Does eugenics work?

[Soldati Senza Confini]

Then, based upon you, what are the underlying... for lack of a better word "assumptions" that eugenics makes?

I'm not claiming ANY assumptions

I never said you did, I am asking you since you seem to be arguing that genetics doesn't take into account what I said, what does eugenics rely on? What does it depend on for it to be feasible?

Since you say I am wrong about saying that eugenics relies on creating a master race and that it makes faulty assumptions about genetics, surely then you would know what the actual underlying a priori reasoning of the field of eugenics is.

[SD_Film Artists]

And which mistakes were they pray tell?

And please don't just say "by not accepting eugenics as your scientific Lord and Savior", we've already been through that.

So you refuse to engage in honest discussion. Your weird notion that eugenics and religion are somehow intertwined has nothing to do with me.

I'm all too happy to engage in honest discussion, hence my request to not repeat yourself. I gained the impression of it being a religion by you claiming that the science of eugenics is true simply because you believe that it is, like faith. Please do enlighten me on the actual evidence or accredited theory of eugenics.

[Shiraan]

So you refuse to engage in honest discussion. Your weird notion that eugenics and religion are somehow intertwined has nothing to do with me.

I'm all too happy to engage in honest discussion, hence my request to not repeat yourself. I gained the impression of it being a religion by you claiming that the science of eugenics is true simply because you believe that it is, like faith. Please do enlighten me on the actual evidence of eugenics.

Eugenics doesn't need evidence because it's not a fact, it's a processes.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I'm all too happy to engage in honest discussion, hence my request to not repeat yourself. I gained the impression of it being a religion by you claiming that the science of eugenics is true simply because you believe that it is, like faith. Please do enlighten me on the actual evidence of eugenics.

Eugenics doesn't need evidence because it's not a fact, it's a processes.

Even processes (at least the explanations of them) rely on underlying assumptions/a priori reasoning as to why they would work as intended.

[BK117B2]

You didn't think that through. I didn't say eugenics was a science.

If you didn't say that it was an entire scientific area/field then you at least said that it's a scientific process; see-

The whole idea is that it is the scientific process of making improvements.

Oh, so the issue is that you are not familiar with the concept of eugenics. Eugenics is the scientific process of making such changes. Nothing about it is arbitrary. You confusing something arbitrary for eugenics does not actually make it so.

Yes, it is a process using science to accomplish a goal. If not doing it scientifically, then it isn't actually eugenics.

[BK117B2]

Both of those things obviously, as well as other things like a virus, other advanced life forms, climate change...

A virus like what? Even with Ebola, which is deadly and there's no known cure, and viruses such as the common cold which is highly contagious, we have managed to contain the associated doom potential that it would bring to our species.

A virus that is both easily transmitted and is very harmful in its effects. Such a virus might currently exist but not yet be discovered. Such a virus might exist in the future. Such a virus might get created by humans. Such a virus might never exist.

You would need to know there are "other advance forms" in advance before making such assumptions. So far, we haven't found any.

I didn't make any assumption about other advanced life forms. We already know that advanced life can exist in this universe.

climate change? We can always head underground if the climate becomes inhospitable or we can find a workaround or even try to reverse/mitigate the damage to the environment and climate we cause or that other creatures would. It's part of that "modifying" of our environment we talked about just some posts back.

Yeah, and as has already been pointed out, our current ability to modify our environment is quite limited.

All of those things mentioned would wipe out large population areas, but it would not bring an end to humankind.

You are simply making an assumption that none of those things would bring an end while also ignoring that they could also happen together.

[Ashmoria]

and if we worry about people passing on their genetic diseases we can trust that THEY know the downsides of bringing children into the world with these diseases and if we make it easy for them to be diagnosed themselves and give medical assistance to them to avoid bringing such children into the world we will find that the number who willingly do so are small enough that we can easily care for their offspring without eugenics.

Without eugenics? You just described using eugenics

no im not.

couples deciding on their own to get genetic testing and to use or not use medical science to prevent the birth of children with defects--or to abort a pregnancy that would result in a child with defects--is why we have medicine and science. eugenics is a government program forced on people to create the kind of children the government wants produced.

[SD_Film Artists]

If you didn't say that it was an entire scientific area/field then you at least said that it's a scientific process; see-

Yes, it is a process using science to accomplish a goal. If not doing it scientifically, then it isn't actually eugenics.

