What are the problems with eugenics (other than possible moral problems)? Don't genes matter enough? Sounds like a reasonable idea to me, that we would try to increase the amount of positive traits (empathy, intelligence, happiness, beauty...) by only making new people from sperm and egg cells of people with those traits. Or perhaps letting everybody have one own child first, because it's such an important thing for us to get an own child.

Eugenics could solve the problem that stupid people reproduce more, while also hopefully increasing people's happiness (by fitting better to modern environment like cities) and making people care more about each other, animals and future generations.

I know there's the stigma because of nazis and "unnaturality", but I think we should try to get over that if it means we can solve other huge problems.

Below is an interesting article on the future of genetics. I'm shocked the nytimes published this. The times, they are ah changing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11dna.html

There's no problem with it other than "possible moral problems", but those possible moral problems are significant.

You don't see a problem with having a committee of judges that decides based on their standards who should be allowed to reproduce? And how would they enforce it? Forced sterilization? Forced abortion? Forced sterilization was actually a policy (or at least a legal option often carried out) of many western countries in the early 1900s and I for one would not like to see it return.

Despite that it still sounds unpleasant.

I don't see a stigma against forced sterilization as a bad thing. You don't even have to make a slippery slope argument. But while the nazi incident shouldn't necsarrily be a reason (and I tend not to agree with slippery slope arguments) against supporting any sort of eugenics, it is still important to remember history and how eugenic attitudes led to forced euthenasia of many people and eventually leading to the holocaust. That is we have to be careful not to repeat past mistakes.

The moral implications are enormous, but for some reason you wish to put those aside. OK...how about the fact that narrowing the gene pool significantly could actually lead to unexpected genetic defects. A diverse gene pool is overall healthy for a population to have; if the gene pool becomes too narrow than unlikely genetic anomalies might pop up more often.

I don't know how big the gene pool would need to be, but with 6 billion people on this planet, I think it probably wouldn't be a big problem.

foal,
how about just criminalizing making a second own child? I don't see need for forced sterilization. Forced abortion, maybe, depending on how early it is (I don't have an opinion on abortion really).

I know it sounds unpleasant, but I see a LOT of potential in it.

Well, if we are ignoring moral problems, the biggest practical hurdle is essentially the mouse/snake/mongoose/gorilla problem.

But remember that you are eliminating the genes of "stupid people." You might also end up getting rid of a lot of traits, effectively limiting the gene pool much more.

If you are considering this, watch the movie Gattaca, and tell me if you still think it's a good idea.

Good point, then watch U-571 and maybe Event Horizon.

And what is this problem?

I think it's from the Simpsons. The solutions to the problem (introducing predators) turn out to produce new problems.

Ah, that old chestnut.

you cannot just cast the moral issues aside, particularly when they are at the crux of the argument against eugenics .

but the beautiful part is, when wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Depends on exactly what mean by eugenics.

Does not seem reasonably to ignore the moral problems.

Seems like a disastrous idea. The form of policing that would be need to implement these rules would far out do any imagined befits. I expect there would also be practical problems with implementation due to popular resistance.

Why is that a problem?

Yikes! I’m 180º on this one.

I don’t see the other huge problems.

The biggest problem is that it is

1.) Extremely oppressive.

But ok, you said we should disregard that. The remaining problems are:

2.) It is illogical. It is based on assumptions that are at best misguided.
3.) It is impractical. Because enforcing it means totalitarity, which has a tendency to both fail spectacularly and be very expensive.
4.) It has severe implications. Eugenics in the past has led to some fairly bad political practices and some pretty stupid beliefs.
5.) It is biased. Eugenics is usually not a result of some sound scientific insight but more a confirmation of some naive prejudice.
6.) It doesn't solve the problem it pretends to solve. You still end up with someone deciding who gets to reproduce based on partially subjective criteria.
7.) It makes hazy assumptions. Eugenics assumes that the answer to a rather complex problem lies in only one place.
8.) It isn't realistic. Eugenics even if we assumed it had no flaws would only work in an completely idealistic setting.

It is most ways like the 'benevolent dictator' idea. Intellectual dung which someone with severe bias tries to make look good.

Are you insane? Have you got any understanding of evolution? Don't you know that it goes by trial and error, that it is the combination of genes that matters and that genii are born sometimes to moronic parents?

What you are suggesting is a weakening of the gene pool!

I think China did this for awhile if not even to the present time. Welcome, Comrade!!

It's all about morality.

Modern abstract and especially scientific thought places man as a fifth wheel in thinking and therefore finds no connections to the world. This is the road to "no morality" in life. All of the world(s) are a moral tone poem. Look out into nature and this can be revealed to an artistic perception. Man is a part of this "moral tonality", a part of nature even though he disassociates himself in thought from nature which in reality is his very being.

Tame Deuces summed it up.

"The world needs ditch diggers too."

Eugenics should not be a mandatory social policy enforced by the government for reasons other posters have already stated (mainly, genetic diversity makes a species hearty and adaptable). Lifting research restrictions so that scientists can see what happens when they clone people or otherwise mess with genes would probably result in a lot of good things being discovered. Granted, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet, but I am okay with that.

done well into the 70's or even 80's 90's for ******s in some states in US I'm pretty sure.

I mean, tuskegee was only exposed in what, the sixties?

also hitler got all that eugenics stuff from movement in britain/US.

Well also it's not really the stupid / lazy that cause all the problems. Most of the time it's intelligent people that are screwing everything up... see Karl Rove, Karl Marx... wait maybe it's just the Karls.

Err tuskegee was not forced sterilization. And I'm pretty sure it ended in the 60s. There may have been a few cases afterwards, but not nearly as many. The holocaust kind of put people off the whole thing.

Care to explain?

If that is how you define totalitarity, we already live in one. We are definitely not free to do anything we want.


I think these would be quite easy to avoid if some kind of international eugenics program were started and planned well. The goals are so long term, that spending a lot of time in discussion and planning would be insignificant.

I don't claim to know much about genetics, please explain why the prejudices are naive.

The criteria could be chosen democratically, and then let a computer program count the people that are good enough based on the criteria. It would not necessarily need to be told to people whether they are considered good enough or not.

I really don't know why you think eugenics would assume that.

Why? If you mean that religious fanatics (and their followers) would oppose, I think we should not give up. I mean, seriously, Christianity is such a joke, and a bad one, why would we let it ruin the future of humanity (and other animals) without a good try?

In what ways (in addition to the bias thing)?