ps418

The former, communism, would not raise IQ at all. Some form of eugenics, immoral and undesirable as it may be, would undoubtedly raise mean IQ. If only persons with an IQ above, say, 120, were permitted by the state to have children, then mean IQ would go up dramatically (compared to other populations not practicing eugenics).

Of course, I think that this would be morally repugnant! Not just becaue I probably would not be allowed to have children, and not just because many people who happen not to be geniuses benefit society, but because I feel that no one has the right to tell anyone else whether they can have children or not. Basically, I do not support any kind of eugenics, except that practiced by parents for their own children. Nevertheless, as a technical point, it would seem incorrect to say that eugenics could not raise mean IQ. That would be like saying that implementing a system whereby only people above 6'3'' can have children would not increase mean height in a population.

Patrick

Arc

Forgive me for interjecting in a topic which I haven't had any involvement in as of yet, but it seems to me that EotAI has insisted both in this and other threads that not only is science the only field worth considering at all, but that scientists hold a complete monopoly on the truth.

Don't get me wrong, I love science with all my heart, and I aspire to be a scientist myself. But what use is a utopian society if it has no culture? Without art, music, and other forms of creativity, it seems to me that we would be nothing more than automatons whose sole purpose is to study and breed. Sure, we might make huge advancements very quickly, but what's the point if we can't enjoy them? Doesn't sound very utopian at all, does it?

And EotAI, before you respond with your standard "You're wrong because you aren't me", you're the one who says we should only listen to scientists. As a few others have requested, how about giving us your credentials?

CALDONIA

The whole idea of eugenics is senseless to me because how can one select for intelligence if the word "intelligence" has such a varied and vague definition? Is a person with a college degree more intelligent than a Eskimo who can track prey and subsist in a harsh environment?

Natural selection does not seek to make anything better, it does not plan for anything at all, it merely is a result in successful adaptation. If we were to genetically engineer humans for "intelligence," how would we know if it were the 'right kind' of intelligence that would guarantee or enhance our survival?

Eugenics cannot be separated from ethics. It smacks of "more of me, less of you."

Amit Misra

Patrick wrote:
The classical error of Bolshies is, IMHO, to try and hasten as it were, the course of history. When we get over our conditioning that "profit is good" and that the resources of the earth can be controlled by enterprises, we should see the kind of peace I'm talking about. An event as unlikely as serial endosymbiosis in nature, but it does seem to have occured. When parasite and host actually merge their capabilities....?
So, the State will wither away when we are disenchanted with the model of a society needing policing. It would be counter-productive to try and "implement" anarchy by any means other than making people aware of alternative choices.

CALDONIA

Eugenics is 'social engineering' in a sense. But the engineers of the auto industry in the 1930s probably foresaw 1960s automobiles with running boards; the engineers of the B-36 created a monster bomber with eight engines even as the invention of the jet engine was making all their work obsolete.

Even if you divorce the whole argument of Eugenics from ethical concerns, which I think is not possible, the feasibility of the argument is rather questionable. Geological time is way beyond human concept of time, and our attempt to achieve anything in regard to our own evolution by our own hand is quite arrogant and ignorant.

ps418

Its nice to dream, I suppose, even if that dream doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a reality, and gives us no practical guidance. I wouldn't wait around for people to suddenly realize that "profit" is not really "good," for instance, or that the control of natural resources is a conditioned behavior that can be changed.

Patrick

ps418

Good point. Presumably intelligence in this context would mean psychometric intelligence, that is, intelligence as measured by a battery of cognitive tests, which has an operational definition, is a stable trait of individuals, and has high heritability. And since essentially all tests of psychometric intelligence are correlated with each other, selecting for one cognitive skill would tend to select for many cognitive skills at once. Or the hypothetical eugenicists could select for some physiological trait that is known to be correlated with psychometric intelligence, such as frontal lobe volume.

If by intelligence you mean some psychometric score like 'g', then you'd have to assess the college student and the Eskimo with an intelligence test. I think I read somewhere that Arctic Eskimos as a group score quite high on tests of psychometric intelligence such as Raven's matrices -- higher than the average American. But of course, there are other plenty of talents that humans have that are not captured by IQ or g of whatever.

Very good question. Maybe artificial selection for intelligence would make us even more effective at destroying the earth and each killing each other and in general hastening our own extinction?

Maybe, but not all eugenics is about intelligence or personality traits or has such vain motives. For instance, there are many traits tied to specific genes that everyone will agree are a profound source of suffering to the individual who possess them (Huntington's disease, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, PKU, and so on). Some eugenicists may simply want to eliminate disease and reduce suffering of children not yet born, without selecting for or against any behavioral traits.

Patrick.

CALDONIA

Patrick,

I am flattered by your appraisal of my last post. We are in agreement about Eugenics ethically. I take the whole issue of stem-cell research as being a most beneficial means to alleviate many medical problems. But when the term, "Eugenics," is commonly used, in my experience, it is about human intelligence, the dictionary defines the word in terms of 'human improvement' and I fear that to the adherents of that so-called science this means intelligence more than health. I also think that a lot of the interest in cloning is seen as a short cut for eugenics, a preposterous idea, but then again, it is only one of many in the popular imagination

Azathoth

Wouldn't it be ultimately be more efficient,and more accepted,to remove the offending genes in a labratory situation,for removing defects such as these?

It seems like eugenics is a rather imprecise way of controlling these types of problems,and one that would meet with a great deal of resistance from the general population.

Amit Misra

Patrick, thanks for a patient hearing to the snowball in hell. To avoid digressing further, let me try and advance my Left-liberal agenda through the simple device of cutting and pasting from a reply to AtomSmasher's thread on Dysgenics.
This is primarily in response to the generous view of eugenics working to eliminate, for example phenylketonuria.
Increasing representation of "bad" genes in a human population can be avoided by:
(1) Preventing procreation by carriers. We can do this by opting for terminal contraception and adopting our babies if we are carriers. Less enlightened individuals may choose to call off weddings just because the "union would not be blessed with progeny", which is a deplorable sentiment, IMHO. Finally, the State, or Scientific Opinion can scare people into swearing off having kids if they are disease carriers. This would be an authoritarian intervention, and is not acceptable in my world-view.
(2) Reducing the probaility of homozigosity. There are two ways in which this can be done. The first is a set of hi-tech fixes. For example, we screen both partners for "bad" alleles; select gametes that are negative for the markers, carry out in vitro fertilization and end up with a healthy baby. People desperate to have a baby of their own could do something of this sort.
The other way is the one I would like to see happening for not merely eugenic reasons, but also because it promises me a vision of a better society. Reduce the probability by reducing endogamy. We, in India, boot out the caste system that has Brahmins from Kannauj reproductively isolated from Brahmins of Ayodhya, for instance, though the two towns are barely 200 miles apart. My friend Shaival, from Central India and his wife (heck! forgot her name in the middle of a beautiful argument!) from Vietnam be held up as role-models exemplifying the ideal of "the world as a family." You guys in the rest of the world travel to each others' countries, get to know (and maybe fall in love with) people from "other " cultures, customs, endemic genotypes.
In short, reduce the probability by enlarging the breeding population.