This BMJ article (http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/319/7220/1284) argues, among other things, that a "moral case against voluntary choices to advance eugenic goals by individuals or couples has not been persuasively made."

The slope is indeed slickery.

Go watch Gataca, come back, then we'll discuss.

From one point of view, a Gattica scenario scares the pants off me. From another, it seems like the best possible world that still contains things that are arguably human.

I don't mind if we all have brilliant and beautiful babies who grow up to be geniuses, supermodels, and sports stars.

There is this little problem of who's going to pay for it all.

I suspect that, as usual, the rich will get the good stuff (designer babies) and the poor will have to make do. This will lead to a world in which certain people have all of the genetic, social, and monetary advantages, and other people have none of them. We're heading in that direction already; it will be worse when the rich are uniformly, genetically, more capable and brighter than the poor. The divide will become unbridgeable.

This will probably eventually lead to social revolution.

And the engineered individuals would still eventually come out on top. A genetically engineered human can look just like a normal so you can't just go out ank kill them all. Even if genocide was performed against them, some would leave their former life and go get bluecollared jobs. Then they have kids and their kids have kids.

Offspring carrying enhanced genes will do better in life. They will live longer and be able to breed later in life. They will have less sickness. Heck, they are beautyful people who get the best mates. In time, these genes are found in every human outside a few isolated populations. And nobody would even notice.

In a revolution, it's easy to know who to attack. In a revolution, it's the beautiful who are raped.

A revolution (albeit, a successful one) where the non-engineered overthrow the engineered would succeed, since the good engineered genes would get mixed up in the population through breeding.

Besides, perhaps the aim of such a revolution would be to bring gene frequency back within naturally selected limits, rather than through unnatural selection.

It became our responsibility to selectively breed ourselves once we escaped the shackles of natural selection to avoid becoming a plague.
We totally dropped the ball on that, and in effect declared war on the planet earth.

What isn't immoral about dysgenics?

Its not that eugenics, or dysgenics for that matter is immoral. Our species lives just beyond the environments capacity for supporting it. This IS the euginics. Eugenics happens everywhere but we don't see it because it hides under the guise of changing politics, fashion, religion etc- all responses to changing environmental factors.

I think I've cited the example of eastern european Jewry before; Back in the middle ages, *everybody* was dirt poor. But the Jews, marginalized, were the poorest. Jewish groups in the area responded by providing a source for education in religious study, and social welfare. Smarter, more capable Jews stuck with it and spent their time studying talmud in small circles while the weaker ones became assimilated in exchange for the easier life. Flushing out the..genetic effluent.. resulted in a group of eastern europeans with an average IQ 20 points higher than the rest, and in some pockets, much more.

Why can't we see this kind of change today?

Well, its happening. The most moral and high minded will be the ones to exploit eugenics first because their beliefs spring from the same sort of immorality or subversiveness. In the future it will be considered immoral to bring somebody into this world with a genetic disorder or an brain that deviates from 'recommended genes', but somebody has to take that first step, light the torch and set the boundaries.

In the future it will be considered immoral to bring somebody into this world with a genetic disorder or an brain that deviates from 'recommended genes', but somebody has to take that first step, light the torch and set the boundaries.
whoever is first, it will ignite a "race" war; where China, Russia, India, Germany & the US try to out-perform, out-genius the rest. it will put pressure on the kids too, since they will be expected to "perform" to high level standards, the pressure will be intense.

It already started in sports, were the old Soviet block use to & now China send all the kids through a sports academy to see who are athletically gifted, to go on to professiona livesl, ala Yao Ming.

see:
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/yao_ming/
or
http://www.rediff.com/sports/2004/aug/29oly.htm
"The problem is not merely that there will be suspicion behind every medal, it is that sport will become simply entertainment," Cohen said. "Athletes will become more like animals bred for the race than human beings rising to the occasion".
But there might be a catch for the squeamish.
"Even if steroids were legal and available to everyone," Cohen adds, "wouldn't we see sports differently if we watched all the runners shoot up just before the gun went off?"

Next up; the math nerds, techno geeks, the univesal soldiers?

What is immoral about eugenics.:

It claims to be based on science, but is purely a ideological movement.

The word Eugenics is wisely associated with the Nazi approach to it, which is a total disaster. Mention the word and to most people, images of death camps are what spring to mind.

