Eugenics - A touchy subject I'd like to explore

I have some pretty strong feelings about eugenics (it's a good and necessary practice), but I find it very, VERY difficult to talk about it with anyone since I'm instantly labeled a Nazi for supporting it. I'm hoping the folks on Think Atheist will be more inclined to intellectual discussion than name-calling and dismissal.

 

The start off, some disclaimers: genocide is wrong; taking human rights away from people of a race/religion/hairstyle you don't like is wrong; concentration camps are wrong; violence in wrong.

 

There. Now to the actual discussion.

 

When I talk about eugenics, I'm talking about the practice of systematically removing debilitating genetic traits and defects from a population by means of regulating the reproduction of its citizens. Do you have Schizophrenia? Did you know that this ailment is genetic and very easy to pass on to you children? Please, do not punish an innocent child with this problem. Are you genetically healthy, intelligent, and talented? Do you have special immunities that make you less likely to get sick? By all means, spread these traits to future generations, either by having children yourself or donating to a sperm or egg bank. Do you want children but should not carry your genetic problems onto them? Adopt. Adoption will always be available no matter what the society (just because someone has good genetic material does NOT mean they would make a good parent). Do you say that adoption is not the same? Then I suppose you care more about satisfying your selfish desires than the well being of a child.

 

Eugenics is, at its base, very simple - think about the future first.

I'm leaving this post now for what I'm hoping will be thoughtful and anti-inflammatory discussion.

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Permalink Reply by Awdur Ffuglen on August 15, 2013 at 2:39pm

Like, I'm suing you for bringing me into the world?
Flaws don't always pass to offspring.
Stephen Hawking can't MOVE HIS BODY and won the presidential medal of freedom (highest award a civilian can get)
So, who's life do you insist on denying? 
Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Helen Keller? 
Or do I need to name 10,000 other famous people with 'flaws'. 

Permalink Reply by T A A on August 15, 2013 at 4:36pm

WTF is a "flaw"???????
This is really a biological conversation. There are recessive alleles and dominant alleles, both types can increase fitness or reduce fitness.
So THAT's your goalpost for a successful life... winning a big medal?????

It's not about "denying" anyone, it's about realising at some point that we don't ALL "HAVE" to live.

Permalink Reply by H3xx on August 16, 2013 at 12:26am

Maybe not a big medal. But how about being possibly the most gifted human mind that ever existed, with a wife and two daughters, neither of whom have a trace of Lou Gehrig's disease?

Permalink Reply by T A A on August 17, 2013 at 12:59am

But who really gives a shit?

Yours and my life nor anyone I know would have had a lesser life had he not been there. He makes no difference (other than some PhD students.
Now someone like Nelson Mandela, he really made a difference in millions of people's lives. But overall, obsession with the "value" or certain individuals is a religious outlook on life. Adulation is not a very interesting human trait.

Permalink Reply by Awdur Ffuglen on August 16, 2013 at 1:26am

I don't know what a flaw is. 
Eugenics and biology are usually part of the same conversation.
My goalpost for success is not medal-winning. I used Stephen Hawking as an example to show who might never have existed under a eugenics program.
No we don't all have to live. Some people suck. I'd say 50% of people are stupid. Half of them are stupider than that. But then again, as Stephen Hawking said himself, "Intelligence is overrated." 

Permalink Reply by H3xx on August 16, 2013 at 1:32am

Points for a George Carlin reference.

Stupidity is fixable with a proper education system. Intelligence is not a fixed limit to the ability to learn. It is simply the ability to comprehend and retain information correctly.

Permalink Reply by Awdur Ffuglen on August 16, 2013 at 2:24am

Hate to come with another George reference, but the education system is designed to make people stupid. They don't want 'smart' people. They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. So if you mean stupidity is fixable with a proper education system, you must mean something altogether different. We will never have a proper education system. The education system is the SOURCE of the stupidity. Have you ever taken Masters in Psychology courses? It's not education. It's being slapped in the side of your head with a piece of raw meat and someone saying, "DON'T YOU DARE THINK", "YOU DON'T HAVE A BRAIN" defend your thesis and water down this study until it's so tepid and ineffectual that you expire from banality while writing the abstract. Some people love it though.

Permalink Reply by H3xx on August 16, 2013 at 9:43am
As a product of the public education system, I tend to disagree. My school tested well because we had good teachers who were interested in their job. Even though their pay was shit, and the curriculum restrictive, I learned a lot in that high school. This was in Mississippi. The least fucking educated state in the goddamn union. The worst public school I went to was middle school in texas. Teachers didn't give a fuck, just wanted us to take and pass the damn test.
Right now, the education system is designed to train us for blue collar work. Not teach us how to think. So I would say in biological terms, it's about half a school syster, so it's about half as effective as it could be, but you absolutely have to admit that it is better than nothing.
I say we fund education like we do defense. Our Defense against Failure budget. Flood the system with cash, and hire mathematicians, not math teachers. Hire Scientists, not science teachers. Have our children educated by the actual members of the field, n0t by aproximationa. Dont teach the arithmatic, teach them math theory. Not to perform calculations like a machine, bit to speak the language of math. George was right, its an imperfect system, garbage in, garbage out. But it can be improved. We can change it to ore in, polished ingot out.
Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on August 17, 2013 at 3:49am

@H3xx -

"hire mathematicians, not math teachers. Hire Scientists, not science teachers. Have our children educated by the actual members of the field..." 

I very much agree with this.  Kids need to be taught the arithmetic etc., but it would only take a couple of minutes per lesson to feed in the higher theory too.  And this higher theory makes it all understandable and more interesting.  After all, the thing with mathematics and science is that it makes sense.  In school teaching they tend to be scared of this stuff, but this is a giant mistake. 

Permalink Reply by T A A on August 17, 2013 at 4:27pm

Simon, most professionals do not have teaching skills. Those are entirely different skill sets... I have had professionals give me courses at university level in sciences and business administration, and though there were a couple of exceptions, generally they were completely incompetent teachers and a majority of students came out of the course disappointed at having wasted our money. At the K-12 level it would be an even worse mess.

Permalink Reply by Simon Paynton on August 17, 2013 at 5:20pm

@T A A - if school teachers could incorporate a bit of more advanced knowledge into their math lessons - it would encourage a lot more students into college-level mathematics.  For example, I never understood quadratic equations properly until college, yet it would have only taken 3 minutes to impart this knowledge in school. 

Permalink Reply by T A A on August 17, 2013 at 5:29pm

@Simon. In my high school, students of grade 12 had the choice between regular math (for the not brainy) and advanced math (which finally managed to drop me from my A+ math history), it was much harder and much more challenging.

But it was still regular teachers, not professionals who got that for me. My physics teachers were really awesome in high school also, in fact my college  physics profs were awesome too. They were all teachers.

But I find odd you'd assume that it would have only required three minutes to teach you quadratic equations as a teen. How do you know that?

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