beausoleil

Maybe that would leave us with a society in which advocation of eugenics had been bred out of the gene pool. You'll make a believer of me yet!

Totalitarianist

Thank you for stating the obvious. At any rate, it is purely speculation by unqualified people, and I will not consider it. In addition to that, the majority of the names listed are actors, artists, and other idiots. Of the scientists mentioned, it is purely baseless speculation. And even if it is true, read my comment on blind people again.

Irrelevant considerations. I never said that intelligences can be separately selected. The fact that separated identical twins are alike intellectually and everything else I mentioned is perfectly sufficient to logically maintain my position on the question of eugenics. Also:--

And:--

So it must be remembered that the intellgences overlap one another considerably, and that they cannot be selected separately, which was not to any degree implied. Some psychologists have even said that manic-deperssion significantly influences intelligence negatively in people with that mental defect. Indeed, their intelligence and wisdom would undoubtedly increase, had they not the aforementioned mental defect; for it causes mania and depression, both of which hinder intelligent, logical thought. You cannot deny this, for the principal symptoms of manic-depression are irrational beliefs and conduct. Quite inconsistent with "intellectual" by definition.

Totalitarianist

No "brand" of Marxism can be found in any of my messages regarding eugenics. I am not a Marxist. I may explain my political beliefs in another post, but for now it would be sufficient to say that I subscribe to no particular political ideology.

False. My argument rests wholly upon the assumption that scientists are correct. So I am appealing to qualified authorites.

What I actually did, in fact, was avoid irrelevant considerations by avoiding questions, such as ethical ones, that have nothing to do with whether the proposed breed of eugenics would work or not.

A very simplistic way of looking at things. By saying this you do a swell job of ignoring the heretitability of intelligence. Evidently, you will have nothing to do with science.

Communism has been around for thousands of years. It has worked in many tribes. And even Sparta.

What you have been saying so far is utter nonsense. If we suppose, for a moment, that scientists know what they are talking about, unlike what you have supposed so far, it logically follows that the decrease of unintelligent and the increase of the birth rate of intelligent persons will result in more intelligent people, and less unintelligent, or feebleminded, people. Now, it seems perfectly ethical to me to increase the rate of birth of gifted persons, and decrease the rate of the birth of the feeblminded things. But of course, this is not a question of ethics.

beausoleil

I'm glad it's obvious to you now - see what a little clear prose can do! (It can't have been obvious to you before, surely, since if it had been you wouldn't have wasted our time with fallacious reasoning.)

What's your qualification, by the way, so I can judge whether I should consider your thoughts?

No it isn't, since it doesn't address whether intelligence can be selected for at the same time that so-called mental defects are selected against. What evidence do you have that this is possible?

There is an ongoing massive gap in your thinking, I'm afraid. Is there any meaningful sense in which someone's mental defect and their intelligence can be seperately considered in an individual or in society? For instance, can one be eliminated and the other increased in a breeding population and if so at what cost and where is the evidence?

I'll check back to this thread in a week or so to give you a chance to fill the gap.

Amit Misra

JayJay wrote:
and also something that linked up communism with eugenics--the inefficacy of both in elevating IQ.

I'm pained that a thinker of the calibre of Marx can be spoken of in the same breath as our dear Embodiment. From what little I've read of Marx, his vision is much more humane. Subservience to the State is entirely out of order-- the State needs to be chucked out of society. Remember the telling phrase: "Classless, Stateless Society?"
Also IQ. Out of order again. Seems like the late lamented SJ Gould, (another Marxist) for all his diligence, didn't succeed in convincing the general public of the uses and misuses of IQ.

AtomSmasher

What do you propose then, anarchy?

Amit Misra

AtomSmasher wrote:
Well, yes! But not the kind of anarchy that semantics have come to imply, with its vision of mayhem and chaos. Anarchy on the models proposed by Bakunin et al. Where the State has withered away and the citizens are sufficiently at peace with themselves and one another to govern themselves, business, civic amenenities--the works-- without having to be policed or administered into doing so by an institution.
But hold it. We're digressing from eugenics.
Let me state instead, that eugenics does not offer a feasible program to select for individuals that can promote a society based on cooperation rather than competition and governance.
Amit

ps418

Oh, Gould succeeded exceedingly well in painting a biased picture of IQ testing, effectively branding anyone who disagrees with him as a Nazi or a racist or at least someone possessing nefarious ulterior motives. Don't get me wrong - I loved Gould. He was without doubt one of the finest science writers of all time. But his book The Mismeasure of Man certainly does not paint an unbiased picture of mental testing, at least as it has existed for the past 50 years. It is a good book as far as calling out the excesses of the 19th century go (and there were many).


Reflections on Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man (1981): Intelligence 21, 121-134 (1995) .


Race, Intelligence, and the Brain: The Errors and Omissions of the Revised Edition of S. J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man (1996) Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 23, No. 1 (July 1997), pp. 169-180.

Patrick

ps418

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ps418

Interesting. How is this Bakunin-ish anarchic state to be implemented, in your view? How do people become "sufficiently at peace with themselves" such that institutuons such as, say, the police, are not needed? This strikes me as a nice goal yet hopelessly naive (as does Marxism).