Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ps418 · 03-27-2003, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by echidna
I notice that Downs Syndrome receives a lot of mention here. I happen to volunteer with a lot of Downs children, as well as other disabilities. True, I�m not parent to a Downs child, but let me just say that those who spend time with them, often come away with the feeling of having gained a positive feeling about life. No, they don�t all possess a happy outlook on life, but many do & personally I find it refreshing at times.

Maybe someone else can weigh up the goods and bads, & conclude a net bad, but I personally find it more difficult to define such traits as bad per se. Would I terminate a Downs pregnancy ? I don�t know & I hope I�m never faced with the choice.

I work full-time at an intermediate-care facility for the mentally retarded, and have for the past several years. Plus, since my mother had worked with MR patients since I was a child, I've grown up with alot of contact with MR individuals. The patients Ive worked with span the entire range from mild mental retardation to profound retardation, including individuals with Down's syndrome.

You're certainly right that they do not all possess sunny dispositions. In fact, I think most of the patients Ive worked with lead profoundly frustrating and unfulfilling lives, for many reasons physiolgoical and psychological, particularly those that spend the greater part of their lives in institutions. I have no qualms about concluding that DS and most other forms of MR is a net "bad" trait for the person who possesses it. But thats just this guy's value judgement.

Patrick

ps418 · 03-27-2003, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jesse:

Just as with the possible connection between intelligence and autism, this shows the danger of getting unexpected feedback effects when trying to improve humanity genetically, whether through eugenics or genetic engineering (see Pinker's comments on this subject on this thread). If you tried to reduce the rate of weak vision in a population, you might end up inadvertantly lowering the population's average intelligence as well.

That is a very good point to keep in mind: genes are not partitioned into neat little nonoverlapping modules for this trait and that trait. Many of the genes that underly variance in cognitive abilities and so on are almost certainly pleiotropic, involved in many disparate traits and processes. For instance, in fruit flys its common to select one trait and find that you dramatically alter some other trait in the process. And unless you have a model of how all those genes are producing those phenotypes, you wont be able to predict in advance the results of selection. One example is drosophila that were selected for DDT resistance, but the selection produced not only DDT resisance but changed pupating pattern dramatically. Another exmple are mice that were selected for certain types of open-field behavior, which simultaneously selected for albinism (IIRC).

Patrick

echidna · 03-28-2003, 01:18 AM

This is probably the wrong thread, but seing as I mentioned Stephen Hawking above ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/connected...ecnhawk218.xml

Quote:

Interviewer : Given that your motor neuron disease has a genetic component, it may one day be possible to screen the unborn child for this condition with a view to termination. Would you approve of this?

Stephen Hawking : Some forms of motor neuron disease are genetically linked but I have no indication that my kind is. No other member of my family has had it. But I would be in favour of abortion if there was a high risk.

Ovazor · 03-28-2003, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ps418
Presumably, if such a system were brought into existence, one would have to be screened for the genes of interest by whatever agency was administering the eugenics program. I dont see how you you could self-report your own genetic makeup.

Patrick

Well, I thought something like cheking the "yes" box in a form saying "do you or any or your immediate family have any of the following inhereditary diseases..."

Or, if the financial incentives to voluntarily register a bad trait were good enough, Somebody could bribe a doctor to certify that he has this recessive "bad" gene, or even forge such document.

Ovazor

Ovazor · 03-28-2003, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ps418
... Instead of using chromosomal abnormalities as an example, I should have used as an example alleles with deleterious effects, since in that case one would definitely be deliberately altering the frequency of an allele in the human population....

...But once you start influencing the transmission of alleles (rather than just selecting against chromosomal abnormalities), then you are definitely doing eugenics. For instance, if two parents who carry the sickle-cell gene abort a fetus because it is homozygous for the sickle-gene, then that would be eugenics, right? I would see that as morally acceptable.

It could be eugenics if the abortion was motivated by wish to reduce sicle-cell anemia rather than by personal wish to not to have a sick child.

I don't see it automatically wrong to abort a fetus with severe defects, but IMO the question whether the defect is a genetic disorder or something else is completely superfluous for moral considerations.

Quote:

Originally posted by ps418
Which particular definition of race is unscientific? Some definitions of race are clearly scientific (groups of individuals differentiated on the basis of biogeographic ancestry), while others are not (discrete platonic categories). As a blanket statement, I dont see that it is correct to say that race is an unscientific concept, although the common conceptions of race are not scientific.

Patrick

I meant the race as a biological or genetic entity. There is no racial gene or set of genes which makes a person a "caucasian" or "negroid"

Ovazor

echidna · 03-28-2003, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ovazor
I meant the race as a biological or genetic entity. There is no racial gene or set of genes which makes a person a "caucasian" or "negroid"

Have you seen the most recent Scientific American ?

Ovazor · 03-28-2003, 05:08 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by echidna
Have you seen the most recent Scientific American ?

No. Could you briefly tell what it says?

Wyz_sub10 · 03-28-2003, 07:26 AM

echidna,

Maybe the SciAm article would make an interesting topic for a new thread?

ps418 · 03-28-2003, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ovazor
Well, I thought something like cheking the "yes" box in a form saying "do you or any or your immediate family have any of the following inhereditary diseases..."

Or, if the financial incentives to voluntarily register a bad trait were good enough, Somebody could bribe a doctor to certify that he has this recessive "bad" gene, or even forge such document.

Ovazor

Which is all the more reason why it would be useless to rely on self-reporting rather than genetic screening. Having someone in your immediate family with a particular genetic disease would rarely be informative enough for the purpose of eugenics.

Patrick

ps418 · 03-28-2003, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Ovazor
I meant the race as a biological or genetic entity. There is no racial gene or set of genes which makes a person a "caucasian" or "negroid"

Ovazor

Do you mean to say that a person's geographic ancestry cannot be identified from genetic markers? If so, that is quite incorrect. In fact, several recent research articles show that "race" is indeed quite meaningful at the genetic level, and therefore is a biologically/ genetically meaningful concept (although it is subject to the same ambiguities that all sub-species-level taxonomies are subject to). See the following articles, especially the Genome Biology article by Risch et al:

Rosenburg et al., 2002. Genetic structure of human populations. Science 298:2381-2385. PDF File

Commentary on Rosenburg et al. in Nature Science Update

Bamshad et al., 2003. Human Population Genetic Structure and Inference of Group Membership. American Journal of Human Genetics 72, 578-590.

Lehrman, 2003. The Reality of Race. Scientific American. February.

Risch et al., 2002. Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease. Genome Biology 3(7):comment2007.1-2007.12 . PDF File

The Debate Over Race Relations. Bio-It World.

Race Is Seen as Real Guide to Track Roots of Disease

Patrick

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03-28-2003, 07:26 AM	#38
Wyz_sub10 Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the land of two boys and no sleep. Posts: 9,890	echidna, Maybe the SciAm article would make an interesting topic for a new thread?

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