I suggest that is the sole problem: I failt to see how deliberate choice of good genes for your son or daughter can be considered immoral - but theres always someone who will, and who will insist everyone else is dragged down to their pitiful level.


Lava

Genetic engineering is in principle an extension of an already enjoyed privilege. If you’re a hardworking individual who’s earned a living at an above-average social stratum, then you’re as eligible to have your wealth utilized in any way you see fit as it is generally true to the middle-class. Government intervention on the individual level is of course in this respect democratically unacceptable.

There’s nonetheless an already accumulating substance to the socialist agenda. The current capitalist regime has given our societies overblown oligarchies that licitly pilot the states’ economies and in so doing entwine the world of tomorrow. The impeccability of this process makes it difficult to draw a line between what ordinary people like you and me consider seemly, and what is apparently inappropriate on the basis of ethics alone. The buildup of contempt amongst the grassroots at the present regime seems unavoidable.

I suggest that is the sole problem: I failt to see how deliberate choice of good genes for your son or daughter can be considered immoral - but theres always someone who will, and who will insist everyone else is dragged down to their pitiful level.


Lava

There is a difference between chosing the right partner or a instutionalized program of selective breeding.

What point are you making monkey?

That you don't know what eugenics is?

litenup....if you really listen to your HEART you wont have to be told what is immoral, you'll NKOW. though it helps to also intellectually explore about it

all this shit about eugenics, which is a Nazi idea, though it was forerunner prior to actual 'Nazi movement'.......

what is being planned now is the manipulation of our very beings. for exmple, If anyone shows any energy, and dissent--well, just as it was in the USSR when people who challenged that system were diagnosed mentally ill and were forcibly hopitalized, so it is now going to be if the fukers at the top and their sheeple followers get their way
What this means is it'll be the poor, ESPECIALLY those with brown skin who will be on the front line for the injections, pills, etc "treatment"

next. consider the culture that is even considering this. it is currently destroying Nature. it is depending for its wealth on an arms industry. and they are currently using depleted uranium on innocent people in Iraq, as they have dont in Afghanistan, and are planningto do in Iran, etc etc. Deplted Uranium is nuclear radiation when it explodes, and severely pollutes siol, water, air, causing cancers, new forms of cancers, and monstrous deformities in unborn babies
It also doesn't warn its OWN soldiers about the dangers of DU, and when they become ill, and their babies are born deformed, are totally ignored by the military personell and government officialsm, who lie, deny, fabricate evidence etc

so, THEy are part and parcel with the very souless 'scientific' dream of a 'superior' race of 'designer babies'. the whole idea is EVIL and immoral, yes!

Indeed, eugenics has nothing to do with improving the species. It is all about control over a population. You may think it is all nice and dandy that only the best genes will be selected, but YOU are not going to select them. A few people in control will select them for you and decide what is good for you. So, the question is really: are you feeling lucky? Will you, your loved ones, your family, your children, your neighbour fit within the parameters imposed by a system whose aim is it to exert control.

EXACTLY! because WHO is judging this? WHO is judging who the 'better designed' person is? The one who contributes to a system that is destroying Nature? who has lost any feeling, and doesn't even KNOW it?

the mindset which comes up with eugenics, designer babies, GM, etc is the same mindset that is totally devoid of ANy morals. who has truly lost contact with heart, feelings, SOUL

the DARKESt irony is that they dont KNOW this. they aren't even aware that they have no deep feeling. Yet from there they willy nilly go about putting everything 'right'

my fukin purpose before i snuff it, is to explore about this to the core, and in the exploring encourage others to also look closely at whats going on. OTHERWISE the danger is getting oeverwhelmingly suked into the spin of it. Next thing you know, t's YOU whose shoppin for the next new designer baby, while up the high street other babies are being farmed for the expensive organs......ther's no end to the horror the souless ones have planned for us if we let them have their way

Thanks for explaining how people that lack intelligence will act against all improvements.

Lava

what do you mean by "improvements"?....i am taking that was a sarcastic remark aimed at me? forgive me if i'm wrong

I don't mind if we all have brilliant and beautiful babies who grow up to be geniuses, supermodels, and sports stars.

There is this little problem of who's going to pay for it all.

I suspect that, as usual, the rich will get the good stuff (designer babies) and the poor will have to make do. This will lead to a world in which certain people have all of the genetic, social, and monetary advantages, and other people have none of them. We're heading in that direction already; it will be worse when the rich are uniformly, genetically, more capable and brighter than the poor. The divide will become unbridgeable.

