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Eugenics

maquiscat

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A post came across my wife's FB page with regards to eugenics. And while most people were pretty much just bashing it (with no real reasoning other than "it's bad"), a couple of people brought up some point that I can't find myself disagreeing with. And I thought that maybe reviewing said point would make for good discussion.

One of the first thing to be look at is the point of separating out eugenics itself from how it is/was applied. The assertion was the eugenics itself is neither good nor bad. It's a tool. It depends upon who wields it and how, that would make its use good or bad. And I agree with that point. Eugenics is the seeking of the improvement of the human species through breeding. Now obviously the term improvement as applied to the human species will be highly subjective. But that does not detract from the fact that eugenics itself is a tool that is neither good nor bad.

Now I want to make this point clear. Just because I agree with the point that eugenics is simply a tool, or whatever, that is neither good nor bad, and can be wielded either ethically or unethically, that does not mean that I trust most humans to actually wield it ethically. Especially in this current era, I would expect that more people would abuse it than use it. But that is separate from the concept of whether or not eugenics is inherently unethical or good/bad.

A lot of what I saw in the way of argument was the use of conflation fallacy to assume that eugenics required forced breeding or prevention of breeding through various methods and/or laws. I honestly cannot see anything about eugenics that would require such. That is not to say that I can not see individuals or governments (see previous point) using eugenics as reasoning to enact such force, but, again, that is seperate from eugenics itself. Eugenics can easily be used ethically, with no force. Now that would most likely result in a very slow progress of desired goals, but it still can be ethically applied. Heinlein (author) provided a very good example in several of his novels and stories that centered around Lazarus Long and the Howards Families. Not a single person was ever forced or required to participate in a desired coupling, not prevented from an undesired coupling.

I'm going to let this thread get going, but I want to end with this one realization I had. If we are going to claim that we cannot allow eugenics to manifest into law, and prevent, based upon genetics, any individual's choice to breed with anyone else of their choice, then we cannot have incest laws that prevent breeding between those closely related by blood. Incest laws are actually applied eugenics.
 
Nature through natural selection uses this process to ensue the human race is viable and can maintain itself against a evolving and sometimes hostile environment. This goes against our belief that all human life is valuable and everyone should be saved. I believe in the law of unintended consequences. We shouldn't be messing with this because we might do more harm than good and we have a tendency to blame others when things go wrong.
 
First, the state has an interest in incest laws. It is a medical fact that incest can lead to medical issues.
"Below find a list of some of the birth defects caused by incest. Please note that not all the variations cause severe problems for the children of incest, but many do.
Lower IQ Scores. Inbreeding can negatively affect the child’s intellectual abilities, even in some cases causing developmental disorders.
Blue Eyes. While inheriting blue eyes from each parent’s recessive gene is harmless, it can also be caused by incest.
Cystic Fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a severe disease that affects the cells that produce mucus, sweat, and digestive juices. The disorder causes these fluids to become thick and sticky, plugging up tubes, ducts, and passageways.
Premature Birth. Children of incest are in danger of premature birth and being underweight and undersized. Viable babies of incestuous couples are also likely to have physical deformities.
Cleft Palate. A cleft palate is a common congenital disability that genetic abnormalities in both parents can cause. Children with cleft palates have difficulties speaking and feeding.
Heart Conditions. The birth of a baby with a deformed or other malfunctioning heart is one consequence of incest. Unfortunately, if they survive, these children will have shorter lives filled with endless cardiac problems.
Neonatal Mortality. The recessive genes inherited by the children of close relatives sometimes lead to a baby not living past gestation or dying soon after birth.
Not all genetic changes caused by incest are lethal, but many cause lifelong problems that could have been avoided.

Incest and Genetic Disorders | CPTSDfoundation.org

cptsdfoundation.org

It is not a morality issue, it is a science issue.
 
I have read this, and I understand your argument, so I appreciate the question up for debate here, but you do have a timing problem here. White nationalist, 'fascist-light'and ultra right wing political movements are rising in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic. There are good tools, bad tools, and dangerous tools that I call 'weapons' when the intent supports such.

