posted
If they don't receive any aid from the government I have no problems with that.
We have organizations that hand out scholarships to people of Irish descent. Although that is not exactly eugenics, it is handing out a benefit based on your blood and ancestry.
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Eduardo -- what Gattica was about wasn't eugenics, which is concerned with trying to change what future generations will be like. It was about people who are already alive, and allowing or disallowing certain things according to their genetics. To me, those are totally things.
And about my personal LDS-specific reasons -- I'll share those later. I want to get other's ideas first.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ok, you are right about Gattaca and eugenics. They're not the same.
Trying to find things on my own, I typed "mormon+eugenics" on google. Well...let's say that the first article I read wasn't anything I was expecting. But it's still interesting (it was interesting for me, at least). It's called Fatal Inheritance: Mormon Eugenics .
I may add that I read and posted it for sheer curiosity. I don't know enough about LDS (yet) to form an opinion about the subject.
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think a large part of the resentment against eugenics comes from its past. I believe that the term itself was coined by Francis Galton, who believed very strongly in the superiority of Anglo-Saxon people. Eugenics has frequently been associated with racial motives.
Also, the whole point of eugenics is to hope that the "bad" elements die out. I think that people with the "bad" elements clearly find this offensive because it is not something that they can control. Should someone with a family history of cancer be deemed a less desirable mate? People are more than their genes and its offensive to suggest that a person should have less children because their DNA is less than perfect.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Some of the genes that cause disorders when inherited from both parents provide benefits when inherited from only one. Gene therapy has the potential to keep the benefits while negating the disorder.
Someone could look perfectly healthy, and not have an immediate family member with a disease or disorder, but be a carrier of a recessive gene. Unless we open the slippery slope of mandatory genetic screening for school, work and medical insurance; there's no way to know.
Posts: 1015 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: I have no problem with personal eugenics. If you are interested in only marrying into the very best gene pools, more power to you.
I believe that eugenics implies more of a movement than solitary people picking who they marry based on genetic concerns.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
But I think Gattaca was about eugenics... because isn't the goal of eugenics to create better offspring, or at least prevent "undesirable" traits from passing on?
On the matter of eugenics itself...I think we should be responsible for what we do... but not Nazi like. Someone said personal eugenics, I like that because it has the responsibility without the state getting in the way telling you how to breed or how to live. Once the state or corporations or religions start dictating how to have children..... *shudder*
The problem with eugenics is POLITICS and ignorance. Once you assume you KNOW exactly what is good for the species you have left the path of wisdom. And when you have politics enter in... it's all downhill from there, aka: Nazi.
Like in the movie Gattaca, when the genetisist says that the child has been fixed from disease AND "propensity to violence". Basically saying that we can custom make children to the political climate of the time.... make them passive to the state and it's leaders (or corporations).
The Nazi's didn't have gene access like we do and will... so they did it by stopping children being born... by killing people. But their standard wan't science, it was used as a scapegoat and to purge anyone against their rule.
ps- great topic Porter!
[ August 10, 2004, 03:14 PM: Message edited by: Telperion the Silver ]
Posts: 4953 | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
OK, I'm playing devil's advocate here, but please bear with me.
What if you knew that if you had kids, they would all have a condition that would cause them to die before they were 1 year old. Would that make a difference in the number of children you had? For most people, I think it would make a pretty big difference.
What if they might live to be 5? 10? 20? 30? 40? 50? When would almost assured mortality rate stop making an emotional difference?
What if your family has high levels of susceptibility to cancer and heart disease? Is that any different?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: Also, the whole point of eugenics is to hope that the "bad" elements die out. I think that people with the "bad" elements clearly find this offensive because it is not something that they can control. Should someone with a family history of cancer be deemed a less desirable mate? People are more than their genes and its offensive to suggest that a person should have less children because their DNA is less than perfect.
Excellent point. This is the issue as far as I can see it. I am thinking of the Deaf who long for their child to be Deaf as well. I am thinking of their fear at the idea of their culture slowly dying from off the face of the earth.
I am thinking of those who have less-than-perfect genes who nevertheless long for a child from their own flesh.