This will probably eventually lead to social revolution.

but this gap is not a global one, so in a lot af countries there wolud be no gap, then when trade and tourism picked up people wolud see te lack of gap and move

Thanks for explaining how people that lack intelligence will act against all improvements.

Lava

That's an ad hominim. Happen to be the smartest person on the planet.

Technically if everyone's perfect the world is going to be a better place, but wouldn't the same problems still exist? There are obviously going to be some people who are smarter, faster or better looking than everyone else. It wouldn't really change anything. Our standards would just be raised higher.

A good many of our problems today are caused by plain stupidity. Improve intelligence and those problems will change from widespread to exceptional.

Lava

That's an ad hominim.

Occasionally ad hominem is actually valid criticism in a debate.

Lava

Indeed, eugenics has nothing to do with improving the species. It is all about control over a population.

A few people in control will select them for you and decide what is good for you.

Will you, your loved ones, your family, your children, your neighbour fit within the parameters imposed by a system whose aim is it to exert control.
Yuck, does anyone want these people determining our future?

See the "Mad Genius" gene pool:
http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/103402/
alleged "Nobel Prize sperm bank" was nothing of the sort. He recruited only three Nobelists—notably transistor inventor William Shockley

William Shockley, one of the donors:
http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/belllabs_transistor1.html

A good many of our problems today are caused by plain stupidity. Improve intelligence and those problems will change from widespread to exceptional.

Lava
though I would agree somewhat, I have found that people have several probs, relating to how smart or dumb they are;
1) natural talent; i.e. genius or not
2) environmental factors; i.e. parents & parenting styles
3) cultural, societal values impressed & expressed
4) internal vs. external motivators
5) personality type
6) opportunity
7) rewards; i.e. money, prestige

which leaves us with Einsteins, Leonardos on one end & every spectrum in between, etc...

Oh, & just being smart isn't enough, boy, I've met some duzzies, they needed more than just common sense

Quite so Randolfo - but for any kind of success you need a bit of IQ, and this is partly heritable, for those that wish to partake in such a thing. Most dont of course. Beauty is too, to some extent, though that opens up a can of worms if we follow it.

There is no one type of person to breed for, if some people are going to go in for eugenics I daresay they'll have either differing criteria or else a shared set of criteria, as opposed to just one trait.

The idea suggested that the whole world will be forced into a eugenics program - I dunno, where is the logic behind that one?

Lava

We must not forget that gene diversity is essential to the survival of the species. We can never know when a specific trait or set of traits will be needed.

For example, the gene that codes for sickle-cell anemia also codes for increased resistance to malaria in heterozygotes (people with both the sickle-cell trait and the normal trait). Say we get rid of this trait in our quest for a better humanity. A few years later, there's a massive malaria outbreak.

To purposely eliminate any gene would appear to me as folly.

It seems to me an appropriate eugenics program for modern society would be breeding different strains of humans to meet the different demands in society. Breeding lines of firemen, soldiers, bicycle couriers, athletes, tax brokers, etc and so forth.
A system where someone chooses who should and shouldn't breed by who they like and dislike would obviously be pointless and would cause contempt among the masses.
But what is wrong with my idea? A little too logical perhaps?
Doing nothing and letting people go like a plague of rats is just irresponsible and ugly. Not to mention completely counter-productive.
I don't like modern societies structure at all, but I'm willing to comprimise and we can at least have the best possible lifeguards if we must have lifeguards.

Dr. Lou, do you really want to reduce humans to a colony of Carpenter ants?

But what about the dilemmas which will soon be upon us. Should those who carry the genes for Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) be allowed to continue to have children if a way to remove the gene is found, and they refuse the treatment?

What do you think of this:

Sound and Fury focuses on the conflicts in one Long Island, New York, family: A deaf couple, Peter and Nita Artinian, refuse to let their 5-year-old daughter, Heather, get an implant -- much to the dismay of Peter’s hearing parents. "If somebody gave me a pill that would make me hearing, would I take it? No way," Peter Artinian asserts in sign language. "I’d want to go to a hospital and throw it up and go back to being deaf. I want to be deaf....If the technology progresses, maybe it’s true deaf people will become extinct, and my heart will be broken. Deaf culture is something to value and cherish. It’s my culture." Other deaf people in the film echo his views, praising "deaf culture" and deriding attempts to cure deafness.

