Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

[TragicMonkey]

If you say so.

You disagree? I'd have thought that's the least controversial thing Ziggurat has ever posted.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I don't want to unopen the whole "Science can't answer moral questions" can of worms, but yes I disagree in the broad strokes. The overall topic is a well worn absolute minefield of semantics and categorization but speaking very generally if a question isn't answered within a scientific framework (i.e. evidence, falsefiability, repeatable results, etc) I don't recognize it as an answer.

But I do not wish to summon the wrath of the Trolley Problem and the "Can your cold precious science tell you if a painting is beautiful?" or the recursive "Okay now prove to me only using a sliderule that suffering is bad" ethical solipsism arguments.

Long story short the only meaningful "morality" I wish to discuss is objective facts are the mental state of humanity and other conscious creatures and how to best improve that, everything else is so much angels dancing on the head of a pin, and questions of that nature are answerable by science, indeed by nothing else. Just like everything else.

 

[theprestige]

You disagree? I'd have thought that's the least controversial thing Ziggurat has ever posted.

It actually seems to generate a lot of controversy, every single time it comes up.

ETA: Q.E.D.

 

[Roboramma]

I don't think we actually have to get in to those issues anyway. Even if moral questions could be thought of us scientific questions at bottom, it would still be possible to separate one scientific question from another in order to address them.

"Is this possible?" And "should this be done?" Are clearly separate questions, though they also clearly can influence each other. Even if "Should this be done" had some objective scientific answer, it could still be separated from "is this possible?".

The real issue is that conflating things makes them harder to understand. This is even true (maybe even particularly true) when those things interact in complex ways.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Are we hypothesising a world where we confidently create catpeople but getting rid of the inclination to bullying/xenophobia is too hard?

I don't think eugenics is the vehicle for eradicating bullying and xenophobia. I think this is just yet another "for the betterment of humanity" stalking horse.

 

[Cavemonster]

I don't want to unopen the whole "Science can't answer moral questions" can of worms, but yes I disagree in the broad strokes. The overall topic is a well worn absolute minefield of semantics and categorization but speaking very generally if a question isn't answered within a scientific framework (i.e. evidence, falsefiability, repeatable results, etc) I don't recognize it as an answer.

But I do not wish to summon the wrath of the Trolley Problem and the "Can your cold precious science tell you if a painting is beautiful?" or the recursive "Okay now prove to me only using a sliderule that suffering is bad" ethical solipsism arguments.

Long story short the only meaningful "morality" I wish to discuss is objective facts are the mental state of humanity and other conscious creatures and how to best improve that, everything else is so much angels dancing on the head of a pin, and questions of that nature are answerable by science, indeed by nothing else. Just like everything else.

Fair enough. But if you disagree with something in a thread, but don't wish to discuss that disagreement, simply not posting is an option.

 

[d4m10n]

Are people somewhere arguing that burning down houses isn't technically even possible?

Yup.

 

[Ziggurat]

Long story short the only meaningful "morality" I wish to discuss is objective facts are the mental state of humanity and other conscious creatures and how to best improve that, everything else is so much angels dancing on the head of a pin, and questions of that nature are answerable by science, indeed by nothing else. Just like everything else.

*sigh*

No, Joe. You're getting this wrong on a really, really fundamental level. You say you want to "improve" the mental state of humanity. But what's the metric for whether something is an improvement? Even under a hypothetical scenario where you could measure everyone's mental state (you can't), you still need a metric for good and bad, and different metrics will give you different answers about which course of action best improves it. And there is no unambiguous choice for what that metric will be. You aren't discarding morality for science, you're merely encoding your morality in your choice of metrics which you then apply science to. The problem of morality becomes the problem of choosing a metric, but the problem of morality doesn't actually go away, and science still doesn't actually solve it. Your choice of metric is necessarily axiomatic, as morality always ends up being.

But you aren't even doing that, because you can't actually do the measurement you're basing all this one. You can't even use science the way you're claiming you want to use it, so this all becomes pointless hypotheticals anyways. So in reality you can't push morality back even that far.

 

[JoeMorgue]

*sigh*

No, Joe. You're getting this wrong on a really, really fundamental level. You say you want to "improve" the mental state of humanity. But what's the metric for whether something is an improvement? Even under a hypothetical scenario where you could measure everyone's mental state (you can't), you still need a metric for good and bad, and different metrics will give you different answers about which course of action best improves it. And there is no unambiguous choice for what that metric will be. You aren't discarding morality for science, you're merely encoding your morality in your choice of metrics which you then apply science to. The problem of morality becomes the problem of choosing a metric, but the problem of morality doesn't actually go away, and science still doesn't actually solve it. Your choice of metric is necessarily axiomatic, as morality always ends up being.

But you aren't even doing that, because you can't actually do the measurement you're basing all this one. You can't even use science the way you're claiming you want to use it, so this all becomes pointless hypotheticals anyways. So in reality you can't push morality back even that far.

If you say so.

 

[theprestige]

I don't think eugenics is the vehicle for eradicating bullying and xenophobia. I think this is just yet another "for the betterment of humanity" stalking horse.

