We don't need to rehearse the reasons for rejecting eugenics now do we? No sir.
Actually, yes, we do, because nobody ever does give a cogent reason for rejecting the ideas of eugenics. It seems that eugenics is simply an old idea that must have been thoroughly discredited in some way in the past so that we need not bother digging up again and going over old ground. We can all agree that eugenics has been discredited can't we?
Actually no. We can't. The subject is hardly discussed and certainly the convincing arguments that supposedly buried it are barely mentioned.
What is Eugenics?
Eugenics is the broad concept of selective breeding for people. There is no single idea or creed that is eugenics. It covers a multitude of evils, and a multitude of benefits.
Eugenics can be about racist theories of superiority. These have very little basis in science. Nazi dogma clouded the research into eugenics in Germany and tainted all the results to the point that most of the scientific work done in that era is thoroughly worthless.
We can't make Homo sapiens sapiens better just by eliminating one or more of the groups that may or may not justify the label race. Or perhaps you can, it all depends on what you set as your goal and how you define it as desirable. Very few people these days see any reason to treat what the layman knows as races as if they were important or fundamental divisions within our species. Of course there are real distinctions and divisions but all these divisions are porous and all of them have been breached by interbreeding. There is no scientific reason to treat the races as fundamental divisions that should be either maintained or deliberately broken down. Inbreeding can be damaging to the stock and so can outbreeding but there is no evidence that either breaching or maintaining the barriers between the races is either harmful or beneficial. Each racial group has enough genetic variability to be healthy and self sufficient and I know of no harmful effects of breeding with a partner of another race. If there is any tendency at all with the children of mixed marriages they seem to be perhaps slightly healthier and fitter than the average.
To me it seems that race is irrelevant to any idea of a eugenic improvement of the species.
Eugenics could aim to achieve any purpose we wish, just as with our farm animals and pets we could strive for and achieve any of the following:
Greater stature, more meat and faster maturation.
A placid temperament.
A different colour coat.
Higher milk yield.
Enhanced instincts (e.g. herding in collies)
Greater stamina for fighting.
Larger testicles. (All farm animals seem to have huge testicles because farmers have no other way of judging fertility in males before deciding whether to castrate them and keep them for meat or keep them intact for breeding.)
An infantile appearance (like a lapdog.)
Does that list not appeal to you? I wonder why not. All those traits are very simple to achieve without any knowledge of genetics.
What factors would a eugenicist really want to enhance within man?
Intelligence, however defined.
Loyalty. Which is probably measured by gullibility plus courage, for the same reason as farm animals are judged on testicle size.
Stature.
Longevity.
Health and fitness.
Things begin to get complicated when we start to ask in whose interests is the improvement done. It is only improvement if it is done in our interests, otherwise it is cynical manipulation. If a ruling class breeds willing slaves or fanatical soldiers that is surely an intolerable abuse of our humanity but what if selection becomes universal and the selectors select for all classes? That becomes a different matter all together.
There is also a distinction between positive and negative eugenics. The elimination of disease through genetic knowledge is, in my view, not only morally defensible but a moral imperative.
The difficulty comes in defining what is a disease and what is simply variation. To me racial differences such as hair and skin colour come firmly under the category of variation. However even this is not totally clear-cut. If we were in the position to select every gene individually would you want to knowingly give a new person a skin type that is dangerously prone to skin cancer and sun burn after even modest sun exposure? When does variation shade into genetic handicap?
For most genetic diseases the choice is fairly clear. Cystic fibrosis or sickle cell anaemia are clearly genetic diseases and should be eliminated. But what about dwarfism and homosexuality? It is remarkable how defensive people are of their own kind, even when the outside world sees them as pathogenic. Do dwarfs have a right to breed more of their kind? Or the deaf? Please note that I am not for one moment suggesting that dwarfs should be sent to the gas chambers for the good of humanity I am merely suggesting that we should take steps to avoid breeding more people with that condition. If you are a dwarf I can understand your fear of my genocidal tendencies but I absolutely insist that there is an enormous gulf between avoiding the conception of people with recognizably problematic phenotypes and killing dwarfs or mental defectives. People who are physically or mentally handicapped should be made quite clear about our attitude to them, we respect them as people but we also seek not to have more of their kind, there is no logical inconsistency in that position. We cannot allow these most selfish of selfish genes to spread. The issues of the limits of the pathological and the normal variation must be addressed. My own opinion is that homosexuality is not pathological but dwarfism is.
We could select for intelligence and longevity but should we? I can see no reason why we should select for either. Increasing longevity would produce population size and structure problems which would inevitably cause enormous strains on society and the economy for no obvious benefit. Why would we want our descendants to be so much brighter than we are? Who benefits and how? Would they thank us for it? Would it matter to us if they did? As all these questions seem unanswerable I think it is prudent not to purposely strive for greater intelligence directly but to aim to increase the aggregate intelligence level by avoiding the breeding of people who are significantly less intelligent than average just as I would suggest avoiding breeding from any people at the pathological end of any bell curve such as the seriously short or tall. Variety is a good thing, but you can have too much of anything.
The world is at least a full generation away from the time when eugenics can raise its head again. I have put these ideas here to act as the spores for the debate in that far off time, when the conditions are right to address the issues without hysteria.
Atheism
Politics
Life
Feedback
Forum
Blog
Home
Doing it for Your Community