Eugenics

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
In the Ashkenazi jew thread I mentioned that they have higher test scores but also lots of inherited neurological diseases and some people believe the two are related.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sounds like a reasonable theory. It could be that their breeding customs in the past led to higher variance in IQ, followed by selection in favor of the high side.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes, at the risk of exclusion. And I think that's the main chicken bone where eugenics is involved.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure that's possible to avoid. Even without our interference. Natural blondes are becoming less frequent, for example - will they eventually die out? Who knows. If I were designing a program I'd try to select people who wanted to participate, first and foremost, rather than people who score well on any specific metric. That shouldn't matter much, so long as selection favors the smart, we could start with a group of total idiots and still end up with a smarter-than-average "breed." Once the initial offspring end up in the "program," presumably it would be easy to control for cultural differences. That way those excluded would mainly be those who chose to be excluded.

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, personally I don't like the concept. Why are we trying to fix perfectly good sexual reproduction? We learn from our mistakes, is this not so?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not in terms of evolution, no. It's a process of adaptation to an environment. It's very possible for us to evolve smaller brains and lower levels of intelligence, for example. The idea of evolution as continual "improvement" is a myth.

I don't think we can be certain of the selective pressures acting on us right now. So it's a crap shoot as to where we'll go. By some metrics it seems very likely that smart people are less fit. For example, there's an inverse correlation between intelligence level measured by IQ and number of kids. I don't think that really indicates much, but it's worrying.

I think choosing to create humans who are good at innovating and communicating is much preferable to reaching a situation of, for instance, Eloi and Morlocks.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
Once again I'm forced to combat the nonsense that passes for rational thought on these boards.

[/ QUOTE ] I guess that makes me an irrational combatant. Still, that's better than you-know-what. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
In another thread, Mickey Brausch stated:

[ QUOTE ]
Engaging in eugenics would involve the potential of so many mistakes (e.g. we would be focusing in producing tall humans, something that could prove disastrous down the road) that the exercise is technically a non-starter, even before the moral arguments begin.

[/ QUOTE ]

I submit that this is total nonsense. While there are potential dangers with a poorly crafted eugenics program, it's trivial to think of an example where this isn't the case. For example, removing the bottom 50% (in terms of intelligence) of each ethnic group. IMO this would greatly benefit the human gene pool and the long term success of the human race, with few drawbacks. If you disagree, I'd like to hear why.

[/ QUOTE ]"Why"?? Because the parameters involved in selection are so many as to make the enterprise close to chaotic. Because you would be pulling in favor of attribute X while ignoring the potential imbalance caused by the consequent disappearance of attribute Y, an attribute necessary for the "good of mankind" (the ostensible objective of eugenics). Because, atheist though I am, I cannot pretend that the world is not functioning with the "wisdom" of a state that is the result of millions of years of "development" -- and therefore I cannot pretend to know so much more about selection than "nature" as to engage in a program of eugenics. Because if were to remove uncertainty from the human genes, we would immediately be rendered more vulnerable to our little co-habitants of this planet. If you didn't know already, please learn that we and the evil minded micro-organisms of our planet are engaged in a battle where we are just managing to stay one step ahead, one account of our continuous re-mixing of the gene pool. (But we can suffer a serious blow at any point in time :"Virtually unbeatable TB strain arrives".)

Because the focus on intelligence begs the question of identifying and measuring intelligence. (ITEM: A tribe living in the Amazon jungle cannot read or write but they are able to distinguish through sight and smell a hundred different variations of the same plant, which is sometimes poisonous and sometimes medically a life saver. Are they less intelligent than the man in the city? Are their skills unnecessary for our desired world?) Because acting on the basis of intelligence alone (e.g. "removing the bottom 50%") would undoubtedly leave out a number of human beings whose life and work are, for any sensible person, equally valuable, e.g. artists. Because acting on a set of attributes (e.g. intelligence + health) would again leave off humanity wanting.

What you seem to fail to understand is that the very saving grace of humanity is our diversity and the continuous stirring of the soup. The world would be, if anything, altogether extremely dull if only people possessing certain attributes were allowed to come to life.

And you should realize that as soon as we agree that Set Of Attributes K is the criterion of our eugenics program, as soon as we arrive at a stage whereby K is achieved, the natural and consistent process of eugenics should dictate that we proceed towards a higher set K' -- and so forth until we reach the ne plus ultra (which we cannot know).

And this is just off the top of my head, without consulting the literature.

[ QUOTE ]
Obviously this point ignores the moral and political considerations, which are huge.

[/ QUOTE ]No, I'm taking on first the strictly "technical" points against the prospect. It is a little disturbing that, smack in the 21st century, there are people gullible enough to fall for the witchcraft of eugenics.