You would be absolutely correct about anti familial reproduction laws being applied eugenics . But lets not confuse current incest laws with the aforementioned. Its not incestuous consummated births alone that are banned. Its sexual behavior, including acts that do NOT, can NOT produce a fertilized egg. None of those laws give a rats ass if you use one, two or three forms of contraceptive and have an abortion provider on speed dial, and all of them that I know of ban oral sex, and anal sex. These laws are written because incest has other perceived negative social, cultural and individual impacts as well .
 
Its both. Read my post, #4. Given the privacy debate post Roe, where many claim govt should stay the hell out of our bedrooms and personal relationships, I will say that a fresh look at these statutes both their scope and the underlying science you quote above, we are definitely due. I think our science may be dated, our studies are old.

If we just consider your birth defects argument, we have to ask ourselves about the real risks you are mentioning here, do they justify those broad written statutes, in a modern world where there are sooo many contraceptive options now, and the actual number of victims with these conditions may be incredibly small. I mean how many of these defects do we have to find to justify these egregious breaches of some people's right to private decisionmaking? Is 100 in 500,000 births enough, or 50? How many will we get if we rewrite or rescind these statutes tomorrow. Its not going to be the same as it was in the 1950's or 1960's or early 70's when they were written.
 
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The term you're looking for is medical genetics. There is no such thing as ethical eugenics, since the modern meaning of the word is state-driven control of breeding. Beyond that, to have any meaningful on the genetics of a population, it would need to be industrial in scale. There are many other issues with it too, even disregarding ethics or intent.
 
I will merely repeat what I have posted elsewhere. Rape and force marriage are illegal and girls and women decide if they will date, have sex, or marry and with whom, just as boys and men do. It is absurd to think that their criteria do not include physical characteristics. Hence, no one will ever end eugenics broadly defined - the concept of the state controlling breeding is a specialized definition that would entail forcing sex and marriage on people, who would destroy a state that did that.
 
I suppose the concept of eugenics has become inextricably linked to government enforced or prohibited breeding and virulent bigotry thanks to its origins as a theory. Maybe we could call that "political eugenics?" I suppose in reality all lifeforms practice a form of biological eugenics, with humans being no different. Barring the rare paraphilias, we tend on average to prefer breeding with other opposite sex members of the species that we instinctively sense will improve our gene pool. We tend to be averse to breeding with humans who have obvious genetic defects. The "typical" sexually desirable human is one of the opposite sex that exhibits physical and behavioral traits that reflect healthy genes. The closer we can get to breeding with these types of people, the stronger our offspring will tend to be. That's not an evolutionary accident, nor is it a culturally determined or enforced social behavior. It is instinctive. It is certainly far from a universal truth that applies to each individual, as animals mate with other animals with plenty of genetic defects, and even other animals they cannot reproduce with, but it is an evolved impulse that the majority of members of a given species share. It's the reason those species still exist.

Interesting point about laws against incest. That is, fundamentally, nothing more than political eugenics that most of us tend to agree with, since it pretty closely matches our biological impulses as well. It is a non-controversial form of enforced political eugenics.
 
This topic is like many others, in that who decides who administers the program? At some point, someone will be compelled/forced to do something that they don’t want to do. In livestock, it’s called animal husbandry, humans have a problem being treated like livestock. We had a serious disagreement on this topic one-hundred an s=eighty some years back. We’re still feeling the effects.
 
Look at what 'incest' does in other species. Husbandry (eugenics) among animals is used to create and enhance specific traits, but unmanaged inbreeding has some pretty standard impacts. We are animals, just like dogs.
"In a recent study published in Canine Medicine and Genetics, an international team of researchers led by University of California, Davis, veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch show that the majority of canine breeds are highly inbred, contributing to an increase in disease and health care costs throughout their lifespan."

