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Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

For those adhering to a strict demarcation between "can" and "should" keep in mind that there are many objections to "can" expressed as a concern that essentially lands on saying no to "should" for that reason.

They aren't as inseparable as it seems.

There's a grey area that, to put it simply, means treating a segment of the human species as guinea pigs for an unknown time frame while we learn what not to do to inflict completely unforeseen mutations on an emerging life before we have even answered "can." So in some respects, "should" comes before and pre-empts "can."
 
Delphic Oracle said:
For those adhering to a strict demarcation between "can" and "should" keep in mind that there are many objections to "can" expressed as a concern that essentially lands on saying no to "should" for that reason.

They aren't as inseparable as it seems.

There's a grey area that, to put it simply, means treating a segment of the human species as guinea pigs for an unknown time frame while we learn what not to do to inflict completely unforeseen mutations on an emerging life before we have even answered "can." So in some respects, "should" comes before and pre-empts "can."
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I'd see that as. a demarcation around how, not can. If someone wanted to embark on a research program that wasn't actually a eugenics program, but just preliminary research on how to structure such a eugenics program, I expect there would, as you say, be a lot of moral problems with that research.

So I think you're right about the problem, but it's not with addressing whether or not eugenics is possible, but addressing the question of how.
 
Roboramma said:
I'd see that as. a demarcation around how, not can. If someone wanted to embark on a research program that wasn't actually a eugenics program, but just preliminary research on how to structure such a eugenics program, I expect there would, as you say, be a lot of moral problems with that research.

So I think you're right about the problem, but it's not with addressing whether or not eugenics is possible, but addressing the question of how.
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How trips over the same problem on the same stride.

How? Anything I propose is a hypothetical. We'll end up with "yeah it will work" and "no it won't work" on 800 different proposals nobody can ever prove because if we try...oh, right.

After all of that (assuming we don't try).

We're not one step closer to knowing "how."

It's defeatist, but then I'm against this (admittedly for the "should" first) and that could be all there is too it. Though I have taken a fair number of stabs at expressing at least potential complications to watch out for if wanting to zero in on "how." But I can't get further than the wistful dreams of what a nice lattice-wrapped deck on the back of this house would look like, but am absolutely not going to build (likely moving in 12-18 months). Fun to ponder on, but I'm not breaking out my measuring tape and marking off posts "just to see."

The other thing, though, is my dark humor at how much of the discourse on this, in attempting to be dry and neutral, just ends up being even creepier and that's the ultimate reason why it will always face stiff resistance.

It might be more limited than I imagine, and almost certainly there will be variance by culture, but driving it to "for a better humanity" levels probably hews way too close to dystopian future tropes.
 
Roboramma said:
Let me clarify then: I think a program such as I outlined would be a horrible idea. I said as much. It's not an example of a hypothetical eugenics program that is not bad. It's an example of a eugenics programs whose goal would be positive, but the means of achieving that goal, eugenics, would be repugnant.
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I realize that; it's why I called it a potential waypoint toward eventually concocting an "acceptable" eugenics scenario.

Roboramma said:
If someone came along with such a program, I think we should oppose it. We should oppose it on the grounds that it would hurt real people and impose on their liberty. We shouldn't oppose it because it's not scientifically possible. We shouldn't say "that's not really eugenics". Eugenics isn't defined by what's already been tried in the past. Such a thing, if it were proposed, should be named as eugenics, and should be opposed on valid moral grounds.
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This was already rebutted in the part of my post you did not quote.
 
Checkmite said:
This was already rebutted in the part of my post you did not quote.
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I did read your whole post, I didn't quote it all because I thought I'd addressed you in what I did post. It's quite possible that I missed your point. Could you quote the specific part of your post that you feel addresses this point?

This may very well be my fault. I reread your post and I think this actually directly addresses the parts I didn't quote.
 
Roboramma said:
I did read your whole post, I didn't quote it all because I thought I'd addressed you in what I did post. It's quite possible that I missed your point. Could you quote the specific part of your post that you feel addresses this point?
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Specifically, this:

Roboramma said:
We should oppose it on the grounds that it would hurt real people and impose on their liberty. We shouldn't oppose it because it's not scientifically possible.
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Is rebutted by

Checkmite said:
I think that when people argue that eugenics "isn't feasible", the veracity of the real historical goal by way of the real historical methods of eugenics is what they're referring to. They're not questioning whether the mechanics of heredity are true or not. I genuinely cannot understand where Dawkins got that impression, or why so many in this thread have latched onto it.
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Checkmite said:
Specifically, this:
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Thanks. :)


I think that when people argue that eugenics "isn't feasible", the veracity of the real historical goal by way of the real historical methods of eugenics is what they're referring to. They're not questioning whether the mechanics of heredity are true or not. I genuinely cannot understand where Dawkins got that impression, or why so many in this thread have latched onto it.
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I felt that I was addressing this with my next two sentences:
me said:
Eugenics isn't defined by what's already been tried in the past. Such a thing, if it were proposed, should be named as eugenics, and should be opposed on valid moral grounds.
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The reason I say this is that I think there is a valid concern with new forms of eugenics, that may or may not be motivated by the same ideologies of the past. They should still be opposed and named as eugenics (I'm not talking about designer babies here, but attempts to change selection pressures in a population through force or incentives).

As to no one thinking that eugenics (as I am defining it) is impossible, but rather only that its historical forms are unworkable, and thus Dawkins is responding to strawmen: I can only say that I'm not convinced that's true. Do we know what he was responding to with those tweets?
(Sorry, my VPN hasn't been able to connect for the last several days so I can't go on twitter to try to find out myself at the moment)
 
Roboramma said:
If someone came along with such a program, I think we should oppose it. We should oppose it on the grounds that it would hurt real people and impose on their liberty. We shouldn't oppose it because it's not scientifically possible. We shouldn't say "that's not really eugenics". Eugenics isn't defined by what's already been tried in the past. Such a thing, if it were proposed, should be named as eugenics, and should be opposed on valid moral grounds.
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Exactly this. And I think that's what Professor Dawkins was saying too.
 