Every process uses science in some form or another- the important thing is if said process creates evidence or at least an accredited theory of how it can work rather than using quack science and/or abitrary judgements. As has been said before in the last few pages, eugenics has yet to show itself as anything more than arbitrary discrimination.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

A virus like what? Even with Ebola, which is deadly and there's no known cure, and viruses such as the common cold which is highly contagious, we have managed to contain the associated doom potential that it would bring to our species.

A virus that is both easily transmitted and is very harmful in its effects. Such a virus might currently exist but not yet be discovered. Such a virus might exist in the future. Such a virus might get created by humans. Such a virus might never exist.

You would need to know there are "other advance forms" in advance before making such assumptions. So far, we haven't found any.

I didn't make any assumption about other advanced life forms. We already know that advanced life can exist in this universe.

climate change? We can always head underground if the climate becomes inhospitable or we can find a workaround or even try to reverse/mitigate the damage to the environment and climate we cause or that other creatures would. It's part of that "modifying" of our environment we talked about just some posts back.

Yeah, and as has already been pointed out, our current ability to modify our environment is quite limited.

All of those things mentioned would wipe out large population areas, but it would not bring an end to humankind.

You are simply making an assumption that none of those things would bring an end while also ignoring that they could also happen together.

If a virus was created it would be incredibly stupid to do so. Furthermore, the common cold was usually moderately fatal before we discovered a vaccine. We became better at fighting the common cold. Also, you would need to disguise very well the documentation of people dying because of a disease in order for that virus to kill everyone nowadays. You're forgetting the fact we have a very good understanding of viruses and how they work, as well as being able to intervene and quarantine populations with more efficiency than ever before.

And like I said, we haven't found any that matches the same abilities as humans or better that would pose a threat to us. When we do, then we can make conjectures about them. Meanwhile we do not have that evidence and that's nothing but science fiction for the moment.

Our current ability is limited because of the technology we have at our disposal, and because we haven't managed to control our environment yet in certain forms. That doesn't mean that we're going to perish if climates were to change across the globe as we can adapt to our environment by building things that would keep us safe from the effects of it.

Your assumptions rely on an apocalyptic scenario which would be slow in passing instead of this super harsh change to our environment like it seems you are predicting by the tone of your sentence, which I need to point out we haven't experienced since the last comet impact.

[Alvecia]

I'm a bit late to this party. Have we talked about monoculture yet?

[BK117B2]

I'm not claiming ANY assumptions

I never said you did, I am asking you since you seem to be arguing that genetics doesn't take into account what I said, what does eugenics rely on? What does it depend on for it to be feasible?

Since you say I am wrong about saying that eugenics relies on creating a master race and that it makes faulty assumptions about genetics, surely then you would know what the actual underlying a priori reasoning of the field of eugenics is.

That doesn't logically follow. Knowing A isn't true wouldn't mean that you surely know B to be true. Off the top of your head, do you know that the square root of 8 is not 11? Do you know what it is to the 50th decimal?

The underlying idea in this case is that there can be things within human physiology more suitable or superior for passing down to future generations

[BK117B2]

I'm all too happy to engage in honest discussion, hence my request to not repeat yourself. I gained the impression of it being a religion by you claiming that the science of eugenics is true simply because you believe that it is, like faith.

If you would be all too happy to engage in honest discussion, then why do you lie about me instead? At no point have I ever claimed that "the science of eugenics is true" because I "believe that it is, like faith"

Please do enlighten me on the actual evidence or accredited theory of eugenics.

I think you're confused about the meaning of eugenics

[Soldati Senza Confini]

I never said you did, I am asking you since you seem to be arguing that genetics doesn't take into account what I said, what does eugenics rely on? What does it depend on for it to be feasible?

Since you say I am wrong about saying that eugenics relies on creating a master race and that it makes faulty assumptions about genetics, surely then you would know what the actual underlying a priori reasoning of the field of eugenics is.

That doesn't logically follow. Knowing A isn't true wouldn't mean that you surely know B to be true. Off the top of your head, do you know that the square root of 8 is not 11? Do you know what it is to the 50th decimal?

The underlying idea in this case is that there can be things within human physiology more suitable or superior for passing down to future generations

In this case, you correcting me on statement A means you know about the field of discussion more than I do and that's why you are correcting me. If you are correcting me and yet you don't know what you're talking about then why try to challenge my statement? How do you know that your statement is correct even if you claim mine isn't?

As for the underlying idea, that there can be things within human physiology more suitable or superior for passing down to future generations, I don't think there are, otherwise we would have done so. Our bodies are pretty much a patchwork of adaptation. Biologically speaking, we have managed, as humans, to develop the best suitable form for our environment, and we have become pretty much an apex species, if not the apex species. What would there need to be changed about humans that would give us even more of an edge against our environment?

