4 ms·

I mean, if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing), and this is scientifically vali

I mean, if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing), and this is scientifically valid, but, of course, evil. As far as lobotomy, I don't know, but it seems to be widely discredited inasmuch as it didn't achieve its aims (or if it did, the aims themselves were highly questionable) Given the title, lobotomy is an apt reference "The originator of the procedure, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 1949 for the "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses"," - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
> I mean, if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing), and this is scientifically valid, but, of course, evil. What's scientifically valid about that? What part of the scientific process is being utilized? What hypothesis is being tested? If you're implying that people would start to be taller because we are culling short people, then you're talking about "artificial selection", not "eugenics". People who believe that there are groups of humans that are inferior or superior based on genetic differences would love for you to conflate the two concepts because that gets them closer to their political goals that have historically resulted in unimaginable human suffering.
- itishappy 2mo ago
  > if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing) This is a testable hypotheses. What's actually stopping us? Science is not the issue here.
- CalRobert 2mo ago
  I guess I misunderstood the meaning of the term eugenics because I thought it was very much intentional artificial selection applied to humans. To reiterate - I do not support this! I think it's evil! but isn't that basically what it is?
  - Alpha3031 2mo ago
    If someone says just the word, it's hard to say if they mean just artificial selection, which can and is done to some extent today via genetic counselling by medical geneticists, coercive selection at a society-wide level advocated for by a certain social movement, and the social movement itself, which certainly held some pseudoscientific beliefs regarding how if we just did this and that, we could achieve genetic perfection and cure all social ills and all that. All of those things get called eugenics. It's like how there's a difference between the medical study of nutrition and how some social media influencers will tell you if you eat X, Y and Z these are superfoods that will mean you will never get a cold for the rest of your life and it will cure cancer or some other nonsense.
  - datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
    I agree mostly with the other commenter that it’s like nutritionist vs health influencer. But I’d also say that there’s an inherent bias to the word “eugenics” fundamentally: the implication that there are objectively good genetics and bad genetics for humans. In the extreme case there are genetic defects that cause stillbirth and put the mother’s life at severe risk, but this is almost never what is meant by usage of the word “eugenics”. Again, to conflate the two concepts is useful only to people who have caused immense human suffering.
RGamma 2mo ago
> or stop them from reproducing It may not be possible to breed any trait to any distribution one would like. For body size, maybe, also depending on maternal nutrition. But apparently there is (and anthropologists think always has been) a certain percentage of people with schizophrenia even though it carries a severe reproductive disadvantage. Similarly, it may well be that personality always approaches a certain distribution like a random experiment. The culling mechanism would work in any case, of course.
Der_Einzige 2mo ago
"6 feet, 6 figures, 6 inches" is unironically eugenics.
- CalRobert 2mo ago
  It was originally 6 pack I believe… the phrase itself evolves

datsci_est_2015 2mo ago

> I mean, if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing), and this is scientifically valid, but, of course, evil. What's scientifically valid about that? What part of the scientific process is being utilized? What hypothesis is being tested? If you're implying that people would start to be taller because we are culling short people, then you're talking about "artificial selection", not "eugenics". People who believe that there are groups of humans that are inferior or superior based on genetic differences would love for you to conflate the two concepts because that gets them closer to their political goals that have historically resulted in unimaginable human suffering.

itishappy 2mo ago
> if we wanted every human on Earth to be over 6' tall, we could just cull the short ones (or stop them from reproducing) This is a testable hypotheses. What's actually stopping us? Science is not the issue here.
CalRobert 2mo ago
I guess I misunderstood the meaning of the term eugenics because I thought it was very much intentional artificial selection applied to humans. To reiterate - I do not support this! I think it's evil! but isn't that basically what it is?
- Alpha3031 2mo ago
  If someone says just the word, it's hard to say if they mean just artificial selection, which can and is done to some extent today via genetic counselling by medical geneticists, coercive selection at a society-wide level advocated for by a certain social movement, and the social movement itself, which certainly held some pseudoscientific beliefs regarding how if we just did this and that, we could achieve genetic perfection and cure all social ills and all that. All of those things get called eugenics. It's like how there's a difference between the medical study of nutrition and how some social media influencers will tell you if you eat X, Y and Z these are superfoods that will mean you will never get a cold for the rest of your life and it will cure cancer or some other nonsense.
- datsci_est_2015 2mo ago
  I agree mostly with the other commenter that it’s like nutritionist vs health influencer. But I’d also say that there’s an inherent bias to the word “eugenics” fundamentally: the implication that there are objectively good genetics and bad genetics for humans. In the extreme case there are genetic defects that cause stillbirth and put the mother’s life at severe risk, but this is almost never what is meant by usage of the word “eugenics”. Again, to conflate the two concepts is useful only to people who have caused immense human suffering.

RGamma 2mo ago

> or stop them from reproducing It may not be possible to breed any trait to any distribution one would like. For body size, maybe, also depending on maternal nutrition. But apparently there is (and anthropologists think always has been) a certain percentage of people with schizophrenia even though it carries a severe reproductive disadvantage. Similarly, it may well be that personality always approaches a certain distribution like a random experiment. The culling mechanism would work in any case, of course.

Der_Einzige 2mo ago

"6 feet, 6 figures, 6 inches" is unironically eugenics.

CalRobert 2mo ago
It was originally 6 pack I believe… the phrase itself evolves