What is immoral about eugenics?

A wee bit to much termite DNA in the mix? It would come at a severe cost.

 

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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?

 

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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.

 

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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

 

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

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.

 

man as machine? man as a parts factory? never

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.