How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?

How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?

wiseman wrote:
How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?



No, Hitler wasn't right on this point. Involuntarily sterilizing and
killing Germany's physically disabled and mentally ill wasn't right.
This wasn't managing genetics so much as wholesale premeditated murder
leading to the Holocaust. Eugenics, in the form of involuntary
sterilization, was practiced in the U.S. and some other countries. That
wasn't right either as it led to abuses. The best hope of managing
genetics is through prenatal screening, ultrasound, amniocentesis, CV
sampling, genetic tests, pharmaceuticals, etc. Eventually, through
genetic engineering certain diseases will be removed from the germline.
The last thing we need is a return of old fashioned eugenics. The human
species no longer faces the kind of environmental conditions which
resulted in the death of the weak and the survival of the strongest in
our ancestral past. Darwinian evolution is unwanted; science,
technology and progress (self-directed evolution) is to way to go in
managing genetics. No bloody battles of nature (although these will
still occur) and coercion.

Michael Ragland

wiseman wrote:

How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?

Yes, genes will be managed. What will happen is this:

http://alife.co.uk/essays/engineered_future/

Duff genes will continue to be selected against - as is happening
now and as has happened ever since the origin of life.
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|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.

I didnt say eugenics was good. I said the gene pool will deteriorate if
we dont intervene in some way.

The problem is that I want my children genetically
engineered now. I cant wait until we learn how to do it.

How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?

Yes, genes will be managed. What will happen is this:

http://alife.co.uk/essays/engineered_future/

Eugenics is based on a misunderstanding,
and in fact rejection, of evolutionary theory.

John Wilkins wrote:

Eugenics is based on a misunderstanding, and in
fact rejection, of evolutionary theory.

Um, not according to the dictionary, it isn't:

``Eugenics:

the study of or belief in the possibility of
improving the qualities of the human species or
a human population, esp. by such means as
discouraging reproduction by persons having
genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable
undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or
encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to
have inheritable desirable traits (positive
eugenics).''

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Eugenics

Do we want to breed humans tailored so specifically
for difficult environments [deep ocean, Mars, Titan,
....] that they become separate species, or do we
want to eliminate human racial differences in hopes
that some magic in everyone looking alike and being
equally capable will somehow reduce human conflict?

Tim Tyler wrote:

Yes, genes will be managed. What will happen is this:

http://alife.co.uk/essays/engineered_future/

Not a prayer. That is far too simplistic to be given
credence.

1) Probably for no normal greenspace on earth do
humans know, by a factor of five, say, all the
species that go into keeping a single square
kilometer of ecosystem running. Simulation of the
results of genetic engineering will lack that
critical knowledge, and so fail.

2) Arguably, feeding genetically engineered creatures
into an ecosystem whose functioning is incompletely
known is a pattern of behavior which has an
inevitable catastrophe in its workings.

3) Humans have minimal to no interest in most living
species. How much "engineering" is going to be
wasted on an improved emperor penguin?

4) Humans are incredibly few in number compared to
many living species. Does one seriously contemplate
humans genetic engineering, say, C. elegans and
having any meaningful effect?

5) Unless genetic engineering offspring are kept
sequestered, they'll just go right back into the
demesne of natural selection, so they won't _stay_
genetic engineered.

To arguments that inevitably eventually all lacks in
knowledge will be overcome, all such simulations
fixed run perfect, all ecosystems be completely
understood, all be species re-engineered, I answer
"why"?

Humankind has far better things to do with its
time [...] to dedicate so many resources to
genetic engineering for its own sake.

Even genetic engineering merely our own species
presupposes some magical fairy dust means of
achieving agreement on what the goals of such
engineering should be.

Do we want to breed humans tailored so specifically
for difficult environments [deep ocean, Mars, Titan,
....] that they become separate species, or do we
want to eliminate human racial differences in hopes
that some magic in everyone looking alike and being
equally capable will somehow reduce human conflict?

John Wilkins wrote:

Eugenics is based on a misunderstanding,
and in fact rejection, of evolutionary theory.

Um, not according to the dictionary, it isn't:

``Eugenics:

the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the
qualities of the human species or a human population, esp.
by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons
having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable
undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging
reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable
desirable traits (positive eugenics).''

- http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Eugenics

John Wilkins wrote:

Eugenics is based on a misunderstanding,
and in fact rejection, of evolutionary theory.

Um, not according to the dictionary, it isn't:

``Eugenics:

the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the
qualities of the human species or a human population, esp.
by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons
having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable
undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging
reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable
desirable traits (positive eugenics).''

- http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Eugenics

--
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|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ tim@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.