Eugenics

[Mozz]

Why is it bad?

 

[Roses Ablaze]

It involves euthanizing and/or sterelizing people against their will, doesn't it?

 

[Mozz]

Modern eugenics is directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (negative eugenics) and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character (positive eugenics).

http://www.answers.com/eugenics&r=67

 

[Barb]

I found this quote from a pro-eugenics website after a Google search:

It's perfectly predictable that we will choose health, beauty, intelligence, talent, courage, kindness, and honesty for our children because these are universally valued traits. All over the world parents value them today, just as parents valued them a hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago.

Regarding the second point: who determines what's beautiful and what's not?
Courage, honesty, and kindness are values taught by parents to their children; heredity is irrelevant. With respect to the matter of health, obviously this is an ideal wanted by everyone. But to imply that people with ill health or disabilities are completely incapable of making any sort of contribution to the world, I have two words: Stephen Hawking.

 

[The Dude]

It really depends on what you define as eugenics. Racial eugenics, ie, the creation of a master race, is thoroughly discredited. Other kinds are a matter of serious debate.

 

[Dagoth Ur]

Eugenics got a bad rap because of the Nazis. Before that, it was actually accepted in the US, despite being practiced by morons with no knowledge of genetics and inheritance (granted, this was before those were understood) who wanted to among other things eliminate feeble-minded people. Ironically, the founders of the movement themselves had mental illnesses before they died.

As far as I'm concerned, would-be parents have a responsibility to provide the best ther is for their children, and that includes screening out any bad genes or genetic abnormalities before conception. We can quite possibly get rid of things like Down Syndrome and certain cancers like this.

As for the Stephen Hawking example: It is true that disabled people can contribute to the world. However, their lives would certainly be happier if they weren't disabled.

 

[GrnMarvl14]

I would be for eugenics as an experiment in creating the perfect human being (I'm all about experimentation on a large scale and involving human beings). But after that...my opinion on it differs with my moods.

 

[Archaic]

Sadly, modern eugenics is likely doomed to failure, simply due to the difficulty of convincing the unfit to not have children, especially when most of the unfit happen to be part of religious or cultural groups which encourage their members to have many children.

A better option may perhaps be, once it becomes possible to do so, to introduce compulsory genetic tampering for each child, removing genetic diseases and predispositions to other health problems, and increasing base physical and intellectual abilities.

 

[Murgatroyd]

The fundamental problem with eugenics in practice is that it relies on the judgement of some person or small group of people to decide what is "good".

 

[Mozz]

The fundamental problem with eugenics in practice is that it relies on the judgement of some person or small group of people to decide what is "good".

I'll go out on a limb here, and I'm not purposefully trying to start a flamewar, but if you're poor, you most likely have traits that should not be passed down.

And I am willing to state that that is enough for me to justify tax benefits for the poor to not have kids and for the rich to procreate.

 

[Barb]

Paris Hilton is the perfect example of why the rich should not procreate.

 

[Mozz]

Paris Hilton is the perfect example of why the rich should not procreate.

Disagree. Her family has billions of dollars. Even if you consider her IQ to be about 95-100, her children would get the best education money could buy. If they decide to achieve in life, that's fine. If they wind up like her, no biggie. She's certainly not the typical wealthy person (She's exceedingly wealthy. For me, tax breaks would start at family income of 200k)

 

[Barb]

Someone who has to have restaurant menus read to her because she "doesn't like to read" probably doesn't even have an IQ of 95. I still think that in the case of eugenics, the bad outweighs the potential good.

 

[Murgatroyd]

I'll go out on a limb here, and I'm not purposefully trying to start a flamewar, but if you're poor, you most likely have traits that should not be passed down.

And I am willing to state that that is enough for me to justify tax benefits for the poor to not have kids and for the rich to procreate.

And I counter that countless examples through history have shown that the children of the wealthy, especially of the self-made wealthy, often do not exhibit the same traits that allowed their parents to become rich. It stands to reason by analogy that the same would apply to the poor. Economic status, in and of itself, is not a useful indicator of genetic traits.

More to the point of my original statement, who would you trust to decide whether you are worthy of having children?

 

[The Dude]

No rich family has been rich forever. At one point they had to start from the ground up. At least, that's what the Great American Myth says. Anyway, intelligence is as much upbringing and random probability as it is genetics. Following Juroujin's theory, the rich are unfit because, not having to do hard labor, their bodies are not in very good shape. They are not physically strong. Rich kids almost never become proffesional athletes.

 

[Mozz]

No rich family has been rich forever. At one point they had to start from the ground up. At least, that's what the Great American Myth says. Anyway, intelligence is as much upbringing and random probability as it is genetics. Following Juroujin's theory, the rich are unfit because, not having to do hard labor, their bodies are not in very good shape. They are not physically strong. Rich kids almost never become proffesional athletes.

Being strong is not nearly as useful as it once was. In fact, it's probably hardly useful at all as far as being able to provide for a family.

And I counter that countless examples through history have shown that the children of the wealthy, especially of the self-made wealthy, often do not exhibit the same traits that allowed their parents to become rich. It stands to reason by analogy that the same would apply to the poor. Economic status, in and of itself, is not a useful indicator of genetic traits.

More to the point of my original statement, who would you trust to decide whether you are worthy of having children?

You only know of those "countless examples" because the rich are so prevalent in the news. I believe that the rich are better able to provide for their children, are better overall parents and are better able at handling multiple children.

Also, please bear in mind that these tax cuts would start at about a high-middle class level, not "rich". And those tax codes would be written by the government based on yearly non-investment earnings.

 

[Barb]

Obviously, the more money you have, the better provider you will be. But a better overall parent?

No way.

Money has absolutely nothing to do with having morals or a value system. Money has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities to teach your child what you know. Being rich has absolutely nothing to do with being a good parent.

 

[Murgatroyd]

It sounds to me like what you're advocating is not eugenics, but rather an economic policy to help ensure that those who are not materially capable of supporting children are less likely to have them, regardless of any heritable attributes.

 

[Mozz]

Obviously, the more money you have, the better provider you will be. But a better overall parent?

No way.

Money has absolutely nothing to do with having morals or a value system. Money has absolutely nothing to do with your abilities to teach your child what you know. Being rich has absolutely nothing to do with being a good parent.

Having a child while not being able to support one would certainly lead me to infer your ability to be a responsible adult is not that good.

People who are typically more responsible and are determined to better themselves are typically not "poor". Being a parent involves some sort of responsibility. Therefore, poor people are not as good at being parents as the rest of society.

And Murg, see the third post:

Modern eugenics is directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (negative eugenics) and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character (positive eugenics).

---

Economic policies would fit under this, no?

 

[Murgatroyd]

Modern eugenics is directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (negative eugenics) and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character (positive eugenics).

---

Economic policies would fit under this, no?

You may have negative eugenics if you define "unfit" as "unable to adequately support children", but even then, you're missing the positive half. You don't seem to have anything promoting propogation of "those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character".
Healthy: The rich have better access to health care, but this is not the same as genetic (i.e. heritable) predisposition toward health.
Intelligent: I believe Barb's handling this one adequately.
Of high moral character: Observe the wealthy in American politics, and tell me that wealth has any positive correlation with moral character.