Militant "Deaf Pride" activism first gained national visibility in 1988, when six radical students at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the country’s only liberal arts university for the deaf, successfully blocked the appointment of a hearing university president by organizing student protests. This movement has consciously modeled itself not only on the civil rights activism of the 1960s but even more directly on the gay pride movement. Just as gay activists sought to remove the stigma of "sickness" from homosexuality, deaf activists have been trying to challenge the view of deafness as a deficiency. They draw an explicit analogy between efforts to restore hearing to the deaf (or to prevent deafness altogether) and efforts to "cure" homosexuality.

The activists also insist that "deaf culture," complete with its own language -- American Sign Language, or ASL -- is no different from any other ethnic or linguistic culture. The only deaf people who are truly disabled, deaf activist M.J. Bienvenu has been quoted as saying, are those who "learn forced English while being denied sign." In her view, "for the rest of us, it is no more a disability than being Japanese would be." From such a perspective, "fixing" deafness is nothing less than cultural genocide.

http://www.reason.com/0204/co.cy.sound.shtml

How could any reasonable person be against restoring a sense? If someone could give me a pill that enhanced my existing senses (better vision, better hearing, better sense of smell) with no appreciable drawbacks, I wouldn't hesitate to take it.

Isn't refusing the cochlear implant child abuse, or at least neglect?

We must not forget that gene diversity is essential to the survival of the species. We can never know when a specific trait or set of traits will be needed.

For example, the gene that codes for sickle-cell anemia also codes for increased resistance to malaria in heterozygotes (people with both the sickle-cell trait and the normal trait). Say we get rid of this trait in our quest for a better humanity. A few years later, there's a massive malaria outbreak.

To purposely eliminate any gene would appear to me as folly.

This is a red herring. Eugenics does not imply that everyone will be forced into a eugenics program. It is just not a realistic interpretation. Most of the population is much more interested in their kids having the genes of the people they love most than in eugenics, it always was so and always will be so.

Its like opposing condoms on the basis that there wil be no more babies and humans will become extinct.


Lava

It seems to me an appropriate eugenics program for modern society would be breeding different strains of humans to meet the different demands in society. Breeding lines of firemen, soldiers, bicycle couriers, athletes, tax brokers, etc and so forth.
A system where someone chooses who should and shouldn't breed by who they like and dislike would obviously be pointless and would cause contempt among the masses.
But what is wrong with my idea?

1. You cant determine what job someone takes before theyre born.
2. The same qualities make people fit for a wide range of jobs
3. All the above require the same small desirable set of traits anyway, ie physical fitness and mental intelligence.
4. Most will never take part in eugenics anyhow, making it entirely ineffective at breding for jobs. The unlikely assumption that eugenics would be a worldwide compulsory program shows how people have still not managed to separate eugenics from the hideous days of Hitler's total lunacy, and his frankly idiotic attempts at malgenics.


Lava

QUOTE Repo Man:

>But what about the dilemmas which will soon be upon us. Should those
>who carry the genes for Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) be allowed to
>continue to have children if a way to remove the gene is found, and
>they refuse the treatment?

Imho it is always the case that sane parents shuold be able to choose concerning the life of their children rather than politicians. Trying to usurp parental decision making by popular politics is a truly stupid move - not that that stops people trying.


>What do you think of this:
>
>[i]Sound and Fury focuses on the conflicts in one Long Island, New York, family:

If you let parents decide there will always be the odd dummy decisions. On the other hand if you let politicians and judges decide there will be a huge slew of dummy decisions.


> Isn't refusing the cochlear implant child abuse, or at least neglect?

Its not smart. But which do you want, parents to make these kind of decisions, or politicians?


Lava

Repo
Dr. Lou, do you really want to reduce humans to a colony of Carpenter ants?
It's a joke that YOU (as a human being) would use the word "reduce", but yes.

1. You cant determine what job someone takes before theyre born.
No, but you can test them when they're adults.
You'd have to start slow. Wolves weren't perfect for all the tasks men started them on. We just picked the most suitable ones, and bred the more suitable ones with the more suitable ones etc, untill we had a wide variation of types each specialised to a certain task.

2. The same qualities make people fit for a wide range of jobs
You're just too used to mediocrity. People might be "fit" or "good enough" for a whole range of jobs. But we could make people perfect for a specific job. They might end up being capable of also doing similar jobs, but they'll be better at the job they're specialised for. Taxi drivers could differ from bus drivers in that they have slightly shorter necks and are more adept at conversation.
Anyway, we'll confront the "hurdle" of people being capable of more than one job ( :confused: ) when we get to it.