I think it could be part of the solution, though. Assuming bullying and xenophobia are a combination of nature and nurture, one could conceivably breed for a more tolerant (or at least compliant) nature, and also breed for personality traits that make the individual more receptive to whatever nurturing techniques you intend to use in their development.

What if there are certain heritable personality traits that make someone more receptive to didactic lectures? Or more receptive to learning-by-doing? It seems you could make rapid progress by breeding for certain traits, and then designing an educational system that caters to those traits.

Obviously the mutants and those who don't breed true would be left out in the cold, but maybe we could find some other use for those people. Maybe exceptions can be made for certain unplanned combinations that grant specialist advantages in certain situations. Ultimately, you could end up breeding several distinct and complementary castes, each with their own training programs and roles in society. And each happy to know their place in the world order. Except those whose designed personality traits require a certain amount of social alienation and rebelliousness, of course. Those guys would have to be kept well-segregated, or on a short leash, or both.

 

[dudalb]

Problem with using Science to answer moral questions is it's something that science is simply not designed to do.

 

[The Man]

I don't think it needs to incorporate that difference, but it certainly needs to be consistent with it.

How can it be consistent with that difference without incorporating that difference in some why or another?

I think "the application of selective breeding to humans" is a very good definition of eugenics, actually. We certainly want to differentiate between selective breeding applied to other animals, which I don't have any problem with, to selective breeding applied to humans, which seems quite repugnant to me. If someone were to propose a selective breeding program for humans, what would you call it?

Selective breeding.

What breeding isn't selective in some way or other?

Thus the area of contention becomes how the section takes place which of course incorporates or is consistent with the goal of the selective breading process. Normal mating (for reason of procreation) in humans is a selective process, whether emotional or dispassionately reasoned.

For eugenics the goal of the selection is to obtain a 'good' 'parentage', good or well born, being the literal meaning of the word's Etymology.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eugenics

Stirpiculture being the prior terminology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oneida_stirpiculture

Again based, among other things, on the concept that there is some good base stock of the human genome to come from, strive for or to.

I'd call it eugenics.

While I'd just call it selective breeding. As that doesn't have the historical context, noted above, of eugenics. Nor infer any particular goal or method of the selection process. You can selectively breed for diversity as much as you can for some particular genetic ideal or trait.

It's not superfluous because it differentiates between selective breeding applied to humans and that applied to other species. I think that distinction is important.

How is it different? Does selective breeding work fundamentally different in people than it does in other animals? Perhaps is it simply how the selection takes place that people, in general, would like to be different than what we do to other species? Again the goals or underlying concept of the breeding program have an impact on how the selection process takes place.

Sure. To take an animal example, if someone were breeding horses to run faster they'd be unlikely to be successful if they didn't take into account the effects of exercise on running speed. If they thought that heredity had lamarkian characteristics and designed their metrics of success around that, they'd be likely to fail. Soviet agriculture suffered from exactly this mistake.
Your idea of defining success in eugenics in part around being in control of the breeding program would have exactly this problem.

Where the heck did I even try to define success in "eugenics"?

Again just the "selective" part of selective breeding defines at least some selective control in the breeding process. Whether you call that eugenics or not, some other than normal, or natural, method of selection in breeding is the defining aspect, of, well, "selective breeding", otherwise it is just breeding.

 

[The Man]

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.

Exactly this. And I think that's what Professor Dawkins was saying too.

Why can't one do both, claim "that's not really eugenics" yet still be morally reprehensible?

Plenty of things are morally reprehensible that aren't eugenics but just calling something "eugenics" to try to ascribe a moral disparagement, just misses the assertion of the moral turpitude the other concept imbues just on its own.

 

[The Man]

I think it could be part of the solution, though. Assuming bullying and xenophobia are a combination of nature and nurture, one could conceivably breed for a more tolerant (or at least compliant) nature, and also breed for personality traits that make the individual more receptive to whatever nurturing techniques you intend to use in their development.

What if there are certain heritable personality traits that make someone more receptive to didactic lectures? Or more receptive to learning-by-doing? It seems you could make rapid progress by breeding for certain traits, and then designing an educational system that caters to those traits.

Obviously the mutants and those who don't breed true would be left out in the cold, but maybe we could find some other use for those people. Maybe exceptions can be made for certain unplanned combinations that grant specialist advantages in certain situations. Ultimately, you could end up breeding several distinct and complementary castes, each with their own training programs and roles in society. And each happy to know their place in the world order. Except those whose designed personality traits require a certain amount of social alienation and rebelliousness, of course. Those guys would have to be kept well-segregated, or on a short leash, or both.

Or the mutants just take over since everyone is so tolerant of them and complaint with their didactic lectures of the immorality of excluding them from the ruling class. Not to mention them just being a bunch of freak'n bullies.

 

[Roboramma]

How can it be consistent with that difference without incorporating that difference in some why or another?

The definition of a hammer doesn't incorporate the definition of a table, but it's consistent with it. One can use, and even invent, a hammer without having ever seen or heard of a table, but having seen one doesn't make one question one's definition of a hammer, and in fact that hammer can be used to build tables.