[BK117B2]

Without eugenics? You just described using eugenics

no im not.

couples deciding on their own to get genetic testing and to use or not use medical science to prevent the birth of children with defects--or to abort a pregnancy that would result in a child with defects--is why we have medicine and science. eugenics is a government program forced on people to create the kind of children the government wants produced.

Ah, so the issue is that you do not know the meaining of eugenics.

The meaning of eugenics includes no mention of government at all or of forcing anyone to do anything.

[BK117B2]

Yes, it is a process using science to accomplish a goal. If not doing it scientifically, then it isn't actually eugenics.

Every process uses science in some form or another- the important thing is if said process creates evidence or at least an accredited theory of how it can work rather than using quack science and/or abitrary judgements. As has been said before in the last few pages, eugenics has yet to show itself as anything more than arbitrary discrimination.

You falsely claiming that arbitrary discrimination is eugenics does not magically make it so.

[Scinan]

Mild autism pretty clearly does have beneficial effects. There are some repetitive tasks or tedious jobs that autistics can do well because it is easier for them to stay focused.

Down's Syndrome, not so much. It's caused by an extra chromosome rather than a mutated gene, and it's typically due to errors in meiosis rather than being passed down through families for many generations. It's not a mutation that persists because it has beneficial side effects or because it is recessive; it's an error of the reproductive process that can occur spontaneously even if both parents are genetically normal. This makes it impossible to remove from the population without relying on abortions, but it also means you won't be losing anything genetically valuable by screening it out. Even if you screen it out via abortions and get rid of it for a while, you can easily bring it back later.

I was apparently under the impression it was an atavism, actually, a splitting of chromosome 21 into a more 'primitive' configuration (closer to that of some of our ancient relatives) rather than an erroneous duplication of it, but it looks like you're right. I must've been thinking of Chromosome 2 being a fusion of two older chromosomes.

Point stands though, as far as 'cannot meaningfully eliminate the fail state without eliminating the thing that fails'...which would be just as bad, I should think?

[BK117B2]

If a virus was created it would be incredibly stupid to do so. Furthermore, the common cold was usually moderately fatal before we discovered a vaccine. We became better at fighting the common cold. Also, you would need to disguise very well the documentation of people dying because of a disease in order for that virus to kill everyone nowadays. You're forgetting the fact we have a very good understanding of viruses and how they work, as well as being able to intervene and quarantine populations with more efficiency than ever before.

I didn't say it would be a great idea. I'm not forgetting anything just because you choose to make assumptions about it.

And like I said, we haven't found any that matches the same abilities as humans or better that would pose a threat to us. When we do, then we can make conjectures about them. Meanwhile we do not have that evidence and that's nothing but science fiction for the moment.

Which isn't relevant to the discussion. Not finding something and it not existing are not the same thing.

Our current ability is limited because of the technology we have at our disposal, and because we haven't managed to control our environment yet in certain forms. That doesn't mean that we're going to perish if climates were to change across the globe as we can adapt to our environment by building things that would keep us safe from the effects of it.

We MIGHT....but only if the climate change is relatively mild. Current technology doesn't allow us to make the significant alternations that would be necessitated by a major shift in climate.

Your assumptions rely on an apocalyptic scenario which would be slow in passing instead of this super harsh change to our environment like it seems you are predicting by the tone of your sentence, which I need to point out we haven't experienced since the last comet impact.

That's just you inventing assumptions to assign to me rather than addressing anything in my actual post. Try responding to my actual words

[BK117B2]

In this case, you correcting me on statement A means you know about the field of discussion more than I do and that's why you are correcting me. If you are correcting me and yet you don't know what you're talking about then why try to challenge my statement? How do you know that your statement is correct even if you claim mine isn't?

Correcting someone about something doesn't necessitate knowing every possible thing about the subject. It only necessitates knowing that particular thing.

As for the underlying idea, that there can be things within human physiology more suitable or superior for passing down to future generations, I don't think there are, otherwise we would have done so. Our bodies are pretty much a patchwork of adaptation. Biologically speaking, we have managed, as humans, to develop the best suitable form for our environment, and we have become pretty much an apex species, if not the apex species. What would there need to be changed about humans that would give us even more of an edge against our environment?

What makes you think that your form is better than every other life form on Earth?