Humanism seems to work against "survival of the fittest". We want to include everyone. We take care of all our weak and welcome in the next generation weak or not (except for the cases of disease or flaws found in-utero and then aborted.)
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Eugenics is just a lower-tech form of genetic engineering.
We encourage genetic modifications when it is medically necessary. But what if we can modify genes to end halitosis, near-sightedness, or alcoholism. These are not life threatening conditions, but certainly a person is better off without them right?
If the government ascertains that an alcoholic will cost the health care system too much money, can it withdraw insurance coverate from indibiduals whose parents refused to remove their alcoholism gene?
Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:What if you knew that if you had kids, they would all have a condition that would cause them to die before they were 1 year old. Would that make a difference in the number of children you had? For most people, I think it would make a pretty big difference.
What if they might live to be 5? 10? 20? 30? 40? 50? When would almost assured mortality rate stop making an emotional difference?
What if your family has high levels of susceptibility to cancer and heart disease? Is that any different?
An interesting question. (Reminds me of a short story about a man who comes from a long line of lead miners and knows he's going to die in his thirties.) But keep in mind there's a huge difference between voluntary genetic screening or therapy and government-enforced prevention of reproduction.
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jan 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
There are two problems with Eugenics, goals and enforcement.
Goals:
You are suggesting the goal is to remove inherited diseases such as heart conditions and cancer.
There are very few such health conditions that are as black and white as inherited or not. Most genetics allow inheritance of a propencity to heart conditions or cancer. With the proper nutrition and exercise, such diseases can be avoided for many decades.
But what has given Eugenics its bad reputation is when you add things like mental defect, homosexuality, race or religion into the mix of diseases to be weeded out.
People of that race, religion, sexual orientation, or mental illness, and their relatives, do not want to be weeded out.
The big fear comes under the "Enforcement" of the Eugenics ideas. It is one thing to say "don't breed with a person who has illness in their family." It is another thing to TELL people with these illnesses that they cannot breed.
If you tell me that I can't have children because my Aunt had cancer, I'll laugh in your face.
If you tell me that I can't have children because my cousin is gay, I'll treat you as a danger to society.
The only way to stop them from doing so is to either kill them or sterilize them. The Nazi's tried both.
In the US we tried Sterilization in the 1930's. The insane, the crimminals, and blacks in general were sterilized in legal processes in many states.
We have mostly gotten over that.
Finally, there is the romantic element. Eugenics is breeding humans like cattle or dogs. We humans have a tendancy to believe we are better than either. Our hearts, or our hormones, over rule our brains more often than not. If I am in love with a woman who's family has a strong history of cancer, I will marry her and start a family anyway.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: What if they might live to be 5? 10? 20? 30? 40? 50? When would almost assured mortality rate stop making an emotional difference?
Hmmmm, that would get tough. I think there would always be an emotional difference in having such a child, simply because you KNOW that they have shorter life span.
quote: What if your family has high levels of susceptibility to cancer and heart disease? Is that any different?
I think that's VERY differnt. Susceptibility is no assurance. Additionally, these diseases are not solely genetic. Life style choices affect them greatly. I can understand reluctance to have a child that WILL die by age 20. But it's much more difficult to not have a child because they MIGHT die by age 20. The difference is hope.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah, well, things don't work out the way you plan, even in fiction.
CT is either too busy or avoiding this thread - she made some excellent points about the lack of objectivity in assigning some traits as "negative" and others as "positive."
When you get to complex things like intelligence, you're really in a swamp.
Take Lincoln - a real embarrassment to the original eugenicists in this country (and, I believe, one of the reasons Illinois was one state that did not pass sterilization laws) - he had a classic (pardon the term here - it's what they used back then) - "white trash" lineage. Feeblemindedness, mental instability, the works.
I only need to look at my own ancestors - mostly Irish. For the years under British rule when poverty and hunger were widespread, with a pattern of alcohol abuse among the males, I'd imagine most of them wouldn't have tested very well on any kind of intelligence test. The British were very sure they were inferior. It's a few generations later - their descendants do very well on these tests, have college degrees and have held fairly responsible professional positions.
quote:What if they might live to be 5? 10? 20? 30? 40? 50? When would almost assured mortality rate stop making an emotional difference?
