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Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

Clearly the moral argument against eugenics can dealt with by breeding for immoral people.
 
Checkmite said:
As an aside, I can't help but chuckle at how comically bad this "clarification" tweet is:



"I'm not saying I think eugenics is a good idea; I'm just casually throwing out there that it really could improve humanity"
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How does breeding people who can jump higher "improve humanity"?
 
Dawkins seems determined to play the useful idiot role for right wing reactionaries. This gimmick is getting a bit boring.
 
I think if eugenics is ever again a serious consideration it'll be when humanity has established colonies in space but hasn't mastered easy interstellar travel.
 
Wish Dawkins took his role as a public academic with a little more responsibility.

Vague posting about eugenics, which is guaranteed to used as propaganda by white supremacists and other right wing reactionaries, is not a valuable service to the public. Dawkins can act indignified all he wants about getting criticized for this, but him pretending he exists in some ivory tower of context-free philosophical debate is absurd. He's posting race-science bait and he knows it.

Posting this kind of willingly context-free crap is some bastard cousin of JAQing.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
to answer the OP:
no, Eugenics on humans isn't possible because there are too many around.
The one thing you need for Eugenics is a population you can screen for a trait and control their reproduction accordingly.
not a chance with billions of people in hundreds of countries.
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That's why most Eugenics stories I'm aware of generally start with some apocalyptic or purging event, to clear out the 'undesirables'.
 
If the question is can we breed bigger people, then sure, eugenics can work. If the question is can we breed more intelligent people, then sure, eugenics can work.

If the question, however, is can we breed better people, then surely the jury is out until we firstly decide what would constitute better people, and secondly establish whether we can isolate those traits genetically.
 
I hate talking about this topic because everything associated with eugenics (rightfully) is just so goddamn skeevy.

But on the other hand anti-eugenics is one of those "but humans a different" arguments and those always sit poorly with me.

If you're breeding dogs or race horses or the last few members of an endangered species nobody goes "Yeah whatever you do, don't try to breed the ones with the traits we want, you might make it worse" but that's essentially what we're doing here.

Sure we don't, and my never, have the metrics, but that's not the same thing as some inherent moral failing in the idea and neither is "But bad people used it to do bad things once." That's true of nearly everything.

The Nazi also had the first widespread anti-smoking laws. Doesn't forever taint that either.
 
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sphenisc said:
Clearly the moral argument against eugenics can dealt with by breeding for immoral people.
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Exactly, and basically the point of my first post here, though the other way around. If one is breeding with the intent to 'improve humanity' then those very improvements might work against the project itself. Also if one is breeding or intending to breed to 'improve humanity' one has to first consider the current state of humanity. As even Dawkins eventually notes the current state of humanity generally considers eugenics to be morally abhorrent. While, as you note, one might breed for immoral people but people not adhering to moral norms works against the program when participation in the program is the moral norm.
 
pgwenthold said:
How does breeding people who can jump higher "improve humanity"?
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If you need/want people to jump higher, breeding humans who jump higher would be an improvement. However, that was just a flip example given based on the history of eugenics in movies and culture. Look at it from another point of view: Is disease immunity an improvement? If you could make the world's population 25% more resistant to diseases that cost a lot to cure or alleviate, look at the money you could save the healthcare system.

And I don't think Dawkins is talking about breeding humans so much, as that is a long term trial and error project, and the one most people are familiar with through the Nazis and apocalyptic movies . I think he is referring to engineering humans which is happening already. In fact, many scientists believe modern human beings are a new species based on our ability to genetically modify ourselves and other life forms.

The issue with all the eugenics programs in movies and books is that all the "failures", and there are always a lot of them, are eliminated. That's where the moral issues mostly come from. You have a large population of "inferior" humans being killed which is a great opportunity for a movie/literary hero to step in, save the day, and show us the error of our ways.

That issue can be eliminated through genetic engineering. First off, there would be very few "failures" because the problems would be caught long before they became viable humans. Secondly, if your goal for example is to make the general population 25% more resistant to certain diseases, what few "failures" did occur wouldn't matter in the overall population. People would still get the disease, they would just be less likely.

