We don't care for the genetic fitness of others. We care about the gene pool that is carried forward. None of us are "genetically fit" any more. Almost all of us have a lethal gene waiting to be expressed through the right match. And eugenics is doing what the Greeks used to do, only this is a pre-emptive approach. To add to that, it is a fast forwarded version of natural selection. African immigrants going to Italy? Natural selection is basically the survival of the fittest. You ooze you lose. Adaptations are short term as well as long term. What I'm saying is that evolutionary instincts should not be completely disregarded. As for examples, we haven't been around long enough to see results of natural selection on the human population. Biological evolution is slow, but that doesn't mean that it is irrelevant in smaller time frames. Sociocultural evolution can lead to a lot of repressed aggression and unconscious discrimination. It's only that aspect of the term that I vouch FTL.
No, its the exact opposite of natural selection. ARTIFICIAL selection. And yes, when you feel sad about some random person dying in an earthquake in Peru, you are caring about the genetic fitness of someone else. And when you protest in the tiananmen square, then youre caring about the fitness of a meme, not your own genes. And no, its not true that none of us are "genetically fit" (thats a lame phrase anyway). Genetic fitness doesnt directly mean our fitness. The set of genes should remain strong and flourish: thats genetic fitness. We're the hosts. No, its the survival of the most adapted and the most efficient at mating. Natural selection is where a section of the population becomes more dominant because they can avert predetors which others cant, use their food more efficiently than the others, camouflage etc. And you need a predetor crisis, long lasting famine or something of that sort for natural selection to occur. We dont really have those anymore I didnt say that either. But, give me one example of a genetic condition that affects the death rate before reaching the age of 20-30 or the fertility rate. And no, genetic defects that kills someone in 2 minutes dont count. And no i'm not talking about "biological evolution", i'm talking about natural selection. Give me one example in the last 200 or so years that are not small scale or irrelevant. No that would be the sociocultural status, not the evolution. The evolution can put in discriminatory systems or get rid of them
What you've got to wonder is whether it's as unnatural as you and I are making it out to be. I'd think of the plus side of eugenics as going to the market and buying a dozen mangoes without having to try and pick the best because eugenics had done your job for you. I wonder if I've understood the concept?
Yeah kind of. Eugenics will try to eliminate "bad" mangoes. But then you need to define "bad", and that definition would change from person to person. However, I think eugenics would be dealing with generic things like physical and mental superiority et al.
Where exactly would Eugenics be useful? I mean only the Spartans and Hitler seemed interested in it... I wonder wutz similar between the two, lol. See, Eugenics are quite pointless. I mean if the whole world starts followin the concept, then all wars would end up ties. Furthermore, since everyone is just as dumb/smart as each other, then capitalism won't quite work since the proles would be too smart to let themselves be exploited and eventually we'd end up with a huge communist society ahahah.
Well, I dont think that anything is "unnatural" anyway. Well, there's a difference between mangoes and humans. Eugenics applies only to humans. When its with mangoes, bananas, dogs, etc, its artificial selection/ selective breeding.
yeah who gets to decide? i wud hate it if one fine morning some Men In Black kinda guys are at my door sayin "hmm its been decided by a 60:40 vote that ur a lousy guitarist so u r hereby terminated - BAM!" of cos mebbe the idea is to prevent lousy guitarists from being born...but i like to be as i am thank u v much
LOL Thats why I said earlier that we humans dont really require the "traditional" evolution model/technique to survive.
Well I meant traditional. ***ual selection in pre-historic times might have been more based on athletic/physical abilities of male/female. Nowadays its more based on social power / money that one has. ***ual selection is still valid. However, it is not the way it had been earlier.
Se xual selection? There is no such thing as efficiency in mating any more. The person who fathers most children is the one who can provide best for them. It reflects nothing on his genes. That's where the problem lies with sociocultural evolution. It is no longer the stronger and healthier who father more offspring - which is natural selection. It is just the richer and more powerful - which is a short term benefit - and will not help us "carry the good genes forward" at all. Just because there is no concrete proof that the current scourges of the human race are not genetically controlled doesn't mean you can discount them. Gene environment interaction is more complex than anyone can ever imagine. So, diabetes comes to mind. How is that caring about their genetic fitness? That is just sympathy for a fellow human. You would feel sad (at some level) even if a boy with SCID came under a truck. The keyword here is survive. Note that we still need the traditional model to evolve.
What do you guys make out of the intellectual/famous people who're disabled. e.g. Stephen Hawkings ? Case which comes to my mind is when someone's a genius and meets an accident and is physically disabled. It's totally illogical to kill him. Another case which comes to my mind is that most people who're teachers/coaches are not really "able" but MAKE genius students/players. I personally don't support eugenics. Infact I oppose it.