3. All the above require the same small desirable set of traits anyway, ie physical fitness and mental intelligence.
Thats a very basic understanding of living organisms. People aren't just fit or not fit or intelligent or not intelligent. There are infinite types of fitness/athletic ability and intelligences. We could craft a strain of homo sapien with numerous adaptations which specifically aid it in excelling at fighting fire and rescuing people.
We bred bloodhounds for their good sense of smell but there's so much more to them than that. They also have extreme determination and focus so that they'll stay on the scent and track it untill the very end.
I'm just illustrating that organisms can be bred to extreme degrees of specialisation. Now that we humans have decided to become one big team (like a global ant colony) we could at least become an efficient one, with all the occupations required for the good of the colony being filled by specimens who excell at that occupation and were bred for it.

4. Most will never take part in eugenics anyhow, making it entirely ineffective at breding for jobs. The unlikely assumption that eugenics would be a worldwide compulsory program shows how people have still not managed to separate eugenics from the hideous days of Hitler's total lunacy, and his frankly idiotic attempts at malgenics.
It would be very simple to set up a system where those who don't fit in naturally struggle to survive and die, but don't realise they are being screwed. Rather spend their short lives critiqueing themselves and feeling insecure about not being good enough to live as a person. We could even subtly encourage suicide amongst this unfortunate population of misfits.
They could make up travelling circuses like they used to.
Or we could get them to work some pointless job at some fake "factory" which is actually just a place which sends out radioactive beams which sterilise all in the vicinity. We could also set up cameras around the fake factories, so that those in on the joke (everyone who fits into a real job) could watch a reality program after a hard day's work which features inferior people slaving away for no reason and being invisibly sterilised by radioactive beams.

We could also set up cameras around the fake factories, so that those in on the joke (everyone who fits into a real job) could watch a reality program after a hard day's work which features inferior people slaving away for no reason and being invisibly sterilised by radioactive beams.
Lou, sometimes I can't tell when you are being sarcastic.

I legitimately hold human rights in low regard. So my proposals for a better world don't necessarrily need to be devoid of outlandishly bizarre and hilarious breaches of human rights in order to be serious at the same time.
This time I was perhaps stretching it in the name of comedy, but really I wouldn't mind watching such a reality show and would have no moral objections to it.

Breed in a sense of dedication and you can stop paying wages.

It would be very simple to set up a system where those who don't fit in naturally struggle to survive and die, but don't realise they are being screwed. Rather spend their short lives critiqueing themselves and feeling insecure about not being good enough to live as a person. We could even subtly encourage suicide amongst this unfortunate population of misfits.
They could make up travelling circuses like they used to.
Or we could get them to work some pointless job at some fake "factory" which is actually just a place which sends out radioactive beams which sterilise all in the vicinity. We could also set up cameras around the fake factories, so that those in on the joke (everyone who fits into a real job) could watch a reality program after a hard day's work which features inferior people slaving away for no reason and being invisibly sterilised by radioactive beams.

Sounds a little like Brave New World. Oh and for the record, I find circus people facinating and talented.

I legitimately hold human rights in low regard.

Why?

Lava

Breed in a sense of dedication and you can stop paying wages.
A wee bit to much termite DNA in the mix? It would come at a severe cost.

I know...that is why I am disappointed in Dr Lou. He doesn't realize that systematic eugenics will mean the end of the human species, and not an improvement. Unless he wants to call the existence of several dog breeds an improvement over the one wolf species?

Well, in some cases, they are an improvement. Many would survive in the wild with few problems after a few generations of cruelly weeding out the timid and weak. Some like ratters and Corgies would be able to occupy a whole new set of evolutionary niches.

In my mind, diversity can only be good. You will have pleanty of failures though.