To answer your question, given that there are still many possibilities for ways humans could be wiped out, obviously there are still improvements to be made. Maybe we can do it by modifying ourselves. Maybe we can do it by modifying our environment. There's no way to know yet

[Internationalist Bastard]

Look all I'm gonna say is that quality of life is relative.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

If a virus was created it would be incredibly stupid to do so. Furthermore, the common cold was usually moderately fatal before we discovered a vaccine. We became better at fighting the common cold. Also, you would need to disguise very well the documentation of people dying because of a disease in order for that virus to kill everyone nowadays. You're forgetting the fact we have a very good understanding of viruses and how they work, as well as being able to intervene and quarantine populations with more efficiency than ever before.

I didn't say it would be a great idea. I'm not forgetting anything just because you choose to make assumptions about it.

And like I said, we haven't found any that matches the same abilities as humans or better that would pose a threat to us. When we do, then we can make conjectures about them. Meanwhile we do not have that evidence and that's nothing but science fiction for the moment.

Which isn't relevant to the discussion. Not finding something and it not existing are not the same thing.

Our current ability is limited because of the technology we have at our disposal, and because we haven't managed to control our environment yet in certain forms. That doesn't mean that we're going to perish if climates were to change across the globe as we can adapt to our environment by building things that would keep us safe from the effects of it.

We MIGHT....but only if the climate change is relatively mild. Current technology doesn't allow us to make the significant alternations that would be necessitated by a major shift in climate.

Your assumptions rely on an apocalyptic scenario which would be slow in passing instead of this super harsh change to our environment like it seems you are predicting by the tone of your sentence, which I need to point out we haven't experienced since the last comet impact.

That's just you inventing assumptions to assign to me rather than addressing anything in my actual post. Try responding to my actual words

No, you brought up viruses. I am telling you viruses wouldn't work well in wiping out the population when we could contain Ebola to a very few cases in developed nations and we managed to quarantine almost entire countries. Your bringing up viruses is something that you seem to not grasp or not understand how viruses work. This isn't Resident Evil.

There not being evidence for something is more likely for us to not bother thinking about it. Unless of course you also bother to think about the Second Coming of Jesus every time apocalyptic scenarios come up in a discussion.

What makes you think future technology wouldn't allow us to better predict climate change and come up with solutions on how to alter the course? Relatively mild is all we need to correct if we can manage to predict with accuracy the changes in time.

No, that's literally what can be read from your statement. It's not my fault your statement sounds alarmist.

[Soldati Senza Confini]

In this case, you correcting me on statement A means you know about the field of discussion more than I do and that's why you are correcting me. If you are correcting me and yet you don't know what you're talking about then why try to challenge my statement? How do you know that your statement is correct even if you claim mine isn't?

Correcting someone about something doesn't necessitate knowing every possible thing about the subject. It only necessitates knowing that particular thing.

As for the underlying idea, that there can be things within human physiology more suitable or superior for passing down to future generations, I don't think there are, otherwise we would have done so. Our bodies are pretty much a patchwork of adaptation. Biologically speaking, we have managed, as humans, to develop the best suitable form for our environment, and we have become pretty much an apex species, if not the apex species. What would there need to be changed about humans that would give us even more of an edge against our environment?

What makes you think that your form is better than every other life form on Earth?

To answer your question, given that there are still many possibilities for ways humans could be wiped out, obviously there are still improvements to be made. Maybe we can do it by modifying ourselves. Maybe we can do it by modifying our environment. There's no way to know yet

Correcting someone necessitates that you have a right answer and something which you can claim it is correct. Simply saying "you're wrong" and not giving reasons why it's like saying "well you are wrong because I say so", and that's just a thinly veiled excuse to not sound ignorant.

What makes me think that my form is better than every other life form on Earth? Simple. We have managed to thrive on this planet under almost every condition thrown at us and there's over 7 billion of us now. The only more numerous species than us lie in the microscopic organisms (bacteria and viruses) and not much other advanced species (maybe plants, but that's debatable). If that doesn't make us better than every other life form on Earth then I don't know what does.

Medicine and technology can take care of at least several of them. And given the fact we haven't had to change ourselves in order to battle most of the diseases thrown at us (I mean, cancer is in a sense the only thing we can't get rid of but that's because of mutations in genes, and that's a different issue because of the fact that it is a consequence of living too damn long to get a mutation to begin with) and most of the climates we've tried to populate, I don't think there's much to be said about eugenics other than it doesn't have much utility for us when you value changing ourselves at the risk of putting future generations at risk vs just doing what we've been doing because it has been working for us.

