AtomSmasher

As a follow up on "Embodiment of the Absolute Idea"'s post on Eugenics, I felt inclined to post a short paper on dysgenics. It was originally written in HTML so I could hyperlink to many of my sources. HTML is not enabled on this forum so if you would like to read the HTML version (and I would encourage you to do so) then go here. I'd like to hear your thoughts.


Dysgenics


Through advances in medicine and social behavior, we have significantly influenced the impact of evolution, effectively ending "survival of the fittest" in modern society. The human species discovered the biological mechanisms by which life exists and is now on the verge of manipulating genetics to change the direction of human evolution. Like nuclear fission, this kind of knowledge requires responsibility as the knowledge of genetics has the potential for both good and evil.

Evolution continues even though we have severed our reliance on nature for survival and success, the direction of human evolution in the post-industrial age is a topic of concern. By creating a society we have isolated ourselves from the harsh environment we once struggled to exist in, but it was this struggle that kept us physically strong and mentally sharp. In the past there was a plethora of fatal afflictions constantly weeding out the population, but life in the modern world is practically guaranteed. The explosion in the human population over the past 100 years can only be attributed to advancements in technology and medicine that have developed in the past few centuries. Pathologies that would most certainly prove fatal only 100 years ago, are routinely cured or treated so that unhealthy individuals may live healthy and productive lives. People who would have died at age 20 now live to 80 and it is expected that children born in 2020 will likely live 110 years (Stroud, Wired, "A Call for Long Life for All").

Natural selection, the most basic principal of evolution, is a process by which only the fittest organisms in a population will survive and reproduce (Darwin, Origin of Species, ch 4 par 3). High mortality rates in nature ensure that serious genetic defects are quickly removed from the breeding population before their carriers can reproduce and pass them on to future generations. The brutal reality of evolution keeps animal populations strong by ensuring that the strongest and healthiest will produce the most offspring, and the weak and sick will die and produce few offspring. This is true for all living creatures, except modern humans. In the past, human populations were culled much like any other species. Predators, disease, famine, harsh climates, luck, etc. contributed to the early demise of pre-modern humans much like any other animal. But what has changed? Predators are now hunted to the brink of extinction, food production is highly efficient, the environment is only a nuisance, and once fatal diseases have been cured.
The creation of civilizations have nullified, even reversed the effects of natural selection. What is the result? Without high mortality killing off the worst stock, degenerative traits freely replicate throughout the population. This is called "dysgenics", or genetic deterioration.

The genetic fitness of a species will degrade unless unhealthy traits are eliminated from the gene pool through natural selection. This negative trend is obvious in humans because society has created the ability for all humans to survive to adulthood even with genetic disorders that would certainly have meant death only 100 years ago. Without unfit genes being eliminated from the breeding population, they are passed on to the next generation and become more expressed in successive offspring who will also survive to adulthood and reproduce. Because of society and modern medicine this un-natural selection has taken over the reigns of human evolution and this trend leads to an overall decline in human genetic fitness.

Cancer was the second deadliest genetic-related illness in the United States in 1999 (Anderson). It is proven that an individual may inherit a predisposition for certain types of cancer (cancer.gov). In the 1990s, cancer mortality began to fall, reversing the previous trend of increasing mortality observed over the past century (Levin), however, this is only an indicator of cancer related deaths, the diagnosis of cancer continues to increase regardless of better treatments (Anderson). This would indicate that the genes associated with developing cancer are being sustained in the population and not being eliminated due to modern medicine decreasing mortality. In the future it would be reasonable to expect a dramatic rise in cases of cancer as the relative toxicity of our environment increases, and our genetic resistance to carcinogens decreases.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is one of the best known examples of congenital illness passed from parent to offspring. 1 person in 31 is a carrier of the recessive gene that drowns most of its victims because their lungs produce an excess amount of thick mucous. Only 35 percent of individuals with cystic fibrosis survive to adulthood even with modern technology (Berkow). Before current treatments, almost all CF children died before the age eight, but new advancements in gene therapy could offer the CF afflicted a normal life, and possibly a cure (CFF). As with any other genetic trait, if cystic fibrosis does not compromise the reproductive success of the organism, it will be passed on to future generations and likely become more expressed in future populations, increasing the numbers of patients who are dependent on medical science for their survival.

