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"geneticists today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition"? Really? This author is not qualified to speak for geneticists. Dawkins: It’s one thing t

"geneticists today rightly treat eugenics as a laughable proposition"? Really? This author is not qualified to speak for geneticists. Dawkins: 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. https://mobile.twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/1228943686953664512 https://mobile.twitter.com/richarddawkins/status/12289436869... Crazy woke activitists like this author is not qualified to speak for science. They think if something is politically wrong must also be scientifically wrong. It is not.

deleted 7y ago
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vikramkr 7y ago
Yes, scientifically rigorous does not equal moral. And the eugenics debate is coming up in a different form now with Gene therapy. From a moral perspective, I don't know of any genuine and sincere arguments that we should not genetically engineer an infant who was born with a devastating genetic disease. If we can cure sickle cell for example, we of anything have a moral imperative to. But, that technically lies under the umbrella of eugenics. It raises questions of what is a disease - if blue eyes (or, more realistically, dark skin) lead to discrimination in society, is that enough of a disadvantage to be worth engineering a child to have brown eyes or white skin? In general the consensus is no. So where is the middle ground? Or, is it a false question and fixing sickle cell is not even on the same sliding scale as changing skin color? We don't know the answers yet, but these are active moral and ethical questions that are technically under the umbrella of eugenics that we need to answer.
zepto 7y ago
Dawkins is failing there. Yes, we breed animals and direct their evolution. In all his examples, the animals are more fragile and less able to survive independently than they were before. That is pretty much the opposite of what eugenics aims at and is exactly one of the problems it is criticized for. Dawkins can be a fool sometimes.
- mistermann 7y ago
  Breeding optimizes certain characteristics, independent survival is likely not a high priority.
  - zepto 7y ago
    Then Dawkins is wrong and his examples don’t prove what he claims. Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human.
    - mistermann 7y ago
      Do you believe there is something unique about humans that should lead one to believe they are immune to selective breeding?
      - zepto 7y ago
        Of course not. Why would you imagine that?
        mistermann 7y ago
        This statement: "Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human." If removed the word "better" would it significantly change your opinion? I'm kind of at a loss for what I'm not understanding.
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      > Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human. Note that your whole argument hinges purely on the meaning of the word "better". Once you rephrase the issue in terms of "can we bread a human that's more like X or less like Y", the answer is "obviously, yes". Your whole argument is based on some subjective judgement as to whether these are "better", but it is completely irrelevant insofar as answering the question whether artificial selection in humans is possible, and whether it could significantly affect trait distributions -- the answers to these questions are yes, and yes. By the way, we are already breeding humans more fragile, precisely due to increase in medical state of art. If medicine technology helps significant number of humans to survive and reproduce that otherwise wouldn't have, and it clearly and obviously does so, it will result in observable increase in traits that would significantly decrease the fitness in the context outside of human civilization, just the same as farm animals. I don't think that this complex issue of not just letting those people die without reproducing can be neatly wrapped up in a single word "better", but make no mistake: selection for more fragile humans is very much happening, right now.
frandroid 7y ago
It's like you missed the entire volume of responses to this tweet...
throwaway6449 7y ago
Dawkins hasn't been relevant in the field of evolutionary biology for 15+ years and I don't know why people pay attention to whatever he says just because he built a brand about being an an edgy atheist. There are literally dozens of arguments as to why 'eugenics' (beyond very basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc.) wouldn't work and doesn't make sense to begin with and many of them have been spelled out in the tweet's replies and blog posts, I'll let you do your homework.
- datashow 7y ago
  > beyond very basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc. So it does work.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

vikramkr 7y ago

Yes, scientifically rigorous does not equal moral. And the eugenics debate is coming up in a different form now with Gene therapy. From a moral perspective, I don't know of any genuine and sincere arguments that we should not genetically engineer an infant who was born with a devastating genetic disease. If we can cure sickle cell for example, we of anything have a moral imperative to. But, that technically lies under the umbrella of eugenics. It raises questions of what is a disease - if blue eyes (or, more realistically, dark skin) lead to discrimination in society, is that enough of a disadvantage to be worth engineering a child to have brown eyes or white skin? In general the consensus is no. So where is the middle ground? Or, is it a false question and fixing sickle cell is not even on the same sliding scale as changing skin color? We don't know the answers yet, but these are active moral and ethical questions that are technically under the umbrella of eugenics that we need to answer.

zepto 7y ago

Dawkins is failing there. Yes, we breed animals and direct their evolution. In all his examples, the animals are more fragile and less able to survive independently than they were before. That is pretty much the opposite of what eugenics aims at and is exactly one of the problems it is criticized for. Dawkins can be a fool sometimes.

mistermann 7y ago
Breeding optimizes certain characteristics, independent survival is likely not a high priority.
- zepto 7y ago
  Then Dawkins is wrong and his examples don’t prove what he claims. Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    Do you believe there is something unique about humans that should lead one to believe they are immune to selective breeding?
    - zepto 7y ago
      Of course not. Why would you imagine that?
      - mistermann 7y ago
        This statement: "Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human." If removed the word "better" would it significantly change your opinion? I'm kind of at a loss for what I'm not understanding.
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    > Just because you can breed fragile animals for narrow purposes does not mean you can breed a better human. Note that your whole argument hinges purely on the meaning of the word "better". Once you rephrase the issue in terms of "can we bread a human that's more like X or less like Y", the answer is "obviously, yes". Your whole argument is based on some subjective judgement as to whether these are "better", but it is completely irrelevant insofar as answering the question whether artificial selection in humans is possible, and whether it could significantly affect trait distributions -- the answers to these questions are yes, and yes. By the way, we are already breeding humans more fragile, precisely due to increase in medical state of art. If medicine technology helps significant number of humans to survive and reproduce that otherwise wouldn't have, and it clearly and obviously does so, it will result in observable increase in traits that would significantly decrease the fitness in the context outside of human civilization, just the same as farm animals. I don't think that this complex issue of not just letting those people die without reproducing can be neatly wrapped up in a single word "better", but make no mistake: selection for more fragile humans is very much happening, right now.

frandroid 7y ago

It's like you missed the entire volume of responses to this tweet...

throwaway6449 7y ago

Dawkins hasn't been relevant in the field of evolutionary biology for 15+ years and I don't know why people pay attention to whatever he says just because he built a brand about being an an edgy atheist. There are literally dozens of arguments as to why 'eugenics' (beyond very basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc.) wouldn't work and doesn't make sense to begin with and many of them have been spelled out in the tweet's replies and blog posts, I'll let you do your homework.

datashow 7y ago
> beyond very basic hanging fruit like eliminating monogenic diseases etc. So it does work.