Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Look up Lamarckism vs Darwinism. It's an interesting contrast.

I'm familiar with the distinction, but I wouldn't think of height as a Lamarckian characteristic. The example I often hear used is muscular fitness, as in a bodybuilder not having offspring that are more muscular than normal.

 

[theprestige]

Look up Lamarckism vs Darwinism. It's an interesting contrast.

What's interesting is that, as tool users, humans do practice a form of Lamarckian evolution. We don't grow longer necks, but we do build taller skyscrapers and more efficient airliners.

 

[theprestige]

I'm familiar with the distinction, but I wouldn't think of height as a Lamarckian characteristic. The example I often hear used is muscular fitness, as in a bodybuilder not having offspring that are more muscular than normal.

The canonical schoolroom example is giraffes not inheriting longer necks from their parents' efforts to reach higher branches.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

If you want to breed for height, just store all life-saving medicine on the top shelf.

You're thinking of Lamarckism.

? I don't get this comment.

Don't worry it's wrong.

Look up Lamarckism vs Darwinism. It's an interesting contrast.

GZ's point is true. People who can't reach the top shelf will die because they can't reach the life saving medication there. If GZ meant Lamarckism there would be no need to specify "life saving medication".

 

[Mumbles]

Then you are part of the problem.

The simple fact is that if we wanted, we could breed a race of "Uberhumans" if we so chose to do so. There is no scientific blocade to doing so. You can pretend all you like that it is impossible, but it isn't.

Dawkins argument is that arguing against whether we can do it is a fools errand. We already know we can.

Thus it is rather pointless to argue that we cannot do something that has already been demonstrated.

That's a very questionable premise. But regardless, even if true, you concede the point, and *immediately* discuss why it's ultimately genocidal.

Because, in all practice, "eugenics" has meant "forced sterilization of nonwhite, LGBT, disabled, and otherwise supposedly undesirable people", and only a fool would ignore this end not expect massive blowback. And no, "but he said it in another tweet" won't cut it - Nazi wannabes aren't the most honest people. And frankly, it's tiring for him to do this same thing every year or two, and then run crying to Sam Harris or whoever.

I stand by exactly what I said.

 

[The Man]

Animal breeding deals in much more crude strokes than the "productive society" Eugenics programs have sought. To use simply the word "Eugenics" if the aim is to say that some aspects of humans could be selected for through a breeding program seems purposefully courting controversy rather than trying to communicate anything useful.

Also another difference between animal breeding and eugenics is that in animal breeding the controlling population is not part of the breeding population. In eugenics the controlling and breeding populations would be the same.

 

[Belz...]

1) Dawkins is right about Eugenics.
2) Eugenics are morally reprehensible.
3) Many people seem to feel so strongly about #2 that they have trouble admitting #1

There is also discussion about whether or not it is OK to even say #1, because it will lead to all sorts of problems, but I think that's sort of out of the OP's intended discussion.

A good summary.

 

[sir drinks-a-lot]

Don't worry it's wrong.

I thought it was wrong, too, but so obviously so that I thought there might be a joke I am missing as Belz is usually up on the science.

 

[Belz...]

I'm familiar with the distinction, but I wouldn't think of height as a Lamarckian characteristic. The example I often hear used is muscular fitness, as in a bodybuilder not having offspring that are more muscular than normal.

Well the classic example is of Giraffes growing their necks over generations because they needed to reach the higher leaves. That's exactly analogous to the poster's joke about shelves.

Don't worry it's wrong.

GZ's point is true. People who can't reach the top shelf will die because they can't reach the life saving medication there. If GZ meant Lamarckism there would be no need to specify "life saving medication".

Good god, man, it was a JOKE. Both by Zaganza and myself. It doesn't need to be factually exact in order to work.

For pete's sake.

 

[Cavemonster]

People keep pointing out the deficiencies in purebred dogs, as if that's evidence that eugenics doesn't work. In reality it's evidence that the breeders of dogs didn't care about those deficiencies.

There are also issues with selectively bred chickens, horses, the list goes on.

Which speaks again to Dawkins using the success of selective animal breeding as proof that Eugenics could "work". Selective animal breeding shows us the ability to control some physical characteristics. But in practice, those come at a cost. We can guess that with the proper intent ALL desired traits could be bred for, but the examples in front of us don't show that level of control and nuance.

To acheive the particular goals set up by any program calling itself Eugenics, one would need a much finer tuned and side effect free program, which existing animal breeding does not show.

This is not to say that such a program would be impossible (I think there are other arguments which support it being improbable) but at a minimum the existence of animal breeding success is poor evidence of the potential success of what would have to be a very different effort.

An effort to make humans that were faster running, longer nosed, or had more meat on their thighs could be argued as potentially effective based on animal breeding. But as you say, nobody cared if a pug had breathing problems, or if your fast young horse had a miserable old age or didn't get along with other horses. I don't think we have an example of the level of multifaceted and fine degreed control without unintended consequences that a "success" in Eugenics would require.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Good god, man, it was a JOKE. Both by Zaganza and myself. It doesn't need to be factually exact in order to work.

Zaganza's joke was factually correct, obviously a joke, and a good one IMO.

 

[Belz...]

Zaganza's joke was factually correct, obviously a joke, and a good one IMO.

Mine was obviously a joke as well, and as I just said it doesn't need to be factually correct in order to work. That you don't find it funny is irrelevant.

 

[The Man]

An effort to make humans that were faster running, longer nosed, or had more meat on their thighs could be argued as potentially effective based on animal breeding. But as you say, nobody cared if a pug had breathing problems, or if your fast young horse had a miserable old age or didn't get along with other horses. I don't think we have an example of the level of multifaceted and fine degreed control without unintended consequences that a "success" in Eugenics would require.