Tay Sachs disease is an untreatable genetic disorder inherited, like cystic fibrosis, by receiving a recessive gene from both parents. Unlike CF, tay sachs only affects certain specific ethnic groups, primarily Ashkenazi Jews. The defective gene causes a buildup of a lipid called ganglioside GM2 in the brain and nervous system, destroying nerve tissue. An individual who inherits tay sachs will most likely experience blindness, deafness, mental retardation, paralysis and usually death between the ages of 3 and 5. To deal with the disease the Jewish population has begun a testing program for orthodox high schoolers. The results are not released, instead each individual is given a 6-digit ID number they may use any time they see fit to determine if they are carriers. In 1993, out of 8000 couples tested, 87 called off marriage plans because they were at high risk of having tay sachs manifest in their offspring (Stone, par 7). 25 years of effective genetic testing for the disorder has reduced the number of cases by 90 percent (Mt. Sinai).
These results represent a prime example of an informed, consensual eugenic practice that has increased the genetic fitness of a population (the Ashkenazi Jews) by systematically and willfully eliminating a pathogenic trait from their own gene pool.

Gene Therapy promises to be the pinnacle of achievement for modern medicine. Once the genetic origins of pathologies are exposed, a pervasive biological cure can be devised that could possibly rid patients of any known illness. Formerly intractable ailments may be cured cheaply and routinely, but this still leads down a path of continued reliance on modern medicine for survival. Even though a disease is cured in an individual, it does not eliminate the genetic traits that caused or permitted the disease to materialize from the patient's genome. Therefore, a genetic disposition to the same disease will persist in the patients offspring. Gene therapy stands to greatly enhance the quality of human life, and simultaneously deprecate natural fitness even further unless eugenic measures are taken.

Instead of mere survival, civilization gives us the ability to succeed,to be happy and live well, and eventually have children of our own who will also have rewarding and successful lives. Unfortunately, just living in a modern world does not guarantee a happy healthy life to everyone. Although most contagious diseases have been eliminates as sources of mortality in western countries, the cause of death is rapidly shifting to noncommunicable diseases (WHO, 14). Indeed many children born these days have painful and fatal birth defects and congenital illnesses that can cut their lives short or subject them to a lifetime of pain and suffering. The number of such cases will continue to rise unless something is done to curb the proliferation of unfit genes in industrial populations. The World Health Organization estimates that the number of deaths from noncommunicable disease will increase from 43% in 1998 to 73% by 2020 (WHO, 16).

As the number of productive members of the workforce decline and the the numbers of unproductive and aged people reliant on the health care system for their continued survival increase, the burden may become too much to bear and society could very well collapse under the weight of its own social conscience. Certainly the sick cannot be denied health care, and it is unlikely that any sweeping social changes will take place to remedy the situation. If there is to be a positive change in the fitness of the human genome, it will take an informed, concerted effort on the part of all people concerned with their own health, and especially the health of their children.

beausoleil

(Leaving aside questions of the possibility of successful eugenics on human timescales)

Why this obsession with a 'natural' environment. Thanks to modern medicine, some diseases that once were fatal now aren't. This just means that natural selection is operating in a different environment, not that it has stopped. Distinguishing 'natural' from 'un-natural' selection makes no sense to me.

"High mortality rates in nature ensure that serious genetic defects are quickly removed from the breeding population before their carriers can reproduce and pass them on to future generations."

'Genetic defect' (to use your phrase) is not an absolute. If selection no longer weeds out a genetic trait, it has clearly ceased to be a 'serious defect' in the environment in question. You may judge some genetic traits to be undesirable even thought they are no longer serious defects affecting survival - but that's just your opinion. That's the basic problem of eugenics - who are you to decide what is a desirable or undesirable ('degenerative') trait? In the end, we are better off letting the current environment (including all technological advances) arbitrate than you, since then we end up with people adapted to the environment!

Of course in the future some radical change in the environment may lead to a large fraction of genetic traits being weeded out suddenly. At that point, humanity's survival may perhaps depend on a diverse gene pool, something eugenics would actually work against.

AtomSmasher

Indeed you are correct. Technically, if natural selection no longer terminates organisms carrying a particular trait then it is no longer a terminal defect, however most carriers would still consider it a defect. For example someone with Cystic Fibrosis will have to undergo constant therapy and maintenance to stay alive. CF may no longer be terminal but it is still a defect that adversly effects the individuals quality of life.

