Straw man fallacy.

If you want to follow a drunken idiot's logic, so be it.

Agreed.

O, and I MUST mention this. When dealing with a straw man fallacy, either point it out, or ignore it entirely, as one can look incredibly stupid by trying to defend/argue the extreme version of the arguement while the main topic at hand goes undiscussed.

A heavy fallacy in the argument of Eugenics is that "poor people" tend NOT to have worse genes than richer people: It's nutrition that tips the scale.

Think about this: Many Mexicans are short, somewhat stubby people. However, their genetics would point towards leaner, taller people. However, their nutrition, as a poorer class of people, is often substandard, and they cannot reach their maximum potential encoded in their genes.

Iodine deficiency is a very serious and easily treatable problem. In the United States, Iodine is a common food additive. In other countries, people suffer from preventable blindess, malnutrition, and POOR BRAIN DEVELOPMENT because of one simple problem: they're not getting enough Iodine (Selenium deficiency has also been linked with brain development).

The FACT of the matter is that poor people are not weaker, dumber, or "inferior" to you: They are not as educated, do not have the same opportunities, and often are not eating a balanced diet (I actually lived with a Latino family for a time and they ate almost nothing but rice and black beans).

How anyone can serious suggest eugenics after the horrible tragedy of the Holocaust is beyond comprehension. This is absolutely morally and scientifically bankrupt. Eugenics is an idiotic pseudo-science, based around bigotry and racism, and it is destined to fail. Any system of eugenics you could devise would be based purely around your own idiotic assumptions about a group of people you do not want. That, my friend, would align with Crusaders, Conquistadors and Nazis.

Even if we had a complete understanding of genetics, we cannot rule out the environment. Your genes do not determine who you will be, they determine potential traits.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Sep 3 2008, 10:20 am by The Great Yam.

Elaborate on how you have "gg'd" these points of yours.

we need the unintelligent people to make the intelligent people look smart and question what they say otherwise everyone is just a person, and 1 step closer to complete socialized fascism

We just need to accelerate the evolution of social division a bit faster, so that the underclass may be ruled by the upperclass.

You realize you would probably wind up in that lower class, right?

Your assuming that the people who run the show wouldn't be foresighted enough to see this. That's not a problem with eugenics, that's the problem you personally foresee if it was done the way you imagine it.

If mass eugenics was accomplished with foresight, with civilization backing it and with everyone in compliance with it (an ideal situation, which is not to say that it would ever happen), it would not occur immediately but rather after generations of observation, experimentation and analysis before being enforced and regulated on a mass scale.

And that is not to say there aren't problems with eugenics, but rather to contend with his narrow perspective of how he imagines it. And on a side note, what is all that about Mexicans being tall? I live in Arizona where there are tons of well fed 1st and 2nd generation immigrant Mexicans who get proper nutrition and I have yet to see a 'tall' one.

All science tries to be objective, but at one point or another the scientist's experiment will deal with subjective facts. Facts can be skewed and rhetoric can be used for no so moral ideals that clash with society's standards. And yet, things that were based off science and rhetoric can lead to moral, or immoral actions.

Eugenics is a perfect example of this. We know that eugenics has the potential to remove inferior diseases from a population -- removal of certain cancers, blindness and other inherited diseases. However, will the foresight exist to predict which genes that cause these diseases will not be needed for future benefit to the human race? That is the main problem with eugenics. No one can see into the future and predict which genes will be needed.

Here's an arguement you can't refute: Eugenics would lead to a smaller gene pool. That's the goal. It would therefor make us more susceptable to new diseases and challenges from the environment. Anyone who knows anything about evolution knows that greater genetic diversity allows a species to thrive in the face of challenges. People with type B blood type were more likely to be killed by Bubonic Plauge than others. Let's say the eugenicists decide that one gene is inferior and select another gene to be the superior. Now lets say a new disease arrives, and those with the "inferior" gene are more likely to survive it.

But who can deny that removing the gene for sickle cell anemia would be a bad thing. It is good, right?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Sep 4 2008, 3:31 am by dumbducky.

That's the problem. No one actually knows if diseases like this could be of future benifit. What if this defect is one mutation away from being benificial. The problem with this idea is the unlikelihood of it happening. The probability is substantially low since two people would have to have this defect, have the benificial mutation to the defect, actually mate, and that the child has the mutation and that it is a dominant trait.

No one can exactly point out what genes are good or bad. Thats the problem with eugenics.


Eugenics can refer to the simple means of "traditional breeding" where a farmer breeds only the best horses for their traits. This is hapazard (as I've said in my report) and genetic engineering is a more direct and efficient manner of change. Hence why I support genetic engineering and not eugenics.

I have yet to see any real science behind any of the eugenics arguments here, just a bunch of angry nerds wishing they could rule the world.

I see someone afraid of progress ;o

Nerdy, that is not an argument.

Hitler was a eugenicist, But... his philosophy isn't bad, only the actions and misunderstandings he applied to the practice of his philosophy were. he thought that Jews had bad genes, when Judaism is just a religion. If you are a true genocidal* eugenicist, you will sacrifice your inferior genes for the sake of the betterment of the human gene pool. I don't suggest genocidal eugenicism though, i am in favor of anti-procreational eugenicism (where you only place a reproduction limit on the person rather than murder)

I was waiting for one of these eugencists to jump in and say that it would be good etc. I would then counter by informing them that people who have sickle cell blood are less likely to be infected by Malaria. The allele for sickle cell is codominant, meaning just having one allele, even if you have the dominant, non-sickle cell allele, will still lead you to produce some sickle cell blood. So in fact, the elimination of the sickle cell gene wouldn't be all positive.

@Midget_Man: Forced sterilization is contrary to the right to your own body.

Allowing people freedom to breed like rats will ruin eugenics, unless we kick them out. You have to control them in some way, because they won't conduct themselves in an appropriate manner without being controlled.

So you admit that any form of eugenics is contrary to a person's undeniable rights to themselves?

No one has undeniable rights. They have rights that are granted to them. They can just as easily be taken away. Also, my opinion is probably much different than most of the others arguing for eugenics. Think of me as a third, more radical party.