" isn't that it's morally wrong, it's that it's just wrong. He Jiankui screwed up royally and endangered the life of two girls without even giving them immunity to AIDS. If there was a safe way to do "eugenics" without detrimental and unintended effects such as causing cancer due to CRISPR side effects or disrupting hitherto unknown metabolic pathways, believe me we wouldn't have waited for China. In fact, in many countries rudimentary forms of "eugenics" already exist - e.g. you're allowed to abort your fetus if it is found to have an extra chromosome. As for "intelligence" selecting for IQ points doesn't make sense. There's little reason to beleive g is anything but an artifact from factor analysis that's completely unsupported by any neurological data or known causal genetic mechanisms, and in fact a g-like measure can be proven to exist for any set of variables that positively correlate with each other regardless of existing causal links among them. The non-additive interactions with the environment are also just too high. Selecting for IQ would just result in random artificial genome drift (beyond the first obvious gains from developmental defects etc. but we sort of already do this). I think there's a real disconnect between how HN techies think about genetics and biology and the actual state of the art - it's much less grandiose than they think. Science is generally boring.

allovernow 7y ago

>As strange as it may sound, the entire scientific community is not in fact conspiring to hide inconvenient right-wing truths from the common people, and if they do happen to overwhelmingly lean left that does not entail the existence of such a shadowy cabal. A one sided, self reinforcing status quo does not require a conspiracy. All it takes is a majority of well meaning researchers to create a self-reinforcing situation wherin research along certain perfectly legitimate avenues is strongly discouraged through emergent social pressure. After spending a decade pursuing a PHD, it's hard to justify sticking your neck out when the consequences are potentially career ending, and the result is that in Western society we effectively shun any discussion of the influence of nature in favor exclusively of nurture. >When evoluyionary biologists express skepticism towards claims made by behavioral "geneticists" or "evolutionary" psychologists, they are in fact pointing out the shoddy assumptions and flawed methodology, independently of whether the conclusions are morally abhorrent or not (they often are, but it's orthogonal to the point). You don't think it strange to have an unquestionable default position where any study showing innate differences among populations is immediately dismissed as having poor methodology when the results are inconvenient? Is this not indicative of a strong institutional bias? Particularly when all of these same puzzle pieces are taken as legitimate when viewed individually in "safe" contexts? For example, no one argues against the existence of the warrior gene, that cat is out of the bag; but any whispers of different effects on genetic subpopulations and people bend over backwards trying to minimize the influence of such a factor on individual behavior [1] while totally ignoring the measurable consequences for distribution statistics. Here's a legitimate potential consequence of ignoring such questions: if it turns out, hypothetically, that a particular subpopulation is more or less likely to be aggressive in tense situations, wouldn't that necessitate an adjustment in policing practices to ensure fairness in the justice system? What about optimization of treatment for psychological conditions like depression? The assumption that human behavior is purely a product of nurture is not supported by a multitude of individual scientific facts, but institutional social bias is such that no reputable institution is willing to unify these factors, even when doing so is likely to produce more optimal outcomes for all of society. While well meaning, this is ultimately bad science potentially underpinning bad social policy.

sjg007 7y ago