The issue, as always, is what traits would be an improvement and who gets to decide? That might be solved by having a list of things science can improve and allowing each parent to select the ones important to them, or not choose any.

But Dawkins is correct, eugenics would work on humans.
 
qayak said:
If you need/want people to jump higher, breeding humans who jump higher would be an improvement. However, that was just a flip example given based on the history of eugenics in movies and culture. Look at it from another point of view: Is disease immunity an improvement? If you could make the world's population 25% more resistant to diseases that cost a lot to cure or alleviate, look at the money you could save the healthcare system.

And I don't think Dawkins is talking about breeding humans so much, as that is a long term trial and error project, and the one most people are familiar with through the Nazis and apocalyptic movies . I think he is referring to engineering humans which is happening already. In fact, many scientists believe modern human beings are a new species based on our ability to genetically modify ourselves and other life forms.

The issue with all the eugenics programs in movies and books is that all the "failures", and there are always a lot of them, are eliminated. That's where the moral issues mostly come from. You have a large population of "inferior" humans being killed which is a great opportunity for a movie/literary hero to step in, save the day, and show us the error of our ways.

That issue can be eliminated through genetic engineering. First off, there would be very few "failures" because the problems would be caught long before they became viable humans. Secondly, if your goal for example is to make the general population 25% more resistant to certain diseases, what few "failures" did occur wouldn't matter in the overall population. People would still get the disease, they would just be less likely.

The issue, as always, is what traits would be an improvement and who gets to decide? That might be solved by having a list of things science can improve and allowing each parent to select the ones important to them, or not choose any.

But Dawkins is correct, eugenics would work on humans.
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You showed much more nuance and careful framing in this short explanation than Dawkins did in his tweet. His tweet boiled down to "Ackshually, eugenics could work!".

Dawkins is not an unintelligent man. Makes you think why he might post about such an inflammatory topic in such a careless way.
 
Checkmite said:
No, no. You're making the same mistake Dawkins did, which is trying to force a redefinition of "eugenics" as just a completely interchangeable synonym for "directed breeding in general". It's not. Eugenics was invented as a social policy with a very specific goal in mind - the "improvement" of humans, not based on objectively better or more useful physical traits but ideologically (i.e., arbitrarily) chosen "desirable" ones. There is no stripping it of its sociological and political context; these are intrinsic.

Honestly, what is next - a dispassionate analysis of the positive and negative macroeconomic consequences of consolidating ghettos and interning their inhabitants in labor camps? "I'm not saying we should use concentration camps; I'm just making a point that there would be undeniable benefits in terms of reduced manufacturing costs, not to mention the immense savings on health care by disposing of ill worker-units rather than treating them while they're not producing".
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But that simply means you agree with Dawkins. Eugenics is technically possible, but not a good idea for a host of other reasons.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
You showed much more nuance and careful framing in this short explanation than Dawkins did in his tweet. His tweet boiled down to "Ackshually, eugenics could work!".

Dawkins is not an unintelligent man. Makes you think why he might post about such an inflammatory topic in such a careless way.
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That post was 1,951 characters long. Dawkins had a limit of 280.
 
PursuedByABear said:
If the question is can we breed bigger people, then sure, eugenics can work. If the question is can we breed more intelligent people, then sure, eugenics can work.

If the question, however, is can we breed better people, then surely the jury is out until we firstly decide what would constitute better people, and secondly establish whether we can isolate those traits genetically.
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Nonsense. All we need to do is decide what traits we want to see selected, and then do it. No need to know which genes code for them. We did that with dogds for thousands of years.
 
Ian Osborne said:
That post was 1,951 characters long. Dawkins had a limit of 280.
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What is Dawkins even replying too? Who are the vast hordes of illogical people that think that humans would not respond to selective breeding?

Posting "Eugenics can work" while vaguely hand-waving away the necessary and extremely relevant historical context is willful obstinance. This is bait.

Dawkins posting vague outrage bait and acting aggrieved when he gets an outraged response. Why is Dawkins always engaged in this petty nonsense?
 
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