I'm not a fan of "breeds" exactly, because they were developed by the kennel clubs for dog shows and thats all they're good for.
But, before breeds, there was "types" that naturally came to be in accordance with the tasks man got dogs to do. Sighthounds, scenthounds, herders, mastiffs(bulldogs, boardogs, guard dogs, fighting dogs), terriers, etc.
The breeding selection wasn't so arbitrary as today and truely remarkable animals were being produced.
These dogs were better than wolves in their area of expertise, while the wolf is the original allrounder.
If our species was barely holding onto existence by a thread I'd be all for the allrounder type of human being the only one. But that's not the case now is it? If it was we'd naturally be being bred for exceptional allrounder traits by nature.
No, like domestic dogs, we're being kept alive rather than surviving. And so there is now a responsibility for our keeper, our keeper happens to be us so it's a strange situation. Society as a whole is keeping the individual humans.
Thus society is responsible for breeding humans in accordance with the demands of society. Culling strictly so we always have the best of the best, and only as many as we need. Reducing over consumption and making the human machine a neater little package rather than a big cancerous growth uncontrollably and relentlessly engulfing the planet.

Hmm, I'm getting a Hitler deja vu.

A set of breeds is a set of breeds. We can argue about which characteristics each breed should have, but it doesn't change the fact that you want to split the human species in a set of breeds. You are trying to create a set of specialists. If you look at the history of evolution you will see that specialist are the species that go extinct first. Hence I think my position is supported that I think you make a big mistake if you think that the human species will be improved by splitting it up in a set of specialist species.

Branching out in every direction is the ultimate survival stratagy. Specialists, while fragile, make the most of a particular role and can sometimes spread to neighboring roles that a generalist couldn't directly. Eventually they go down the drain but they will always be replaced.

And let us not forget that we are sapients and can manipulate our enviroment. We can change it to better suit us and expand our potential role.

As I said: Specialists a prone to extinction. That is a remark based upon historical fact, not a belief.

But the whole point is we are extremely far away from going extinct, we are almost too far away. We're not hanging onto existence so we can afford to specialise.
Specialists do have a tendency to go extinct due to the changing nature of the world, but with what I'm talking about only breeds would go extinct, other's would always replace them.
While the sloth bear is in danger of going extinct due to specialising towards an ant only diet, bears in general are less likely to go extinct due to branching out to many specialisations. Perhaps the world will become devoid of salmon and seals and berries one day, but because one strain of bear specialised to an ant diet it will remain.
Specialisation is a good thing, not necessarrily for the specific line of specialised organism, but thats irrelevent. Would anyone really care if homo sapiens lawyeritus went extinct?
Trial and error is more successfull with more trials.

Again, humans aren't clutching onto existence with their fingernails, so there's no excuses. It's natural we branch out into different specialised strains.
Also, we're depleting bio-diversity at a phenomenal rate, so we could at least diversify to make up for it.

The mistake you make here is that you can't go back from specialist to generalist.

The cause of specilaists becoming extinct can easily be addressed by human beings, we are not at the mercy of our surroundings like other species are, we can change them.

Lava

So you think human arrogance is more powerful than actual biological trends?

Human ability to transform our environment is. Why do I say this? If it werent for our having done that, most of us today would be dead.

Lava

But what about the dilemmas which will soon be upon us. Should those who carry the genes for Cystic Fibrosis (for instance) be allowed to continue to have children this may be easier for a family to decide on & society, but still a hard decision for the parents to be, if a CF diagnosis is made on their child prior to delivery

What do you think of this:

[i]Sound and Fury focuses on the conflicts in one Long Island, New York, family: A deaf couple, Peter and Nita Artinian, refuse to let their 5-year-old daughter, Heather, get an implant --

Isn't refusing the cochlear implant child abuse, or at least neglect?having worked with deaf clients, I would agree that they have a civil right to belong to the "group" they are a part of, tell me, do you think its right to tell people who to associate with & "who" they are?

Please read the article. It has nothing to do with telling them who they may associate with. The issue is their refusal to allow their daughter to get needed medical treatment for idealogical reasons. In my opinion, when their ideology conflicts with what is best for their daughter, idealogy loses. It is very similar to Christian Scientists who are taken to court because they refuse to let their children get medical treatments, such as blood transfusions, because it somehow conflicts with their chosen superstition.

It seems to me an appropriate eugenics program for modern society would be breeding different strains of humans to meet the different demands in society. Breeding lines of firemen, soldiers, bicycle couriers, athletes, tax brokers, etc and so forth.man as machine? man as a parts factory? never

A system where someone chooses who should and shouldn't breed by who they like and dislike would obviously be pointless and would cause contempt among the masses.
But what is wrong with my idea? A little too logical perhaps? .Never happen, most couples would choose blonde & blue-eyed, 6' 2" athletic extroverts,

stop & see how many 'fake' blondes & 'fake' blue eyes there are in our brown hair, brown-eyed world

I would be one of those fathers to choose a dark haired introvert with an IQ in excess of 200. If possible, I would slip in as many improvements as possible without severely deviating from the human form or rendering potential offspring sterile. i would aim for a unique, while still attractive, face as opposed to the hollywood cardboard-cutout.

