Can a Eugenics Program Work in the Modern World?

[Bronze Age Pervert]

And what would it look like?

Those in the "no" camp point out that you'd need hundreds, if not thousands of years, to see results, and no government or state lasts that long.

[Thomas777]

And what would it look like?


The present day. Men and women of means choosing mates based upon criteria of aesthetics and intelligence quotient, ''designer babies'' being available as a medical luxury, abortion on demand, pre-natal screening and monitoring to guarantee an absence of defects, etc.

The only victory gained by anti-eugenicists since 1973 has been the denial of public funds to abortion providers as a matter of law.

[Arcturus]

Those in the "no" camp point out that you'd need hundreds, if not thousands of years, to see results, and no government or state lasts that long.

Who claims that?

The application of political or societal pressure to influence the distribution of genetically heretitable traits within a population can yield results in as few as one generation.

[Roland]

Thomas is right. While classical eugenics has been abandoned, liberal eugenics is gaining strength. In the book The Lives to Come the philosopher Philip Kitcher outlines a theory of "idealistic" eugenics and repudiates the "errors" of classical eugenicists like Galton. Kitcher explains that thinkers like Galton and the eugenicists in America presupposed "victorian values" in determining which type of phenotype was desirable. He goes on to develop a theory of eugenics that takes into consideration not only the genetic lottery, but also the environmental lottery. In practice this is just the application of liberal morality to the problems of heredity.

Understood broadly, eugenics is essentially our destiny, regardless of who controls the means of genetic manipulation. Even a Christian world that decides against the benefits and drawbacks of eugenics is making a eugenic decision. This is the consequence of our expanding knowledge of heredity.

[elbwgreez]

The present day. Men and women of means choosing mates based upon criteria of aesthetics and intelligence quotient, ''designer babies'' being available as a medical luxury, abortion on demand, pre-natal screening and monitoring to guarantee an absence of defects, etc.

The only victory gained by anti-eugenicists since 1973 has been the denial of public funds to abortion providers as a matter of law.

Exactly. We're not talking about natural selection, which takes a long time. Humans have been altering plants and animals for thousands of years through selective breeding. For instance, the only reason the carrots you buy in a store are orange is because a scientist bred that specific characteristic into carrots to honor the House Of Orange in the Netherlands.

http://orangejourney.blogspot.com/2008/01/carrots-in-color-of-dutch-royal-family.html

All that is needed is the will, which means a total revolution in thinking that upends the current liberal, path to the bottom policy of subsidizing the worst and punishing the best.

[Bronze Age Pervert]

What you're talking about though is not eugenics but certain disjointed practices that may lead to a dysgenic condition and in any case won't achieve any specific eugenic goals. The way I understand eugenics is for example the Nuba or Masai or some other African tribes who were obviously able to achieve, through custom, laws, sexual selection and maybe other practices, a uniform and distinctive type over many hundreds of years; in Aryan law or mind (India, Plato) this is often expressed as laws encouraging the creation of a few types that are then hierarchically ordered into castes. There are a few other options like this. But to have one set of parents select for one preferred trait, another set for another (maybe even their children opting for something entirely different) will obviously not lead to any eugenic results in the long run, and probably no results at all. The most that could come from such a program is reduction of Down's syndrome cases and a few other similar or genetic disorders *maybe*; but not even that, because carriers will not be selected against.

The question is if there is a possibility for a REAL eugenics program and what it would look like; you may be hitting the mark in one sense, that any such program would have to be cultural and social rather than based on govt. bureaucracy...it would have to be something that survives changes in govt. and even greater changes. But it is very questionable if something like that can be maintained in the modern world.

[PsychoStick]

What you're talking about though is not eugenics but certain disjointed practices that may lead to a dysgenic condition and in any case won't achieve any specific eugenic goals. The way I understand eugenics is for example the Nuba or Masai or some other African tribes who were obviously able to achieve, through custom, laws, sexual selection and maybe other practices, a uniform and distinctive type over many hundreds of years; in Aryan law or mind (India, Plato) this is often expressed as laws encouraging the creation of a few types that are then hierarchically ordered into castes. There are a few other options like this. But to have one set of parents select for one preferred trait, another set for another (maybe even their children opting for something entirely different) will obviously not lead to any eugenic results in the long run, and probably no results at all. The most that could come from such a program is reduction of Down's syndrome cases and a few other similar or genetic disorders *maybe*; but not even that, because carriers will not be selected against.

The question is if there is a possibility for a REAL eugenics program and what it would look like; you may be hitting the mark in one sense, that any such program would have to be cultural and social rather than based on govt. bureaucracy...it would have to be something that survives changes in govt. and even greater changes. But it is very questionable if something like that can be maintained in the modern world.

A real and practical eugenics program would involve sterilization of undesirables out of society, much like what was done in the US throughout the 20th century. It would also involve genetic engineering. The now offered designer babies are a good start.

The idea would be to genetically remove predispositions to diabetes, addiction, blindness, the deaf, and anything else linked to genetics.

The next step would be ordered breeding. You would allow society to marry whomever they wanted, but they would not be allowed to have natural child conception. You would organize sperm and egg banks that everyone, who after genetic analysis finds being desired, would contribute to. Then when a Married couple, or even a single mother, wanted a child they would be artificially impregnated using a picked pair.

But people in general would first have to lose many of the ridiculous ideas that have been attached to a eugenics breeding program. It's funny how people who have no idea what you're talking about when you say eugenics will instantly say the word Hitler, and then act like they scored an intelligent point.

Fortunately, society is beginning to cull itself.

[Dapper Old Gent]

It would look something like Gattaca.