Eugenics?

Discussion in 'The ChitChat Lounge' started by elfascinating, Jul 5, 2007.

  1. shsnawada

    shsnawada Cyborgs & Pasta

    Yeah, I agree. We dont know what the future environments hold for us and whether we'll adapt to those environments. Thats why the wholoe idea of "self direction" of evolution is dodgy imo.

    Its as though dogs decide that poodles have the "best genes" and selectively breed those. After some time, some sudden disaster would mean that all the poodles die out when a "normal" dog or a wolf could have survived.
     
  2. shsnawada

    shsnawada Cyborgs & Pasta

    No, I dont think you get me. I say that human morals are derived from concern about other people's genetic fitness. Many people have written about this. To put it in a few lines, its this:
    "expanding circle which begins with the individual, then embraces the family and ‘soon the circle... includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity, and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man [sic] with the animal world’." Link

    Right, but "lethal genes" come and go, the most important part of natural selection is BENIFICIAL mutations emerging and then dominating.

    As interesting as the example is, its an example of how natural selection DIDNT work.

    Which is what i meant by "african immigrants comming to italy". That happened a long time ago, 3000 to 6000 generations ago. I mean something that happened in the last 1000 or so years ago.
    No, I didnt mean modifying the genes, i mean gene testing will get cheaper and you can know which conditions you have, so you can treat it before it gets serious. As for examples, I'll source it up as soon as possible but i saw quite a few tv reports about a place where you can get checked for 600 or so genetic conditions.
     
  3. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    OK

    In a population of 6 million and a genome as complex as ours, you wouldn't even know if there was a beneficial mutation propagating. One gene rarely expresses itself obviously. And the "beneficial genetic mutation" definition is not complete. Evolution is more than just propagation of mutations, even switching on and off of certain genes/cistrons to adapt to environments contributes to evolution.

    What do you mean? How do you say it didn't work when it only affects 1 in a million people? It could have been more 1000 years ago.

    I haven't read up about all the genes and their lethal varieties to know what happened now and what happened a long time ago.

    Short of gene replacement therapy there isn't much you can do to treat a genetic disease. You can treat the symptoms but not the cause.
     

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