Jesse

King's Indian:
Hello, Jesse.

I agree with you, but moral ambiguities have a habit of sliding down towards the unambiguous. What does, for example, one do with the targeted couples who refuse voluntary sterilization, birth control or financial incentives?

Well, I was describing a voluntary policy which would be aimed at changing the statistical distribution of genes in the population, not maintaining some kind of absolute "purity", so there wouldn't have to be any penalty for people who chose to have children despite the possibility of passing on less desirable traits. I recognize, though, that human psychology being what it is this kind of thing could easily lead to the stigmatization of people with such traits, which is one of the reasons I wouldn't support such a policy, even though I do think it's a lot less obviously morally wrong than a policy of forced sterilization. The other reason I don't support eugenics is that I think it's a dead end anyway--it would presumably take centuries or millennia of such policies to cause any significant changes in the human species, but there are other technologies developing which should allow us to "improve" human beings much more quickly, like cybernetic implants or possibly the uploading of entire human minds into computers. Being able to improve traits like intelligence within a single lifetime would also be a lot more egalitarian than a system where people are stuck with the same genetically-determined traits for life, which could lead to something like a permanent caste system if the only way of improving the species was eugenics or genetic engineering (think of the Alphas and the Betas in 'Brave New World').

Jesse

Ovazor:
You might find it interesting to know, that many (medical) dotors who embraced nazism did it because nazism supporter their ideas about eugenics and progress, not because they agreed with nazis social, national or economic ideas.

A good book on this subject is Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis by Robert Proctor. I remember from this book that eugenicists were fond of making extravagant claims about the increased rate of mental retardation and other disorders, suggesting that the handicapped would outnumber the "healthy" by our own time unless something was done--this makes me suspicious of misso's claim that the rate of cleft palates and cleft lips has significantly increased in modern times. Misso, do you have a source for this claim?

Mad Kally

I'm a medical professional, and I have never heard a claim like that. I have nurse friends in newborn nurseries as well as neonatal intensive care units.

Misso,
A source would be great.

Kally

CALDONIA

Eugenics seems to be a short-cut to evolution. But who is to say which human attributes are desirable or undesirable? Maybe those attributes deemed undiserable today would be necessary to survival "tomorrow." Evolution is not about "improvement," it is about adaptation.

It is one thing to attempt to improve crop yields and quite another to "improve" the human stock. Eugenics seems to wind up to be a case of "more of ME, less of THEM."

Treacle Worshipper

Hmm, "weak vision". My brother and I are both long sighted. As our parents have normal vision, I assume this is due to a recessive gene inherited from each of them (or something more complicated). We have both worn spectacles from an early age (4 years in his case, 7 months in mine). If such a problem can be remedied with this simple technology, why would it be necessary to prevent either of us from reproducing. (Especially as our children are probably going to be carriers of the recessive gene rather than influenced by it.)
I know that you are concerned about our reliance on technology, but that works both ways. It doesn't just prolong the lives of those who cannot be useful to society, it allows people to be useful who might not otherwise be able to. It also prolongs the lives of those who have outlived their usefulness.
If technology fails us, then we won't have to worry about this stuff anyway, because things will go back to their natural courses with many genetically "weak" people living short and probably painful lives.
TW

echidna

Stephen Hawking springs to mind. If there's one thing which the modern world has achieved, it's the widening of our existences beyond simpy our physical genetic endowments.

Jesse

Misso:
there are certainly things that most, if not all people would agree on that are bad: weak vision, heriditary muscular diseases, stuff like that. If nature were to take it's toll, these people would most likely never pass on their genes, but in the contemporary western world they can.

There is actually some evidence for a genetic connection between high intelligence and myopia:

http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000144/

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.

Similarly, here is a page from science fiction author Jerry Pournelle's website on the possibility (raised by Gregory Cochrane) that the increased rate of certain neurological diseases among Ashkenazi Jews is related to cultural practices which basically amount to eugenic selection for higher intelligence:

CALDONIA

Aha! The hidden secret word behind Eugenics: "Usefulness."

For whom? Adolf Hitler, come back, come back!

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.

A friend of mine has a 35 year old severely intellectually disabled son. He’s an immense burden on his parents, and yet at the same time, Darren’s idiotic happiness is infectious. As his father says, it’s like the whole room brightens when Darren walks in.

Whether or not they are a "burden on society", I firmly believe that many of the intellectually handicapped also have a very positive contribution to make, to those who are willing to see it.

King's Indian

Hi, Jesse.

I absolutely agree, on behalf of all my brother Epsilons. "Improving the species" into a rigid caste-system does seem a contradiction, somewhat.

Take care,

KI