Interesting Twitter thread (19 posts) from a genetics professor.

He handily provides his own summary.

TLDR: People who support eugenics initiatives are evil racists. Also, modern genetic research shows that eugenics would not work.
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https://twitter.com/davecurtis314/status/1229701171721445376

I am no way qualified to comment on the scientific accuracy of his statements, I just though people here might find it interesting.
 
Worm said:
Interesting Twitter thread (19 posts) from a genetics professor.

He handily provides his own summary.



https://twitter.com/davecurtis314/status/1229701171721445376

I am no way qualified to comment on the scientific accuracy of his statements, I just though people here might find it interesting.
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That is interesting, I note some of his objections are based on practicality rather than science. But surely "selective" breeding is really just a form of evolution, and we know that works. We only have to look at the phenotypes of humans to see traits in populations (overall) can be selected for. A good example is the variation in skin pigmentation, where geographically darker skin was no longer an advantage the trait was no longer selected for. Again we can look to India to see how societies can practice eugenics by the backdoor; the harsh caste system meant that there was not much cross breeding between the castes and we find that the "lower" castes generally have the darker skin and this is reflected in different allele frequencies in the castes.

ETA : I am not pitting my knowledge against his, I'll defer to his opinion that *some* traits are not susceptible to "improvement" via eugenics/selective breeding, but we know some are.

So I will modify my opinion: eugenics can work, but only for some traits.
 
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Arcade22 said:
There's a difference between just living, or rather surviving, for a longer period of time and actually living longer while being healthy.

People living longer only to suffer from age-related diseases and conditions, perhaps to the point of being totally dependent on life-support and unable to enjoy a decent life, is not a very good development. That's basically what's happening now after life-sustaining treatment has outpaced humans normal life spans.
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My friend works in a hospital in maintenance and owns and "old age home" where he hires nurses to work there ... so he has some insight into this.

He agrees fully with you, that life spans ARE longer but over 80 years old, for the vast majority, is not a great life at all.
 
Fo myself personally at 50 something, I am already seeing this, I had a heart attack a couple weeks ago, and my life sucks now :(
 
Ron Swanson said:
My friend works in a hospital in maintenance and owns and "old age home" where he hires nurses to work there ... so he has some insight into this.

He agrees fully with you, that life spans ARE longer but over 80 years old, for the vast majority, is not a great life at all.
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Uh, how did he determine that. If he's drawing his data solely from his line of work he is probably exactly the wrong person whose opinion to trust.
 
Checkmite said:
This is a somewhat specious argument; naturally the people who favor eugenics would consider their proposed end goal (typically, "fewer impure/nonwhite people in society compared to pure Europeans") is an improvement, otherwise they wouldn't pursue it. But then, if you're one of those impure/nonwhite people, I'm sure that you not only wouldn't consider the situation an improvement, but would rather positively contend that it is the opposite. So you're essentially conceding that whether eugenics is "feasible" is itself subjective, and depends on whether you consider the proposed improvements to be improvements. Unless you're arguing that by "feasible" you just mean that killing or forbidding impure/nonwhite people to have children will eventually result in a net lower ratio of impure/nonwhite people to white people, which I don't think anybody attacking the feasibility of eugenics was questioning.

But that doesn't seem to be what Dawkins is arguing about though, because he's talking about genetic traits like "running" and "jumping" (which again, was never the kind of thing historically selected-for by eugenicists). Again redefining eugenics to simply mean "directed breeding", Dawkins argument can actually be simplified to "heredity exists", in which case thank you for bestowing this great wisdom upon us, Professor? But as above, I'm confident that this isn't what people who question the feasibility of eugenics are getting at; I think they're very definitely talking about whether or not the "improvement" really does improve anything, and it's actually Dawkins that is "missing the point" (or deliberately ignoring it and trying to force his own, which I can certainly see him doing).
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Well there is also the objection that one would have to persuade the entire population to go along with it. That is daft. All one needs is a willing breeding population of a few hundred participants. Given that, a eugenics program would be trivial. It would matter not a whit what the other 7 billion thought about it's moral consequences.

Unlikely, you think? Can't get hundreds of volunteers? Nope. There are hundreds of volunteers for a one way trip to Mars. So a population to work with would not be an issue.

Arguing that we cannot actually do it at a technical level is nonsense. Because we can and have had the ability to do so for quite some time.

The morals, the consequences, the unintended consequences, the social consequences? Those are the hills we should die upon. Technical feasibility is in the bag already.
 
Roboramma said:
The reason I say this is that I think there is a valid concern with new forms of eugenics, that may or may not be motivated by the same ideologies of the past.
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The notion that eugenics isn't defined by what it historically has been, is an opinion I just can't agree with. Words have meaning; and since eugenics began as and has always been a social policy and not a scientific one, it must be defined by the social philosophies that have always informed it rather than by whatever scientific procedures happen to have been employed this time or that time to carry it out, especially since those are a matter of situational convenience and have been variable over time.

Roboramma said:
As to no one thinking that eugenics (as I am defining it) is impossible, but rather only that its historical forms are unworkable, and thus Dawkins is responding to strawmen: I can only say that I'm not convinced that's true. Do we know what he was responding to with those tweets?
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Clarification of his own statements is Dawkins' job. I know what I have seen of those rebutting his tweet, and they all address eugenics the concept as it historically existed, rather than addressing the reality of heredity.
 
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