There is no "traditional" evolution. Evolution is driven by many things: natural, ***ual selection, parasites, symbiosis, etc, etc. Teamwork, morality, etc can result from them. Why is our evolution "not traditional" when the evolution of ants or dolphins are? And no, nothing says that the more money/social status you have, the more kids. Its the other way round. (generally atleast) Thats right. ***ual selection is for example when when birds have wierd feathers to attract mates even if theyre not the most "fit". Doesnt apply to humans nowadays (or not much anyway) No, sociocultural evolution doesnt mean, more money; more kids. link And whats "the good genes" anyway?
ha, this sounds very familiar. Just because there's no evidence of the flying spaghetti monster, doesnt mean it doesnt exist. Its too complex, awesome for us to notice. Unless there's any credible evidence, I wont believe it. plz, rid "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, k? Umm, again. A few thousand years ago, agriculture was the new cool thing somewhere in the Euphrates. In a few years, the $100 will be the new cool thing somewhere in MIT. Has the society evolved? Ja. Did we need mutation and the number of deaths that are required for natural selection? Your guess.
Ummm what? Non-lethal genes. So you don't believe that diseases are caused by gene-gene and gene-environment interactions? Do you think that each gene just expresses itself as an individual effect, and so there is no genetic determination of how resistant you are to certain diseases? How long did it take to evolve from Homo habilis to Homo sapiens sapiens? Eugenics deals with biological evolution not psychological or socio cultural - they are just results of the former.
***ual selection doesnt mean the "fittest" (strongest, most camouflaged, etc) And please watch this. k? Well thats an extreme oversimplification to say the least. But if that gene doesnt affect youre chances of having as many children as other people, then there will be NO evolution at all. Natural selection needs a "benificial" gene mutation which will eventually dominate. Thats pretty much impossible in todays society because most of the people have reasonable medical care and can survive as they are. And again, you make the claim thast natural selection still applies to us today. You give the examples. You tallked about "traditional evolution", not about eugenics. We dont need the "traditional model" (whatever that means) to evolve. I gave the example. And chances are it'll become even more irrelavent to us in the future with the personalized medicine and all that.
Code: Genetic fitness - The reproductive success of a genotype, usually measured as the number of offspring produced by an individual that survive to reproductive age relative to the average for the population. So why would I care about the Peruvian's reproductive success? My sympathy comes from the fact that he didn't die of natural causes, i.e., didn't "live his life fully" - note that this does not involve having children, at least not in the "modern world"; after all, these things don't apply to humans right? Is it really? From the evolution point of view, natural selection works to eliminate the frequency of lethal genes thereby reducing the future recurrences of homozygous recessive alleles which are lethal or the dominant lethal gene. Code: Lethal gene - Any gene that has an effect that causes the death of the organism at any stage of life These are the genes that get eliminated most obviously because they are expressed most obviously. Think about Huntingdon's chorea. The person usually will not manifest the symptoms until his 40's. Why not let all the people with Huntingdon's chorea have children? It only requires 1 gene to affect the child (although it seems that homozygous dominant embryos are rejected), and pretty soon a large number of people will have Huntingdon's chorea. They will (mostly) all live to fertility. Yay. Have you noticed how the sickle cell gene hasn't disappeared even though sickle cell anaemia is invariably lethal? This is because the heterozygous condition gives the person great resistance to malaria. Natural selection at work - the heterozygous people propagate their gene. Eh? Traditional evolution is biological evolution according to me. Maybe you misunderstood. Chances? Didn't you just say something about proof? Give me proof that all diseases (especially genetic) will be curable in the future.
I'd like to add that (at the risk of throwing away everything I've said) I'm totally for free will (no matter how much pain it is eventually going to cause all of us). So people should be able to decide exactly who are going to parent children regardless of their genetic viability. We evolved into emoting beings, and if those emotions take precedence over "scientific rationale" then so be it. Overly rational people are not superior to overly emotional people. So even though I've made these arguments shsnawada, at the end if it comes to free will versus the greater good, I choose free will. No one person is smart enough to know what the greater good is. Any way, genetics is too complex to try and control with eugenics. I say we let the Darwin awards go on, and at least the stupidity gene might go away :
imo eugenics reeks of typical western materialism & arrogance - it proposes to control "life" without knowing what life is. not only is life not known, we are not capable of knowing it. because we (the knower) r a part of life (what we seek to know). so even if life is reduced to a set of knowledge, who will know that knowledge? n if u cant know something, how can u control it?
