3 ms·

> Evolution naturally tends in that direction. A lot of what people find attractive about each other are personalities (and only some traits are heritable, not

> Evolution naturally tends in that direction. A lot of what people find attractive about each other are personalities (and only some traits are heritable, not entire types), and artifacts of how people were raised or adapted to how they were raised. > Up to a point. There's still a pretty strong correlation between what different people find attractive, and there are certainly things that almost everyone agrees are unattractive. Of course, though moreso the latter. Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations.

whythre 4y ago
> Of course, though moreso the latter. Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations. Thank you. Having preferences =/= eugenics.
lmm 4y ago
> Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations. That's circular logic. The whole point of the argument is that eugenics (as it is normally understood) is of a piece with regular assortive mating; people look for good aspects in a partner all the time, and there's no clear sharp line between that and what we normally call eugenics.
- anonymouskimmer 4y ago
  https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics > The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by British explorer and natural scientist Francis Galton, who, influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, advocated a system that would allow “the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” Eugenics is a societal phenomenon. Which is why arranged marriages belong in the eugenics camp. Assortative mating from free choice is not eugenics, regardless of the outcome over many generations.
  - cm2187 4y ago
    I think it's the opposite. In an arranged marriage the spouses are selected by their family irrespective of the merits of the kids involved. Free choice means you will select the spouse based on the merit of the spouse. I think it's much more likely to lead to gene selection. If beautiful people marry beautiful people and ugly people marry ugly people, you effectively get a sort of breeding (I know we don't like to use these animal terms but that's kind of what it is). Now you can refuse to call a natural preference "eugenics" but the reality is that you are still expressing a preference for some characters that you think are desirable and your progeniture is likely to inherit some of those characters. This was of course a lot less prevalent in a society that lived in small villages with very little mobility (and therefore very little mating choice), which is why I think it's a process that only kicked in at the XX century. My guess is that we will see the effect in this century. Works with dogs, should work with humans.
    - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
      Everything you say makes sense, but none of it has to do with eugenics. It has to do with assortative mating. Eugenics is about socially driven desirable trait selection (where a trait can be what kind of family you come from). The social is the most important part. Not the trait selection. Individual trait selection allows a multitude of traits to thrive. Social trait selection tends not to.
      - AstralStorm 4y ago
        Assortative in biological terms pertains to some biological traits. However, people more often assortative mate within thier social group. So you get an intersection of both but with the social factor vastly enhanced compared to biological. You cannot easily have children with someone you never met, after all, barring IVF with an unknown donor.
- chii 4y ago
  i think eugenics has to have an external influence on the mating choice, rather than just pure self-selection (this external influence might be inorganic, like propaganda, or an actual director choosing the mates). It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics, albeit mild and likely not harmful.
  - lmm 4y ago
    > It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics, albeit mild and likely not harmful. That's more a case of dysgenics; it reduces genetic diversity which tends to make it easier for hereditary diseases etc. to appear (particularly if it results in a small dating pool e.g. immigrant communities in second countries). My back-of-the-envelope guess is that that tendency is probably doing more direct harm than anything else we might worry about (e.g. class segregation).

whythre 4y ago

> Of course, though moreso the latter. Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations. Thank you. Having preferences =/= eugenics.

lmm 4y ago

> Eugenics, as a term, to have meaning, is an extreme of breeding behavior. It isn't just regular assortative mating among local populations. That's circular logic. The whole point of the argument is that eugenics (as it is normally understood) is of a piece with regular assortive mating; people look for good aspects in a partner all the time, and there's no clear sharp line between that and what we normally call eugenics.

anonymouskimmer 4y ago
https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics > The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by British explorer and natural scientist Francis Galton, who, influenced by Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, advocated a system that would allow “the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” Eugenics is a societal phenomenon. Which is why arranged marriages belong in the eugenics camp. Assortative mating from free choice is not eugenics, regardless of the outcome over many generations.
- cm2187 4y ago
  I think it's the opposite. In an arranged marriage the spouses are selected by their family irrespective of the merits of the kids involved. Free choice means you will select the spouse based on the merit of the spouse. I think it's much more likely to lead to gene selection. If beautiful people marry beautiful people and ugly people marry ugly people, you effectively get a sort of breeding (I know we don't like to use these animal terms but that's kind of what it is). Now you can refuse to call a natural preference "eugenics" but the reality is that you are still expressing a preference for some characters that you think are desirable and your progeniture is likely to inherit some of those characters. This was of course a lot less prevalent in a society that lived in small villages with very little mobility (and therefore very little mating choice), which is why I think it's a process that only kicked in at the XX century. My guess is that we will see the effect in this century. Works with dogs, should work with humans.
  - anonymouskimmer 4y ago
    Everything you say makes sense, but none of it has to do with eugenics. It has to do with assortative mating. Eugenics is about socially driven desirable trait selection (where a trait can be what kind of family you come from). The social is the most important part. Not the trait selection. Individual trait selection allows a multitude of traits to thrive. Social trait selection tends not to.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Assortative in biological terms pertains to some biological traits. However, people more often assortative mate within thier social group. So you get an intersection of both but with the social factor vastly enhanced compared to biological. You cannot easily have children with someone you never met, after all, barring IVF with an unknown donor.
chii 4y ago
i think eugenics has to have an external influence on the mating choice, rather than just pure self-selection (this external influence might be inorganic, like propaganda, or an actual director choosing the mates). It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics, albeit mild and likely not harmful.
- lmm 4y ago
  > It's a spectrum as well - not a binary choice. Some cultures prefer their children to marry within culture, and this expectation is set by the parents/grandparents etc; i consider this a form of eugenics, albeit mild and likely not harmful. That's more a case of dysgenics; it reduces genetic diversity which tends to make it easier for hereditary diseases etc. to appear (particularly if it results in a small dating pool e.g. immigrant communities in second countries). My back-of-the-envelope guess is that that tendency is probably doing more direct harm than anything else we might worry about (e.g. class segregation).