[Tahar Joblis]

Eugenics is actually a fairly interesting topic.

(1) It's quite clear that artificial selection works very well. In some ways, it's sort of surprising how fast selective breeding can work to produce results.

(2) We also care, typically, about the well-being of future generations. Investment in education and the environment are similarly grounded in an interest in the well-being of future generations; likewise attempting to completely eradicate a disease like polio or smallpox.

Eugenics seems like a good idea, in that particular light. The problems, though, are:

(A) Not everybody quite agrees on what traits are good. E.g., red hair, having skin of a certain color, or even having certain mental disorders.

(B) Results are slow relative to policy change. (This plagues spending on environmental issues as well.)

(C) Basically every serious attempt at putting eugenics into policy has trampled over the line into infringing on human rights. Typically egregiously. And the relatively weak incentives that you can apply on a typical policy budget without infringing on human rights compound (A)-(B).

And then, of course, there's the Godwin problem. Sort of related to (C), but essentially an argument by association that presents a major policy obstacle anywhere in the West. Just because the Nazis did it doesn't mean it's intrinsically bad, but

[SD_Film Artists]

Every process uses science in some form or another- the important thing is if said process creates evidence or at least an accredited theory of how it can work rather than using quack science and/or abitrary judgements. As has been said before in the last few pages, eugenics has yet to show itself as anything more than arbitrary discrimination.

You falsely claiming that arbitrary discrimination is eugenics does not magically make it so.

Eugenics is arbitrary because it is based on individually/culturally dependent ideas of "perfect" or "better". Reducing genetic diversity isn't a good thing for the gene pool, and conditions such as autism and sickle-cell anemia have positive aspects along with negative aspects. Even when ignoring the Nazism link there are still minorities who may not exist today if "eugenics" was practiced by the societies they lived in.

Or as Ashmoria said:

"People have stupid goals. we want TALL children or BLOND children or Aryan children. those are useless goals. we want to keep poor people from breeding as if poverty is a genetic problem. we want to keep "low iq" people from breeding as if IQ is an independent measure of something and as if "regression toward the mean" isn't a thing. we want to keep undesirable groups from breeding as if that isn't flat out racism without any rational basis. we ignore that when we got the chance we sterilized large numbers of native American women and black women who got into the hands of the state. we ignore that if we just look at DOGS we see that selective breeding for "purity" has created huge genetic problems in many (maybe most) purebred breeds. that would be a disaster for humanity."

And Bogdanov Vishniac:

"In an evolutionary sense, selection is entirely context-dependent. A trait that is beneficial now may be deleterious 50 generations down the line, or vice versa. Adaptivity is also not a straight line. Sickle-cell anemia is an adaptive trait to confer resistance to malaria - it also causes disease in humans that carry two copies of the trait. It's therefore an excellent example of an otherwise completely deleterious mutation that is nevertheless selected for because it confers a benefit on a population scale within the context of an environment with endemic malaria.

Using controlled breeding or wherever to purposefully promote or weed out specific traits is therefore completely arbitrary, since it relies on our judgement and not the environment as to what a 'positive' trait is. Worse, it purposefully destroys genetic diversity within our population and drastically thins the pool of genetic traits available for selection to work upon in future generations, putting our entire species' future at risk."

[SD_Film Artists]

And then, of course, there's the Godwin problem. Sort of related to (C), but essentially an argument by association that presents a major policy obstacle anywhere in the West. Just because the Nazis did it doesn't mean it's intrinsically bad, but

I find that it's sometimes used as a reverse Godwin's Law by eugenics supporters who think that eugenics is now flawless just because it's not quite as bad as it used to be in the 1940's. Genocide is genocide no matter how much one decorates it with "science" and "ending of suffering", only today the Nazis and gas chambers are replaced by quack activist groups convincing parents that [trait X] isn't good for their kids.

[Esternial]

[
If a virus was created it would be incredibly stupid to do so. Furthermore, the common cold was usually moderately fatal before we discovered a vaccine. We became better at fighting the common cold. Also, you would need to disguise very well the documentation of people dying because of a disease in order for that virus to kill everyone nowadays. You're forgetting the fact we have a very good understanding of viruses and how they work, as well as being able to intervene and quarantine populations with more efficiency than ever before.

Engineering a virus or modifying an existing one in order to make a vaccine against it is one approach to anticipate future needs for vaccines. It's not unthinkable that certain labs currently posses viral strains that could wipe out a vast portion of our population if it were to ever get out. Fortunately these labs have proper and strict security measures