Most Dog Breeds Highly Inbred

UC Davis study shows most dogs are highly inbred, which affects health.
www.ucdavis.edu
 
AConcernedCitizen said:
Which is another way of saying that the state has an interest in eugenics.
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I concur, but I would say their interest is in prevention. Similar to restrictions on the sale of tobacco.
 

Just a quick taligate here: When people have known genetic, inheritable conditions, like Huntingdon's for example, we dont have laws stopping them from having kids. We actually have laws that dont allow the disclosure of that to mates and children.

 
In statistics, regression toward the mean (also called regression to the mean, reversion to the mean, and reversion to mediocrity) is the phenomenon where if one sample of a random variable is extreme, the next sampling of the same random variable is likely to be closer to its mean.[2][3][4] Furthermore, when many random variables are sampled and the most extreme results are intentionally picked out, it refers to the fact that (in many cases) a second sampling of these picked-out variables will result in "less extreme" results, closer to the initial mean of all of the variables.

Galton's explanation for the regression phenomenon he observed in biology was stated as follows: "A child inherits partly from his parents, partly from his ancestors. Speaking generally, the further his genealogy goes back, the more numerous and varied will his ancestry become, until they cease to differ from any equally numerous sample taken at haphazard from the race at large."[9] Galton's statement requires some clarification in light of knowledge of genetics: Children receive genetic material from their parents, but hereditary information (e.g. values of inherited traits) from earlier ancestors can be passed through their parents (and may not have been expressed in their parents). The mean for the trait may be nonrandom and determined by selection pressure, but the distribution of values around the mean reflects a normal statistical distribution.

The population-genetic phenomenon studied by Galton is a special case of "regression to the mean"; the term is often used to describe many statistical phenomena in which data exhibit a normal distribution around a mean.

Regression toward the mean - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Nature deviates toward the norm.
 
I would prefer we not use dog science to base a sciencific conclusion on which one of our constitutional legal standards is measured involving familial sexual relationships and marriage. . Think of what we are doing. If you assume that broad right to privacy and marriage equality on which Obergefell was at least partially decided, the legal standard on which a state can build its case for regulation, is not just any state interest, we are to apply the strict scrutiny standard and that means a finding of a compelling state interest that supercedes the assumption of citizenry to be free of legal regulation. That science may be the ONLY legitmate state interest. I also think we need a fresh look at these statutes post Obergefell, considering a very different world where coercion in relationships and marriage looks different. Divorce is far easier to get, the whole idea of family or spousal isolation and abuse, is as much about clicking a mouse or dialing a phone to a shelter as it is getting a suitcase packed, a car and driving to a police station or your parents farm 40 miles away. Nothing is the same as it was in the 50's and 60's. What we needed to protect people and society from a possible coercive danger when unequal power in relationships is not the same as now.
 
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I reject the mix of incest and eugenics.
In that you only give one reason for incest to be made illegal. The most common basis of incest is rape. and it is the rape that is illegal. Sex occurring naturally between siblings or any member of a family living together are not common due to what is called the Westermarck effect.
And in the cases where a parent or adult relative has sex with a child then it is rape.

There are two kinds of eugenics. Negative eugenics in which they kill off or steralise those deemed unworthy of breeding. Or there is positive eugenics which is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged, for example, the eminently intelligent, the healthy, and the successful.

Negative eugenics should need no explaining as to why it is illegal. And positive eugenics is what people practice naturally as long as the encouragement is the normal voluntary practice of mating.
 
No, your example of positive eugenics isn't correct, since it isn't being driven at the societal level. A better example would be the government giving certain people money to have children. But, it isn't hard to imagine how slippery that slope becomes, and it would just be a form of institutionalized classism.

Edit: Just to drive the point further, what you are describing is natural selection. And, just like medical genetics, this isn't synonymous with eugenics (of either type).
 
Right, which explains the difference between medical genetics and eugenics. The first in voluntary; two parents are carriers for the allele for disorder X and they are told their chances of having an affected child would thus be 25%. Their learning of these risks would be voluntary, and so too would they have freedom to make decisions based on the information.
vs.
Eugenics (with modern technology) - mandatory whole-genome sequencing of the parents and either enforced gamete selection or being prevented from having children altogether.

