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Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

Checkmite's bolding in the following quote:

Richard Dawkins said:
It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice.
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Checkmite said:
The bolded:

...is an irritatingly neutral statement. "It's one thing" - but is it his thing? He had to be poked for us to find out, and even seems a little annoyed at having to clarify his neutral remark.
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What do you think the phrase "It's quite another..." is meant to mean?
 
sir drinks-a-lot said:
Dawkins is right about Eugenics.
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No, he is not at all right about Eugenics, but the reason why he's wrong isn't what some of you think:
1) If people were ordinary animals, it would be possible to breed a population of them with traits that the breeders desired.
2) People aren't ordinary animals, i.e. they can't be controlled the way that you can control populations of dogs, cats or rats.
3) And even when people bow to the racist ideals of Eugenics, they can't even make themselves obey them, which is why it wouldn't work in practice. (When our alien overlords arrive, they may be able to accomplish something like that, but until then ...)

That, and not genetics, is the reason why Dawkins is wrong about Eugenics 'in practice'. See post 41.
 
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Mumbles said:
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.
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I have no issue granting all of that. Eugenics is abhorrent no matter how one slices it. It is even one of those rare issues which would provoke me to take up arms in opposition.

Nevertheless, it works no matter what objection. Sure, we could breed for whatever trait we happened to consider the best du jour. There is no technical reason why not (unless you unexpectedly have found one out of thin air).

My disagreement is not with the technical wherewithall to do so. We quite plainly could at that level no problem.

No, this is where Dawkins is correct. We could do it, but we would pay for it. In blood.

Dawkins is not advocating genociding Jews, or the weak or the afflicted or anything of that nature. Dawkins is simply observing that eugenics works but is morally and ethically a mess even though it works.
 
This is not a genie that will stay in the bottle forever, or indeed all that much longer.

We can discuss the moral implications of something to a point, but if that point goes past the point at which the thing in question is being functionally done we are going to be putting ourselves at a disadvantage, perhaps a grave one, against people who are implementing it without as much thought put into it.

We can argue the good versus bad of a world with eugenics versus a world without eugenics. We cannot, in good faith with any intellectually honesty, argue the good versus bad of a world where only people who don't have a moral problem with eugenics are the ones practicing eugenics. Nobody wins in that scenario.
 
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Dawkins is a little bit right in that eugenics could work on people.
...and a little bit wrong in that noone would put up with it. They're not going to let some authority, govt or whatever, tell them who to marry and have kids with. (or any other option) We tried that already and the world won't go down that road, noone will trust any overarching authority with that power again.

On the other hand when we get the the point where you can privatize eugenics - designer babies and whatnot - without having to involve large management/oversight systems and many other people, then i think we'll see people go full throttle into it. All those ethical concerns will get kicked to the curb as people are fully certain they know whats best for their kid and start creating their own blond haired blue eyed ubermenschen with not a shred of irony detectable.

imo the only way that doesn't happen is if there are risks or downsides, or excessive costs, to the "improvements" that are available.
 
Darat said:
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.
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Again, we run into what is meant by "Eugenics". You could certainly alter human genetics in a lot of ways. And when you talk about that, some folks may bring up the spectre of "Eugenics". But dictionaries, encyclopedia and common understanding of the word all converge on a program to change the general population or the population of a country, not to create some small group of individuals with particular properties. And they also converge on the method to that, to control who can and can't reproduce.

Is human DNA as potentially malleable as any other creature? Absolutely.

But when you say "Eugenics would work" you're saying quite a bit more than that.
 
Instead of Eugenics, a catalog of all useful mutations in the population can and probably will lead to genetic therapies that will provide protection against illness and aging and bestow performance enhancement - we don't have to breed a trait when we can just splice it.
 
Cavemonster said:
Again, we run into what is meant by "Eugenics". You could certainly alter human genetics in a lot of ways. And when you talk about that, some folks may bring up the spectre of "Eugenics". But dictionaries, encyclopedia and common understanding of the word all converge on a program to change the general population or the population of a country, not to create some small group of individuals with particular properties. And they also converge on the method to that, to control who can and can't reproduce.

Is human DNA as potentially malleable as any other creature? Absolutely.

But when you say "Eugenics would work" you're saying quite a bit more than that.
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Only if you think eugenics started and stopped with Hitler. In fact it didn't and modern eugenics is all about genetically engineering humans.
 
Myriad said:
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.
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Perhaps, but then there is still potentially the problem that said microbes have/had. Take the recessive sickle cell trait. It provides resistance to malaria but when two recessives breed then the full trait rears its ugly head.

Myriad said:
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.
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Sure but then we are the pigs and the AI are the farmers. While not old-school eugenics I don't even think that fits the intent of people controlling their own evolution through selective breeding. As the people and bots diverge over their respective generations, the latter perhaps happening much faster if the bots design themselves as well. So it'd be more of robotic or AI eugenics with some flesh "pet" "employees" running about.
 
If we listened to "But you might make it worse" we'd still be squatting naked in Olduvai Gorge without fire or flint knapped tools, living to the ripe old age of "Died in Childbirth."
 
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Myriad said:
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.
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I'm pretty sure I don't want AI trying to design humans.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xSyWfiLPyaU/maxresdefault.jpg
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
Where did Dawkins say people would put up with it?
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Here, when he compared them with animals:

It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.
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In post 143, I explained why it wouldn't work for humans, but feel free to ignore it.
 
RecoveringYuppy said:
No, guess again. Be serious. Put aside any hatred you might have for Dawkins that would make you want to miss the obvious meaning of such a common construct.
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I didn't guess the first time. It's what I believe he meant. If you think otherwise, perhaps you should offer your own suggestion?

And I've no idea why you think I have hatred for Dawkins.
 
dann said:
Here, when he compared them with animals:
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I don't see any reasonable interpretation of that that supports your claim.


dann said:
In post 143, I explained why it wouldn't work for humans, but feel free to ignore it.
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I somewhat/mostly agree (ETA: well, not so sure about this, but it's beside the point) with post 143 but don't see that you've made a good case that you are arguing against Dawkins since it's not clear he would disagree with you.
 
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Ian Osborne said:
I didn't guess the first time. It's what I believe he meant. If you think otherwise, perhaps you should offer your own suggestion?
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I'd offer the normal meaning of the phrase which is to contrast something unacceptable with something acceptable.

And I've no idea why you think I have hatred for Dawkins.
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Because you appear to be twisting his words. You have to ignore what he said to think he's in favor of eugenics and that includes his very first tweet.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/is+quite+another
 
dann said:
No, he is not at all right about Eugenics, but the reason why he's wrong isn't what some of you think:
1) If people were ordinary animals, it would be possible to breed a population of them with traits that the breeders desired.
2) People aren't ordinary animals, i.e. they can't be controlled the way that you can control populations of dogs, cats or rats.
3) And even when people bow to the racist ideals of Eugenics, they can't even make themselves obey them, which is why it wouldn't work in practice. (When our alien overlords arrive, they may be able to accomplish something like that, but until then ...)

That, and not genetics, is the reason why Dawkins is wrong about Eugenics 'in practice'. See post 41.
Click to expand...

number 2 is special pleading and an assumption.

We are animals, which would fall under number 1. What do you mean by 'ordinary'?
 
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