I feel like you're responses to me in this thread have been playing semantic games.

For instance:

Selective breeding.

What breeding isn't selective in some way or other?

You answer your own question here:

Again just the "selective" part of selective breeding defines at least some selective control in the breeding process. Whether you call that eugenics or not, some other than normal, or natural, method of selection in breeding is the defining aspect, of, well, "selective breeding", otherwise it is just breeding.

 

[The Man]

The definition of a hammer doesn't incorporate the definition of a table, but it's consistent with it. One can use, and even invent, a hammer without having ever seen or heard of a table, but having seen one doesn't make one question one's definition of a hammer, and in fact that hammer can be used to build tables.

Of course the definition of a hammer is inconsistent with the definition of a table. Otherwise a hammer would have to be a type of table. Not being such nor even remotely such, the definition of a hammer neither has to support nor refute the definition or mere existence of tables. As you allude to yourself above.

I took your assertion of the expectation of the definition of eugenics to be consistent with the distinction between genetics and environment to mean a support for that distinction rather than simply neutral to it as the latter seemed pointless to even mention. Likewise a definition of eugenics that directly refutes any distinction of such would to me just be generally inconsistent with what we know about genetics and environment.

So it seems what you've been trying to say is that a definition of eugenics shouldn't directly refute the distinction between genetics and environment. Which I would have just taken as a given, so there we agree.

I feel like you're responses to me in this thread have been playing semantic games.

Not at all, as exemplified below and even quoted by you.

For instance:




[ quote]Selective breeding.

What breeding isn't selective in some way or other?

and the last line in the paragraph below that...


"Normal mating (for reason of procreation) in humans is a selective process, whether emotional or dispassionately reasoned."

The clarification that normal matting is itself selective even if we don't directly refer to it as selective.

You answer your own question here:

No it doesn't, because even in what you did quote is the qualification "some other than normal, or natural, method of selection" specifically referring to normal or natural selection in just "breeding" as I quoted above. Heck, it was the central theme of the whole post that how the selection gets done is what distinguishes "selective breeding" from just normal "breeding" which is itself selective. As well as how that selection gets done in "selective breeding" being a significant element of the moral turpitude in eugenics as well as being dependent on what are the goals of the breeding. Look I can understand some miscommunication even to the point where one thinks the other might be playing semantic games. Heck, that's what I was starting to think about your "consistent" reference. However, just ignoring a major portion as well as the central theme of a post ain't gonna help no one to communicate effectively.

 

[theprestige]

Or the mutants just take over since everyone is so tolerant of them and complaint with their didactic lectures of the immorality of excluding them from the ruling class. Not to mention them just being a bunch of freak'n bullies.

They key to designing a Better Tomorrow is not designing a Worse Tomorrow. The Bullies, like the Sheeple, would still be subordinate to the Benevolent Supermen who run the entire program. At least, that's the way I'd design it. Designing it so the Bullies could take over is obviously a bad idea.

 

[The Man]

They key to designing a Better Tomorrow is not designing a Worse Tomorrow. The Bullies, like the Sheeple, would still be subordinate to the Benevolent Supermen who run the entire program. At least, that's the way I'd design it. Designing it so the Bullies could take over is obviously a bad idea.

Bad designs generally aren't the idea but they happen. Benevolence, being a feast for bullies and a breed in genetic trait of those others, may be the Achilles heal designed into those supermen.

 

[Roboramma]

Of course the definition of a hammer is inconsistent with the definition of a table. Otherwise a hammer would have to be a type of table. Not being such nor even remotely such, the definition of a hammer neither has to support nor refute the definition or mere existence of tables. As you allude to yourself above.

We seem to be miscommunicating, because I think you understand my point, but think that I don't, and are trying to communicate to me the same thing that I was trying to communicate to you.

To be more clear, then: When I talked about consistent with, what I really mean is probably compatible with. A hammer doesn't logically preclude the existence of tables. A definition of eugenics that is incompatible with the other things we know about evolutionary biology is a poor definition. There are things we know about how environments interact with genes, and if a definition of eugenics is incompatible with those known facts, then it's a useless definition.

To take it back: you talked about a definition of eugenics in which the goal was some sort of perfect human, and that perfection was based not on genes, but outcome (for instance, being control of the breeding process). But that outcome is just as influenced by environmental factors that are outside of the control of the genes as it is by anything else. If someone were designing a program to breed the perfect or best human, those environmental factors would not be a useful thing to take into consideration because their breeding program only affects genes, not those environmental factors.

Does that make sense?

 

[jimbob]

And I see the Church of Dawkins still has some members.
Dawkins knows a lot about [my edit: Biology],not so much about other things, where his opinion is no more valid then anybody;'s elses.

Yup - and with an utterly Caviller disregard for the historical context even when it's very closely intertwined with the history of the biological study.

Adam Rutherford on Twitter demonstrated how a geneticist can approach the issue with nuance as well as having the expertise of having written books on eugenics.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1229310805189054464.html