Do we even know if such control is possible. Traits that may be considered negative, to one degree or another, also can have positive or even just mitigating influences in some degree or other. What makes someone a good leader might make them a bad subordinate. Something that has been explored in shows like Star Trek ("The Enemy Within") and Rick and Morty ("Rest and Ricklaxation"). theprestige mentions a sweet spot, for some triats, might we not already be there?

 

[theprestige]

Do we even know if such control is possible. Traits that may be considered negative, to one degree or another, also can have positive or even just mitigating influences in some degree or other. What makes someone a good leader might make them a bad subordinate. Something that has been explored in shows like Star Trek ("The Enemy Within") and Rick and Morty ("Rest and Ricklaxation"). theprestige mentions a sweet spot, for some triats, might we not already be there?

If nothing else, a proper eugenics program could explore these questions and find out some answers.

 

[Myriad]

I don't think any human-designed program to breed increased disease resistance into the human species could work better than the intensive eons-long selection program conducted by the microbes.

But old-school eugenics with forced matings and forced sterilizations of a captive human population to modify the frequencies of a few specific traits isn't going to cut it in the modern age. Instead, just merge 23andMe, Match.com, and Indeed.com, and get their neural net bot optimization algorithms working on the problem. In a few dozen generations of humans (and trillions of generations of bots; they get the eugenically harsher end of the deal) they should be able to breed a whole population of perfect employees.

 

[Darat]

Particularly bad given the open white nationalist and eugenics movements that are active today. Dawkins effectively gave both movements his personal seal of approval.



We keep telling y'all - this is how these groups form and increase their stature. "Oh, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying it's possible." Dawkins stupidly just rushed to stand right alongside them, for no reason. When he's using the exact same arguments as Nazi wannabes, most people with any sense of this will assume either that he's one of them, or that he simply refuses to learn his lesson - a useful idiot.

How does him saying eugenics is bad, and morally wrong give his seal of approval to eugenics?

 

[Darat]

There's also no reason to think that humans would treat all side effects as acceptable trade-offs for one obsessed-over trait. I think if a thousand-year breeding program for humans were instituted, phase one would be about expressing desirable traits, and phase two would be about breeding out the undesirable traits that manifest during phase one. The end result would trend towards a "sweet spot", where the desirable traits were expressed to the degree possible without bringing along undesirable traits.

The desirable traits wouldn't find their maximal expression (as we do with purebred dogs), but the resulting humans would probably be a lot more performant overall than the current haphazard crops we produce.

And given our knowledge of genetics is getting better and better it is quite likely that 25 years down the line we can "do" eugenics in the lab with a couple of test tubes and petri dishes so the logistics are simplified. (We have seen the scientist in China "successfully" genetically modifying humans.)

I'd say that is why we need to discuss eugenics outside the framework of its sciencetific feasibility.

It can be done.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I don't think any human-designed program to breed increased disease resistance into the human species could work better than the intensive eons-long selection program conducted by the microbes.

If it was focused on that one thing, why not? A human-designed program could take in to account things that happen to a person after they have procreated (by discouraging children from breeding) or take in to account information about relatives.

Of course, it's highly debatable if focusing on this one thing would lead to overall benefit.

 

[jimbob]

Whiteness, mostly. Dawkins happens to be right about religion but seriously, he's kind of an *******.

Yup - not the first time he's not thought the implications of his words, either.

Of course "eugenics", as in artificial selection for "desirable" inherited traits, is not theoretically impossible. The practical problem is that humans have a very long generation time and the most "exotic" traits depend on multiple genes whose effects are often difficult to predict. It takes a very long time (up 20 years+) for humans to become fully developed.

Of course there's no need to for very high accuracy if Dawkins wants to create a breed subhuman slaves that toil in filthy pits as cheap labourers. It sure sounds like something he would be interested in.

Adam Rutherford's take on this - he's a geneticist and former editor of Nature, as well as having written books on eugenics.

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


Also it looks as though Cumming's advisor has also been using work by Richard Lynn, which is very dodgy (Emily's Cat and JeanTate pointed it out to me in an earlier thread - but the one that stuck in my mind was the laughable assertion that there were countries in sub-Saharan Africa with an average IQ of 63. Based on their own admission of a sample size of zero in those countries and extrapolating very limited sample sizes and inconsistent test methodologies from other countries).

Also this really informative thread about Richard Lynn's lies

https://twitter.com/James84Tony/status/1210953287714983941

Sample tweet:

4) My personal favorite, using the IQ scores of severely disabled orphans in Spain... and then using that as the average IQ of an African country, just because:

 

[Myriad]

If it was focused on that one thing, why not? A human-designed program could take in to account things that happen to a person after they have procreated (by discouraging children from breeding) or take in to account information about relatives.

Of course, it's highly debatable if focusing on this one thing would lead to overall benefit.

That's an interesting question. Here are a few likely reasons that come to mind.

1. The death of parents and relatives already disadvantages children (within a certain age window) in most ancient and prehistoric societies, and even in many modern ones. So, one could make a case that the microbes already tried that.

2. Disease resistance is a moving target. The pathogens to be resistant to are constantly evolving themselves.

3. Mechanisms of greater resistance, whether general or specific, must have costs and risks too. Current knowledge strongly suggests there's a many-dimensional balance required. You can't just crank up a "resistance to everything" dial without causing e.g. allergies and autoimmune disorders, mothers being "resistant to" (as in, spontaneously miscarrying) their babies, increasing future genetic compatibility problems (consider e.g. the dynamics of the Sickle Cell gene), or vulnerability to new pathogens (see #2) that happen to target the resistance-to-everything mechanism itself (a la HIV).