Thread: Why have Eugenics Studies and Policies fallen out of favor?

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

Those who breed canines, cattle and horses know there are methods to increase intelligence, size, as well as other desirable traits of the offspring by practicing selective (scientific) breeding - AKA Eugenics. Go to the horse racing industry, cattle auctions, or the dog show circuit, and you will find eugenicists abound. They know which breeds to use, and which not to use.

Of course, but these are animals not humans. Any breeder also knows that the purer the breed the greater chance of genetic predispositions to deformity , we only have to look at the royal families of Europe to prove that.

Given that human genetics are almost identical to other mammals, especially great apes, where the similarity is greater than 98 percent, why in the last 60 years have academics and political leaders decided the laws of nature do not apply to humans?

You will need to define your defintion of "laws of nature" and exactly what "exemptions" are being allowed.

Originally Posted by ian

Of course, but these are animals not humans. Any breeder also knows that the purer the breed the greater chance of genetic predispositions to deformity , we only have to look at the royal families of Europe to prove that.

There is a difference between polygamy and selective breeding.

Originally Posted by ian

You will need to define your defintion of "laws of nature" and exactly what "exemptions" are being allowed.

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Originally Posted by Polar Bear

There is a difference between polygamy and selective breeding.

What point are you trying to make? Selective breeding as you propose for humans and polygamy are mutually exclusive.

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If you cant understand basic concepts perhaps you shouldnt be posting in this forum.

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

Nope.

I am saying that if you give a color blind litmus test of how productive certain members of society are, the results would still be racially imbalanced.

You could have aliens from Pluto administer a test to the American population measuring individual productivity and the gaps would still fall along racial lines.

Productivity is a result of culture and background and opportunity (can your family afford to send you to college). That in itself fails the race-neutral testing requirement. Polar Bear's reference to lots of Democrats failing the test shows that he has NO grasp on what true eugenics would mean and shows why historical eugenics was justifiably discredited.

If you want to increase productivity, you need to change the culture (including subcultures) and provide more opportunities (like Affirmative Action programs). If you are actually worried about genetics, you need to look at intelligence, physical abilities and possibly criminal genes (a fair percentage of sociopaths show a common genetic trait, for example).

Originally Posted by skeptic-f

If you want to increase productivity, you need to change the culture (including subcultures) and provide more opportunities (like Affirmative Action programs).

Comment immediately discredited.


Promoting the less qualified over the adequately qualified will run any civilization into the ground. Promoting the stupid over the smart is akin to intentionally running a civilization into the ground. Continue with you Jungle Fever diatribe:











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Some folks really hate the idea of allowing others to have equal rights and opportunities. But then anything is OK as long as they retain their special privileges.

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

Comment immediately discredited.


Promoting the less qualified over the adequately qualified will run any civilization into the ground. Promoting the stupid over the smart is akin to intentionally running a civilization into the ground. Continue with you Jungle Fever diatribe:


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Intelligence is how smart Mother Nature made you. Education is how much schooling you successfully completed. Smart is sometimes used as a synonym for intelligence and sometimes as a synonym for education. That doesn't mean that intelligence equals education. Duh!

P.S. I said nothing about African-Americans, so why bring up the racist "Jungle Fever" comment? Try debating the facts rather than letting your emotions get the better of you, Polar Bear. One might almost say that's inferior behavior.

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

It is possible to derive racial statistics based on a standardized test. Happens all the time.

I'm pretty sure I addressed that with my first post so now we're just going in circles.

Originally Posted by Polar Bear

Those who breed canines, cattle and horses know there are methods to increase intelligence, size, as well as other desirable traits of the offspring by practicing selective (scientific) breeding - AKA Eugenics.

Correction; they know how to accentuate certain features at the expense of others. Eugenics fails as a way to promote the general progress of a species towards environmental fitness.

In other words, artificial selection usually makes the wrong choices based on artificial standards and unrealistic objectives.

Go to the horse racing industry, cattle auctions, or the dog show circuit, and you will find eugenicists abound. They know which breeds to use, and which not to use.

No doubt selective breeding can make more desirable products for limited economic uses. I do not want human beings to become commodities suited for economic purposes determined when conceived. Eugenics utterly fails at delivering general forward progress towards environmental fitness; it only achieves progress towards artificial goals and dysfunction.

Given that human genetics are almost identical to other mammals, especially great apes, where the similarity is greater than 98 percent, why in the last 60 years have academics and political leaders decided the laws of nature do not apply to humans?

You are misunderstanding the laws of nature, and why artificial selection is suboptimal in the context of those laws. Our concepts of what is environmentally adaptive are almost always wrong. We would eliminate useful traits because they are considered suboptimal in the present environment, only to leave ourselves vulnerable in the future.

Moreover, is it any coincidence that the demise of Eugenic studies and policies coincided with the rise of cultural Marxism (after WWII) in America's universities and its halls of government?

Not even remotely. Marxists are humanists, and therefore reject the commoditization of humanity as proposed by eugenicists.

If Eugenics do not matter, as most politicians and ivory tower academics would have you believe, why are the countries that historically employed Eugenic policies (Germany, Canada, Australia, etc.) so much better off than countries where Eugenic policies were never in place (Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean, etc.)?

Utterly irrelevant to the present political and economic climate in those countries. A stronger correlation lies with a history of colonial oppression and industrial suppression.

Could it be that centuries of smart, scientific breeding, as opposed to the wanton race-mixing festivals of the lower latitudes, gave certain European and North Asian peoples genetic advantages that aided in the spreading of their respective civilizations?

This is not scientifically valid; the child of two smart parents is statistically likely to be less intelligent than they are.

Eugenics was the popular science of the day back during the turn of the 20th century. It was led by people like Margret Sanger who thought it a good idea to promote contraception to black people, so as to wean their reproduction so as to strengthen the human gene pool. She did this by creating Planned Parenthood.

Of course, the climax was the Nazi fascination with eugenics and the subsequent racist and genocidal implications that went along with it. This pretty much put the nail in the eugenic coffin. Had it not been for this I'm pretty sure scientist would still be promoting it. In fact, society still promotes in via abortion. If your unborn child is "defective" then in the garbage he or she goes. Of course, people who advocate abortion would never admit to as much, but them is the facts.