The difference is that we can never know these things. We are not God. Making plans as if we are just strike me as a bit egotistical.
When you say, "Not governmental sponsored Eugenics" what sort of Eugenics do you mean?
Is it the type where pediatricians allow childen to die because they don't believe they will have a good life, or breed good kids?
Or is it the type where you shop around for a mate based on the physical history and long life of the other? Kind of like a gold-digger, but of the health variety--more of a golden-age-digger.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote: a private foundation that gives grants for each child of parents that meet certain criteria (like no cancer, heart disease, or chronic halitosis)?
That's an example of what I meant.
Or, on the negative side, you could have a foundation that gave people with certain genetic weaknesses money each year decade if they don't procreate.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- An unabashed racist will represent the Republican party in the November election for a congressional seat after a write-in candidate failed to derail his effort.
With 86 percent of the primary vote counted Thursday, write-in candidate Dennis Bertrand had just 1,554 votes compared to 7,671, or 83 percent, for James L. Hart, a believer in the discredited, phony science of eugenics.
In November, the GOP candidate will oppose Rep. John Tanner, a Democrat who has represented the northwest Tennessee district for 15 years.
Hart, 60, vows if elected to work toward keeping "less favored races" from reproducing or immigrating to the United States. In campaign literature, Hart contends that "poverty genes" threaten to turn the United States into "one big Detroit."
*"Slippery slope" isn't applicable here - since this is a nonhypothetical candidate*
Even if we grant his premise that certain races have inferior genes, the process of immigration has a way of delivering the cream of the crop.
Think about it. It takes guts, ingenuity, and determination to leave one's country and start a new life. I think most immigrants are the best and brightest their country/race has to offer.
(must add that I'm an immigrant, so obviously fairly biased post) Posts: 4116 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Beren, I used that once as an explanation of why all the Asians seem so devilish clever. Technically true of just about every ethnic group we have, though sadly some were brought by force.
But ultimately I don't believe in genetic determinism.
quote: What if your family has high levels of susceptibility to cancer and heart disease? Is that any different?
How do you know it's not the special recipes for funeral potatoes and dump cake, passed from generation to generation?
The Eugenics and Mormons article, while I certainly feel for his personal losses, is by an anti-Mormon. If his claims were true the entire population of Utah would be idiots. As it is, we bump around in the middle of most nationwide statistical rankings that have to do with performance (as opposed to class size and dollars per student).
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The problem with it is the suposition that we know or even can know what genes are the desirable ones. The same recessive that causes sickel cell anemia also helps prevent malaria.
Genes don't necessarily just do one thing either. Prove to me that patching up my genotype to be perfect won't cause problems. I really don't think you could.
Deliberate self inflicted removal of any one group of people from the gene pool is a bad idea. Even if they could all have teeth that actually fit their mouths then.
I'm suprized that no one has asked why if we oppose eugenics is the breeding of plants and animals (genetically and traditionally) for specific traits okay?
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Because we hate to think we're just animals - with thumbs.
That's why some people have no objections to shooting an animal but can't fathom shooting a human.
We practice our own habit of breeding - although given our life span and relatively low birth rate when compared to other, more "breedable" animals, it might take a while to see the results.
quote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but eugenics is nothing more than encouraging healthier/stronger/smart/etc. people to have more kids than those that are sicklier/weaker/dimmer/etc.
There are two prinicple problems with this: 1) As others have stated, it's no trivial task to define desireable traits. It's not even clear that it's better if everyone were smarter or physically stronger.
2) The whole idea requires (or strongly implies) the valuation of a human being based on external criteria. This, in and of itself, is treating people as a means, and not ends unto themselves (thanks for that phrasing, CT). I know you don't like slippery slope arguments, but I believe that any eugenics program that ranks traits will quickly cause the public to rank people based on those traits and cheapen human life.