Well said, many traits we may now consider "defects" may have been beneficial at some point. Such as sickle cell anemia provides greater resistance to malaria and coincidentally it is most prominent in areas with a high amount of mosquitos. It's allways been wondered why terminal genetic traits would be maintained in successive generations and not eliminated completely since, in the past (more then 100 years ago), it would have selected against the organism nearly 100% of the time. I read a study looking for any other side effects of the CF gene sequence and apparently it has a positive effect on how the body responds to intestinal infections such cholera. This is only true for individuals who carry a single copy, it requires 2 copies of the gene for it be expressed.

from: http://www.people.virginia.edu/~rjh9u/cysfib.html

Jackalope

Let me give you some examples of inherited defects that usually do not manifest themselves until after the subjects have reached breeding age:

multiple sclerosis
adult-onset diabetes
rheumatoid arthritis
spondyloarthopaties (this includes psoriatic arthritis)
ALS/motor neurone disease
systemic lupus erythematosis
systemic sclerosis
ulcerative colitis
myasthenia gravis

Most of these above are autoimmune diseases. The tendency to develop the
disorder is what is inherited, not neccesarily the disease. All of the above mentioned disorders carry the
likelihood of a shortened lifespan, but not so shortened that one is unlikely to breed. Unless we get a whole lot better at gene typing, most carriers will not know that they're passing on bad genes. In fact, until recently, it wasn't widely known that autoimmune diseases tend to be distributed through family groups. This is still a fairly new area of study. The problem is that we just barely understand enough about the immune system in it's normal state to even begin to figure out why things suddenly go wrong.

The main reason that these "hidden" defects are becoming more apparent is at least partially because people are living longer. Long enough for the autoimmune diseases to develop.

It's been put forth before that for a lot of these defects, the mutation may actually give one resistance to infections if you inherit only one allele for the trait. If this is true, then eliminating the "bad" genes may actually be maladaptive.

AtomSmasher

Thanks, I'll familiarize myself with some of the defects you mentioned and perhaps include them in the next revision.

Moving along, it is not just the costs involved with the individual that we must consider. There are also rising costs involved for society as a whole. If there is a trend of increasing cases of congenital illness (meaning inherited diseases -or- predispositions for developing defects [such as heart defects or cancer]) then there are several considerations:

1. Our environment is likely to be increasing in toxicity, which will increase the likelyhood of pathology, in particular from cancers.

2. Our natural resistance to these diseases is decreasing due to decreasing mortality for carriers.

3. The costs of healthcare will continue to rise as the diagnosis of such pathologies continues to grow.

I couldn't necessarily advocate a eugenics program unless there were some sort of crisis. The best solution in my mind is to search for ways of medically modifying an individuals genome to voluntarily remove undesired traits. The logical conclusion would be to eliminate them from the genome of pre-implantation zygotes, which would effectively prevent thier proliferation. Again, the determination of good and bad genes remains subjective but in this case it would be in the hands of the parents. They would be determining which of their own genes they believe are suitable and passing them on intentionally.

Amit Misra

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.

Shake

I tend to generally agree with Atom Smasher's thesis, various counterexamples notwithstanding. I'm sure some of the ZPG people would prefer a return to some such level of natural selection. (ZPG= Zero Population Growth, for those who don't know) I also have ZPG leanings, since the world population has grown more rapidly in the last century or so than at any previous time in history. I know some theists feel that things like innoculation against diseases are against god's plan or at least unnatural. Isn't it the Xian Scientists who don't see doctors?

When you think about the ever more rapidly growing population and the struggle for resources to keep up, this idea of not trying to keep everyone alive seems to have some merit. Yes, you could carry this to ridiculous ends and say that even glasses/contact lenses are bad and should be abolished since they're 'unnatural'. But this is why population booms happen in technologically advanced nations. Those that can't afford or just don't have access to modern medicine as most of us know it, have high infant mortality rates, more disease, and short life expectancies. Was AIDS meant to be the Plague of the 20th/21st centuries? Perhaps, but in the richer nations, AIDS infected people are living longer due to new drugs. And while a cure is still not available, even those drugs that slow the disease are not available to all, and AIDS is still wreaking havoc in places like sub-Saharan Africa (which has roughly 1/2 of the world's cases)!

Sorry to bounce around so much. I'm tired (and at work) and am having trouble keeping my thoughts straight. I also just want to add that I've heard a hypothesis that the reason China and India have such large populations today is due in part to the fact that the Plague that wiped out 1/3 of Europes' population never made to the East.

Amit Misra

Shake wrote:
and later, probably feeling uncertain about his observation:

I can't agree with either statement.
My country, and large parts of the developing world have high population growth rates, not merely large populations. The prime reason IMHO is that parents tend to view kids as resources: hands to help in agriculture or cottage industry or child-labour-employing industry.
Second, I have trouble in accepting that the European plague of 2 centuries back had a demographic impact of such magnitude. I'd be willing to consider the huge mortality, morbidity and social breakup consequent to WW I & II as a reason for declinig growth rates, but someone will have to do the math.