The paradox is however that if you do that you won't be the father.

If I adopted a son, would I be any less of a father? There is more to being a parent than genetics.

Anyway, isn't it any father's dreem to have a son who is better off than their old man and perhaps bears a few fewer flaws?

Obviously you would be a lesser father to your offspring because you are not the only father....there is some genelab somewere that is the second father.

Future of human species will be engineered like it or not.. the best always rise to the top end of story.

You have some knowledge or insights you want to share with us to back this up?

The best dont rise to the top: it is the C students that rule the world, not the As. Quantity and popular views rise to the top.

Lava

I thought Bill Gates and his kind along with scheming bastards in politics ruled the world.

Exactly :) Unless you believe Bill Gates is the best specimen of humanity.

Seriously though, Bill is a bit unusual. When you look at most of the people that decide world or national policy and so on, you dont find the top scorers in intelligence, you find good students only, not geniuses.


Lava

The mistake you make here is that you can't go back from specialist to generalist.

You can when you are designing the system. Reason that specialists are prone to go extinct is because the system which made those specialists first place is blind - its the environment, environment change ,requirements change old stuff goes extinct if it doesnt adapt. There was no planning no long term goals for specialists, stuff specialists were specialized in was passing , immediate. And so are specialists themselves.

Its the same trend in all systems - including human made ones, when specialization is beneficial specialists appear ,when its more beneficial to have universal elements they start dominate.

Implementation doesnt matter- only thing matters what is on the input ,what is on the output and what is the criteria of selection.

Fact is our evolution had pretty basic goals and criterias of success - survive, produce more of your own. Well we have homo sapiens, we are so successfull at this basic task that we surivive and produce more of our own against all odds, risking depleting the resources to the point that not only for use there will be no sustainable environement but even for any other semi complex systems.


So well imgaine you have a goal to design a system. What would be your first task? -determine what system should do and criteria of success,we want prolly the system to be resilent to externals factor (to not go extinct) ,we do want it to meet and probably exceed initial criterias (thus evolutionize to next level) . In our humble case we gonna design "intelligent species system". Person A may see the goal of a system to produce knowledge and technology , person B may see its goal in producing more bananas/suv/big macs/offsprings,Person C may see the goal in uniting with some imaginary being ,etc. ,etc. Whose design is better? whose system is better? Whose system goals is better? - put em together competing for resources and you will find out eventually.

You can when you are designing the system.


That sounds good, but the problem is we don't understand shit about how to make a human. Virtually all research is done on model systems such as the mouse, and still then our knowledge is rather patchy and limited. We are in no position to design anything from scratch. And we won't be in the near or far future. Hence the only option that is left is tinkering with what we have. And we will be doing this without having a clue on what we are doing.

Doesn't that sound promising?

That sounds good, but the problem is we don't understand shit about how to make a human. Virtually all research is done on model systems such as the mouse, and still then our knowledge is rather patchy and limited. We are in no position to design anything from scratch. And we won't be in the near or far future. Hence the only option that is left is tinkering with what we have. And we will be doing this without having a clue on what we are doing.

Doesn't that sound promising?

Wow a lot black guile pessimism towards science from the man in the field himself.

First we do know "shit about human" , you may say we do not know every single relevant and irrelevant (mostly irrelevant) detail yet but as of know we already know a lot. And we know more every day.

Second we do not need "to know how to make human" - its is pretty easy and method was known for pretty long time , Malen one f@cks female and u get one in 9 months, you can make it in lab now too ,and even from single cell (well a bunch of cells,lots discarded junk in the process -technology is young). Problem is that the resul is shitty - human are crappy and we dont need to replicate more of them. They are already replicating in ridicolous quantities -more than enough for any need. And most of them is pure trash ,their sole result of existence is catastrophical diminuation of natural resources.


And third and most important: You seem to be dead set -if its not human ,we dont need it . looks this way -if its human we dont need it. We need BETTER. We dont need better medecine ,cybernetic enchancment, eugenics programs, or anything like that. -Base is junk ,discard it and work with new one. Resources spent to patch humans into something better are not worth it .Not saying it can't be done - just not worth time and resources invested.