If the conversation picks up I'll be happy to expand on this.
quote: This, in and of itself, is treating people as a means, and not ends unto themselves (thanks for that phrasing, CT)
This is one of many factors that makes me wonder why animal breeding analogies are thought to be compelling. With few exceptions, domestic animals have been manipulated for traits that are valuable to humans, who view them as commodities. The only "survival value" that's enhanced is that of humans - our meat animals are a lot less resistant to disease than their feral counterparts. Dogs have done better under this system, but the choice still wasn't theirs. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Without scientific evidence to back it up, I'd have to agree. Being forced to survive by wits and physical skill is a wonderful motivator and one dogs have lost.
quote: Dogs have done better under this system, but the choice still wasn't theirs. [Wink]
Actually, there is a theory that it was theirs. Instead of the common theory that wolves (or foxes or coyotes or whatever) were domesticated by humans, there is an alternate theory that they bred themselves to be more docile so that they could be better scavangers around human settlements.
Here's the short version of the story. A Russian Dmitri Belyaev was helping some fox fur growers breed more docile foxes. Over time as the foxes got more docile, they started changing physically. They stated getting foxes with coats of different colors, and their skulls, jaws, and teeth started getting smaller. In short, they were becoming more like domesticated dogs. Somehow these traits are linked.
So the theory is that wild dogs living near human settlements had a survival advantage if they were docile enough to scavange from the human's trash. Over the years as they bred themselves for docility more and more, they became more and more like the "domesticated" dogs of today.
ObEugenics: This is an example of the principle of unintended consequences. If we started trying to change the genotype of the population, what unintended changes might we also make? If we removed all mental disease, would we also lose genius?
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Actually, there is a theory that it was theirs. Instead of the common theory that wolves (or foxes or coyotes or whatever) were domesticated by humans, there is an alternate theory that they bred themselves to be more docile so that they could be better scavangers around human settlements.
Uh - I was actually thinking in terms of the selective breeding to produce the many shapes and varieties of dogs that comprise the breeds we know now - that was definitely not under the dogs' control.
I read an article on the fox breeding a few months ago - it's pretty interesting. (Your summary accurately reflects what I remember of the article.) But it's still the humans doing the selecting in terms of who gets to breed - not the foxes.
posted
sndrake -- if the theory is correct, then the dogs were already "domesticated" before humans started breeding them for specific attributes.
Although there are some dog breeds that have been specifically bred for their stupidity. I understand that pugs were bred for their inability to not be bored while sitting there and doing nothing all day. In other words, for their dimness.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I really don't get your point - it's been long suspected that (it's kind of common sense) that domesticity preceded selective breeding into the types of breeds we have today - this provides some interesting evidence.
"Dimness" aside, the attributes that humans select as "desirable" have no intrinsic value to the dog in and of themselves. Do dachsunds really benefit from their shape? Especially those that have need of support for their unnaturally elongated spines?
It's still about ownership and commodities - attributes that are assigned value by the owners are encouraged. The "enhancement" to the dog is entirely relative to what the human thinks of it.
posted
Breeding made for some very helpful survival skills: terriers were bred to be excellent ratcatchers; dachshunds were bred to hunt game such as rabbits underground; the poodle was bred to be a water&marsh hunter; etc.
The problem's developed only recently, when people decided that dogs were merely pets to be bred for (the popularity of) particular looks rather than ability.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:It's still about ownership and commodities - attributes that are assigned value by the owners are encouraged. The "enhancement" to the dog is entirely relative to what the human thinks of it.
This is still the heart of the issue, and nothing about how dogs were originally domesticated changes this. Once man took control of the breeding program, the changes were based on the owners desires.
The value of the dog was directly related to its utility to the owner, however the owner defined that utility.
Think of boys with good voices being castrated to preserve the voice. A whole host of options were removed from those boys because someone wanted to exploit one of their talents.
The problem isn't with the "extreme" cases of eugenics; it's with the underlying idea that the value of human beings is related to their capabilities.
posted
"They didn't do a very good job of breeding them to have lots of meat, then."
Most chihuahuas were raised as the equivalent of battery chickens, though some were also kept as pets.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
[\troll comment]
![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Hubby
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