Mickey Brausch

[RJT]

[ QUOTE ]
…IMO this would greatly benefit the human gene pool and the long term success of the human race, with few drawbacks…

[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
… Obviously this point ignores the moral and political considerations, which are huge.

[/ QUOTE ]

It also ignores any reason for it.


Why do you care about the longevity of the human race? Why does anybody care? Should anybody care? I am not being facetious/sarcastic or argumentative here.

What the heck difference does it make if the human race becomes extinct? What would be the point of any amount time and energy being spent on such goals.

[guesswest]

I'm having a big problem with the framework of this discussion. Eugenics selecting for intelligence may or may not speed along evolution. But why are we assuming that should be our goal in the first place?

Most people who object to eugenics, as best I can tell, do not object to it because it does/doesn't work. It's because they simply don't view it as the goal of human enterprise, especially when it comes with suffering as a cost.

Why do we want to speed up our evolution? What's the ethical gain? Shouldn't we concern ourselves more with happiness and other tangible things we actually experience, instead of with some abstract cosmic ideology?

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
…IMO this would greatly benefit the human gene pool and the long term success of the human race, with few drawbacks…

[/ QUOTE ]


[ QUOTE ]
… Obviously this point ignores the moral and political considerations, which are huge.

[/ QUOTE ]

It also ignores any reason for it.


Why do you care about the longevity of the human race? Why does anybody care? Should anybody care? I am not being facetious/sarcastic or argumentative here.

What the heck difference does it make if the human race becomes extinct? What would be the point of any amount time and energy being spent on such goals.

[/ QUOTE ]
Its a very good question, morality is the answer imo. We care about the next few generation (mainly our family) because we are moral and we care about what the people we care about, care about which is the next few generations after that and so on.

It gets diluted down the line but that's about right - we care less about the more distant future.

chez

[FortunaMaximus]

Continuity, I suppose. We're hardly that far from post-humanity.

madnak, you're aware you just summed up to a T what heuristic AI researchers (background a little shadowy on this subject, but I have a broad idea of the processes involved) have tried and failed to do thus far?

Of course there are going to be drawbacks, societal ones, but as long as we process by addition instead of elimination, the net process should improve, while leaving redundant carbon behind.

All it boils down to, really.

[Rduke55]

[ QUOTE ]
I think there's a good chance the brain could stand to restructure itself. Look at all the people with neurological deficits but also with unbelievable mental talents. Idiot savants and the like, those musical geniuses and the hypermnesiacs and the schizophrenic and socipathic geniuses. I think an explosion of variance in mental traits is a good sign: those traits that are well-adapted will presumably be selected for. Of course, our current environment is probably very different from our future environment, and the selective pressures are so unstable right now it's hard to know which way is up.

If we were to create a stable environment that specifically selects for traits that result in a high output of great ideas, technologies, and artworks, then presumably we could "force" the evolution of a kind of ubermensch. Doesn't that follow?

[/ QUOTE ]

In theory, maybe, but I think the idea is that it's difficult to increase cognitive ability without some unintended consequences.

[JMAnon]

[ QUOTE ]
I submit that this is total nonsense. While there are potential dangers with a poorly crafted eugenics program, it's trivial to think of an example where this isn't the case. For example, removing the bottom 50% (in terms of intelligence) of each ethnic group. IMO this would greatly benefit the human gene pool and the long term success of the human race, with few drawbacks.


[/ QUOTE ]

There is a more politically palatable way to increase our collective I.Q.s, if that were our goal -- propaganda. What members of our species find sexually attractive is heavily influenced by social conditioning. If we made a concerted effort to link intelligence to desirability in the minds of the public (in a manner similar to the successful efforts DeBeers made to link diamonds to prestige), the result would likely be an increase in the breeding rates of the more intelligent among us. Our popular culture currently does the exact opposite, largely painting the intelligent as undesirable nerds. Indeed, if one pays attention, it is obvious that some of the brightest among us actively conceal their intelligence much of the time. And they are undoubtedly more popular because of it. It wouldn't be extremely difficult to invert those societal values given our current understandings of effective advertising. The result wouldn't be an immediate increase in our intelligence over the course of a generation, but rather a slow upward march. Using a method like this would have the benefit of preserving some useful genetic traits that, by chance, may be present in only some of our less intelligent members. Of course, it may be difficult to maintain social stability if the masses of humanity become too intelligent to manipulate easily, so whether this should be a goal at all is certainly debatable.

[Mickey Brausch]

[ QUOTE ]
Most people who object to eugenics, as best I can tell, do not object to it because it does/doesn't work. It's because they simply don't view it as the goal of human enterprise, especially when it comes with suffering as a cost.

[/ QUOTE ]Not only does it not work, but, even if it did work (whatever the hell that means), we should be roundly rejecting it for being a completely immoral enterprise.

To seriously talk for (or propagate) eugenics at this day and age is a sign of ignorance, imbecility or bigotry.

Mickey Brausch