You say we are in no position to "anything from scratch" . Well that depends how you define " scratch" . While it could be nice and sweet to be a little god and desing your own personal unverse "from scratch" then we indeed far from this celestial competence. But we can do humble things pretty well - such as a new materials , power generation technolgies , complex mahcinery , and ohh and behold !- systems for information processing ,analysis and (maybe surprise to you) decision making and problem solving .

Yah I said it - decision making and problem solving. We already have it - various AI expert systems . It in pretty early stage and takes a microscope to distinguish self managed systems from carefully scripted ones and they only appeared in last 15 years . We already have enough data input/output and computing technologies to do anything humans cant ever dream off doing by themselves , we even have enough data processing technologies to read and analyze this data without a weak human link. Only thing which is in not developed enough yet is learning, decision making and problem solving.


A lot of IT technology as of now serves a crutch for deficient humans - half of all IT (number pulled straight out of my ass ) is dedicated to make a bridge between slow thinking human and data available . Because majority decision making and problem solving need to be made by humans ,then translate back his decision to the system. But more and more systems are completely automated now , in recent years number of those systems and even entire fields which are compltely automated grew up immensely . Humans there are just supervisors adjusting control parameters - system does everythign else by itself . And you know what? -those systems are designed by humans. Now talk about "not being able to design anything".

Systems is a broad term . Evertyhing is a system - human society is one too. Decision makign is one as well. Natural selection and evolution too. Now we dont need to replicate exactly any of them - thats not what we need ,we need to design better ones. Such as for example power generations and energy transfer system. Or optical signal processing .Or safe data storage/retrieval/computing .

Now you may argue that we didnt design such things as nanosystems ( self replication and repair) or higher level of decision making and problem solving (AI ) - but we did design them, they are not as good as natural ones yet , though. Same way as early steam powered engines were ineffeicent compared to natural ones .Now compare contemporary fission nuclear power plant to anything on earth in terms of serviceablity ,energy output, manageablity,cost ,etc. Or military guiding and targeting systems - they blow anything natrual out of the water.


Now our replicating and self repair systems are pretty crude (conveyor) .As well as AI (expert systems, automated control and management systems) . -Doesnt mean we can't perfect them in long run . Up to the point when thye can perfect,design and maintain themselves.


We can't make a human equivalent AI yet - but thats not because its not possible.Its simply because we are not there yet and 95% of humans isntead of working towards it spent their worthless lifes sleeping,replicating ,consuming, polluting . Most of them are simply too dumb to do anything usefull , many who are smart enough do other irrelvant things (in best case slightly relevant) and only a tiny bit works to improve it . Even worse those 95% are opposing directly and indirectly try to ruin most of the job those 5% do . Now talk about inneficient system!.

I don't think that was the point of spuriousmonkey's post. I believe we're saying that humans are too complex to create from scratch, which is true. We do not know every alternative splicing of every gene in the human genome. We do not know how each protein folds (I believe that's why we have the protein folding page in the Bio section). We also don't know how each protein is specifically used. I think this is the danger of eugenics. You never know what you're going to lose when you make someone more intelligent, stronger, healthier, or even a "better lifeguard." While the ultimate genetic diversity would be impossible (the strain on the environment would be too great), I think it's best we stick with "all things tend toward disorder" type thinking. Sure, some people will choose others based on personality and looks, but that doesn't mean that every chromosome in their gametic cells is a specific conformation. Finally, I think you have a little black guile pessimism when it comes to the complexity of the human machine. Computers only work in binary, humans have many more times the processing power. We use it for things like picking up a glass or beating our hearts instead of focusing on math. But then, this is a topic for another section.

Wow a lot black guile pessimism towards science from the man in the field himself.

That I am a man in the field could be a hint though. That I might know how the current status of the knowledge is. There is basically no direct research done on the development of human beings. Mos of it is done with model systems such as transgenic mice. And they are basically black boxes. You can wish it that we know a lot, but wishes are not the same as reality.

Please read the article. did

It has nothing to do with telling them who they may associate with. The issue is their refusal to allow their daughter to get needed medical treatment for idealogical reasons. the isssue is personal civil rights vs. the power of society (in this case Western medicine, or laws, or ideology) to tell people how to live, what to believe, what to wear, what to think

i don't care how this all sounds in a contained society that exists on earth, expansion will occur, and we'll be in no place to control anyone's lives who are living at the edge of our existence.