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The argument against eugenics is not "it doesn't work even in theory."

by BigTTYGothGF 7mo ago

like_any_other 7mo ago
You think it maybe applies to more than just eugenics? Perhaps to the dogma that we are all the same?
- rectang 7mo ago
  In fact, punctuated equilibrium is quite compatible with what you describe as "the dogma that we are all the same". Punctuated equilibrium theory was proposed in the early 1970s by Stephen Jay Gould, who also wrote The Mismeasure of Man, a critique of biological determinism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
  - like_any_other 7mo ago
    Yet punctuated equilibrium does not apply to cabbage, dog breeds, wolf varieties, and countless others. There are 37 subspecies of wolf, 10 of brown bear (yes, only brown bear. Other bears have their own subspecies each), and 47 red fox subspecies. Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows. > biological determinism That term itself is a strawman - the argument is not that biology and genes fully determine behavior and life outcomes, merely that they affect it. As an aside, not only was Mismeasure of Man debunked (the skull measurements were not biased [1,2]), attacking craniometry in the era of genetics is like attacking alchemy. He should spend his time attacking PCA plots of the human genetic distribution [3]. Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that. It's sad that 166 years after On the Origin of Species, we still haven't accepted that we are not immune to natural selection. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Reassessing_Morton's_skull_measurements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Reassess... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_component_analysis_of_human_genetic_diversity https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_compon...
    - BigTTYGothGF 7mo ago
      > Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that. That's certainly one hypothesis, but here's an alternative one that I'd like you to consider: he's not doing that because he died in 2002. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould) > Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows Extant bears have never invented the wheel, wolves spend more time eating horses than domesticating them, and despite what you might see on certain corners of the internet there has never been a vulpine Columbus. (To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals)
      - like_any_other 7mo ago
        > he died in 2002 Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza measured genetic differences between human populations using the fixation index in 1994 [1]. He was not ignorant of genetics, he just chose to shift attention to craniometry instead. And even now that we have far better tools and knowledge, people choose to focus on outdated arguments instead, because they give the answers they want. E.g. by bringing up Gould when his work is no longer relevant. > To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose? Clearly humans don't (or haven't up to very recently) moved around enough to even them out. You think those are the only traits that haven't been evened out? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Genetic_distances_in_human_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Genetic_distanc...
        BigTTYGothGF 7mo ago
        > By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose? Genetic drift, mostly, with some founder effect mixed in.
- deleted 7mo ago
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rectang 7mo ago
Exactly. It seems to be a law of HN that any discussion of genetics descends into a debate about the existence of übermensch and untermensch. :(
- like_any_other 7mo ago
  It's a law of discussion of human genetics that they are always smeared as about superiority. We can conserve and differentiate between wolf subspecies without being called Eurasian wolf supremacists. So clearly this 'misunderstanding' is deliberate.

The argument against eugenics is not "it doesn't work even in theory."

like_any_other 7mo ago

You think it maybe applies to more than just eugenics? Perhaps to the dogma that we are all the same?

rectang 7mo ago
In fact, punctuated equilibrium is quite compatible with what you describe as "the dogma that we are all the same". Punctuated equilibrium theory was proposed in the early 1970s by Stephen Jay Gould, who also wrote The Mismeasure of Man, a critique of biological determinism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punctuated_equilibrium
- like_any_other 7mo ago
  Yet punctuated equilibrium does not apply to cabbage, dog breeds, wolf varieties, and countless others. There are 37 subspecies of wolf, 10 of brown bear (yes, only brown bear. Other bears have their own subspecies each), and 47 red fox subspecies. Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows. > biological determinism That term itself is a strawman - the argument is not that biology and genes fully determine behavior and life outcomes, merely that they affect it. As an aside, not only was Mismeasure of Man debunked (the skull measurements were not biased [1,2]), attacking craniometry in the era of genetics is like attacking alchemy. He should spend his time attacking PCA plots of the human genetic distribution [3]. Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that. It's sad that 166 years after On the Origin of Species, we still haven't accepted that we are not immune to natural selection. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Reassessing_Morton's_skull_measurements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man#Reassess... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html [3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_component_analysis_of_human_genetic_diversity https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Principal_compon...
  - BigTTYGothGF 7mo ago
    > Of course he does not, because he would prefer people remained ignorant of that. That's certainly one hypothesis, but here's an alternative one that I'd like you to consider: he's not doing that because he died in 2002. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould) > Man alone is the great exception, unaffected by geographical separation and restricted gene flows Extant bears have never invented the wheel, wolves spend more time eating horses than domesticating them, and despite what you might see on certain corners of the internet there has never been a vulpine Columbus. (To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals)
    - like_any_other 7mo ago
      > he died in 2002 Cavalli-Sforza, Menozzi and Piazza measured genetic differences between human populations using the fixation index in 1994 [1]. He was not ignorant of genetics, he just chose to shift attention to craniometry instead. And even now that we have far better tools and knowledge, people choose to focus on outdated arguments instead, because they give the answers they want. E.g. by bringing up Gould when his work is no longer relevant. > To clarify, humans move around a whole lot more than most animals By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose? Clearly humans don't (or haven't up to very recently) moved around enough to even them out. You think those are the only traits that haven't been evened out? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Genetic_distances_in_human_populations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixation_index#Genetic_distanc...
      - BigTTYGothGF 7mo ago
        > By what mechanism do you think the visible physiological distinctions between human populations arose? Genetic drift, mostly, with some founder effect mixed in.
deleted 7mo ago
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deleted 7mo ago

[deleted]

rectang 7mo ago

Exactly. It seems to be a law of HN that any discussion of genetics descends into a debate about the existence of übermensch and untermensch. :(

like_any_other 7mo ago
It's a law of discussion of human genetics that they are always smeared as about superiority. We can conserve and differentiate between wolf subspecies without being called Eurasian wolf supremacists. So clearly this 'misunderstanding' is deliberate.