They just aren't comparable at all.
 
Sorry, but I'm not sure what the relevance of this is? Traits may distribute normally within a population with a given genetic make up, but both the genetic compositions and environmental influences of a population is certainly plastic, and so too is the mean for a given trait.
 
Depends on which society is driving it. it does not have to be government. As any group of racists could also collectively agree to confine breeding only to their skin colour. That is still positive eugenics if they are all in agreement.
We could easily muddy the water by saying that natural selection is also a form of eugenics. it is just a matter of degree as to what is meant by selection. Is a man who prefers blondes practicing eugenics?
 
No, the distinction is important. Eugenics isn't just anything that effects allelic frequencies. The scale, purpose and methods matter.

It has to be at the societal level, that is the key point. The cult you describe would be practicing a form of selection non-random mating, but their choices aren't effecting or even trying to effect, societal level change. I mean, sure, if you define them as their own society, then it could be argued that they might practice eugenics within that society, yes, but I think that's a stretch.

But, either way, this new example isn't positive eugenics either. Even as a group if they decide they will 'selectively breed' themselves, no overarching structure is incentivizing the practice. For your example to work, it would have to be the leadership of the cult offering positive incentives for the 'correct' matings to their members (postive eugenics) and/or sterilizing/killing/otherwise preventing undesired matings (negative eugenics).

I think you are conflating the fact that people are using arbitrary determinants as an argument that is isn't natural selection. Mate selection at the personal level, regardless of how distasteful the criteria are, isn't eugenics. If the population as a whole only mated based on ethnicity (assuming ethnicity could be reliably defined and indentified) it would cause a shift in the genetics of that population - and in fact, possibly cause speciation over a long time. But, it still wouldn't be eugenics.

I mean, I can see how it seems a bit pedantic, but this is by-definition type stuff.

Edit: Sorry, I erred when I said what you described previously was a form of natural selection. Instead, it is non-random mating (which would also be true in your example of racists mating based on ethnicity). It still isn't eugenics though.
 
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nucky9 said:
No, the distinction is important. Eugenics isn't just anything that effects allelic frequencies. The scale, purpose and methods matter.
Click to expand...
Which is another reason why it cannot be conflated with incest.


I do understand your trying to be specific with the word. If the discussion was on a specific type of eugenics then I would agree. But this thread appears to be about the idea that " the assertion was the eugenics itself is neither good nor bad. It's a tool. It depends upon who wields it and how, that would make its use good or bad." ( to quote the op) And that is a true statement so far as we broaden the meaning of eugenics and how it is practiced. ie; even a parent telling a child they cannot marry a certain person for finacial or racist reasons can be said to be a form of eugenics.

And my main point was that banning of incest is not just because of breeding problems but more because the use is usually a case of rape.
 
soylentgreen said:
Which is another reason why it cannot be conflated with incest.
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Yeah, I agree with you here. Bans against incest should rise or fall on their own merits and have nothing to do with eugenics, since altering the genetics of a population was never the purpose, as far as I'm aware. True eugenics wouldn't care about incest in itself - and in fact in some situations could actively encourage it.
Yeah sorry, this is a bit in my wheelhouse, so I wanted to correct the errors. And yeah, the OP overextended the meaning of eugenics as well.
soylentgreen said:
And my main point was that banning of incest is not just because of breeding problems but more because the use is usually a case of rape.
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I'm not sure if that is the historical reason or not, but I agree there is some reason for society to be concerned about these relationships, since there is certainly the potential for a power imbalance.
 
Royalty practiced incest In europe, the practice was most prevalent from the medieval era until the outbreak of World War I, but evidence of intermarriage between royal dynasties in other parts of the world can be found as far back as the Bronze Age.

No, rape was not a consideration until at least after ww1.
 

I wasnt aware that eugenics = mandated. I'm pretty sure there can be more than one path there; it doesnt have to be.

 
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