Eugenics are dead! (but shouldn't be)

[TooCute]

I just figured that while I was feeling all contemplative today, I'd toss out another thought:

People get REALLY upset when babies die. Poor, innocent babies. (fetuses are another issue entirely. leave them out of this, please.)

People get REALLY upset when mothers and fathers die. Their poor children!

People don't get nearly as upset when childless young adults die. Waste of life, had a promising future. Oh well.

In a general sense, does this seem true, or am I totally nuts?

Now.

Given that, (and I'm going with what I said above; clearly I agree with myself)... are people are nuts?

Why should I be upset if someone else's child dies? I've invested very little in that baby - I've invested my time (in the form of taxes, which benefitted the parents, and the parents when they were growing up) to a certain extent, but very little of it directly for the baby.

And why should I be upset if someone's parents die? They've produced their offspring; their offspring will presumably contribute to society in the future - the parents did their 'job' in producing their children and become generally unnecessary anyhow. The need for society to now step in and care for these children until they're 'grown up' is offset by the fact that these children will not have to care for their parents in their old age and will contribute that much more to society.

It's the teenagers and young adults we should be REALLY upset about - these are individuals who society (that's you and me - that's my money - that's (as Tom Leykis would say) time I 'wasted' at a job) has contributed a great deal to interms of education, health care etc., and yet who have not contributed anything BACK to society. A total net loss.

Not that I agree with any of that reasoning in the slightest, just putting it out there as an odd little insight into the social structure of humans. Is anyone else saddened by the fact that humans have essentially ceased to evolve? :)

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[A.J.]

People don't get nearly as upset when childless young adults die. Waste of life, had a promising future. Oh well.


So nobody will mourn me?

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[Bill From Yorktown]

hate to admit it, but yes - when stupid people do stupid things to themselves, we refer to that as "natural selection in action".


oh yea, and I too noticed that we're short circuiting natural selection and evolution through artificial means.

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This message was edited by Bill From Yorktown on 2-13-03 @ 3:55 PM

[TooCute]

So nobody will mourn me?

Not as much as if you had a young child!

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[GaryWyze]

<font color=purple>How we feel and how we should (or shouldn't) feel usually have very little to do with one another.

People get REALLY upset when babies die. Poor, innocent babies. (fetuses are another issue entirely. leave them out of this, please.)

People get REALLY upset when mothers and fathers die. Their poor children!

People don't get nearly as upset when childless young adults die. Waste of life, had a promising future. Oh well.

In a general sense, does this seem true, or am I totally nuts?

Perhaps not totally, but nuts enough. I think most people would be equally saddened by each of the above scenarios.

As for the rest of it, you can't apply logic and reasoning to emotions... they're intangible.

We think with our head, we feel with our heart. And the two do seem to be mutually exclusive.

If they weren't, we'd *decide* who we love, and conversely we'd be able to stop loving on command.

Is anyone else saddened by the fact that humans have essentially ceased to evolve?

Who's to say that that's the case? If you believe in evolution, a process that is believed to have occurred over millions of years, why would you be so sure that we're the final product?

[TooCute]

Who's to say that that's the case? If you believe in evolution, a process that is believed to have occurred over millions of years, why would you be so sure that we're the final product?

Nobody said we were the 'final product', except in the sense that we're perhaps the 'final procuct' in the sense of the genus Homo.

There really isn't selection on humans anymore. Crippled people have kids. Diseased people have kids. Morons have kids. Most children survive, and every day advances in science mean that even more who would have previously died survive, and grow up and have their own kids. We have sunscreen, so fair skinned people are equally able to live in equitorial areas. We have vitamin-D fortified milk so dark skinned folk are equally able to survive in northern latitudes (and southern, for that matter, but there isn't much habitated land down there). Asthma? Get some Singulair(tm). Broke your neck doing something dumb and 'unadaptive'? Who cares? (Christopher Reeve is still getting some). Born with four fingers and no toes? For that matter, born with a person growing out of you head? So what? Live a happy healthy life. Maybe you'll even have kids.


Not saying people shouldn't be upset if a baby dies. Just saying that its interesting that theoretically there is much MORE reason to be upset with a dead 20 year old.

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[ADF]

I only get truly sad if it's someone I know. Still, I don't know that I'd be able to quantify the level of sadness for any of my immediate family who might happen to kick the bucket.

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[TooCute]

But you SHOULD be upset about immediate family members. They carry the most similar DNA to you!

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[Uncle Smokey]

There really isn't selection on humans anymore. Crippled people have kids. Diseased people have kids. Morons have kids. Most children survive, and every day advances in science mean that even more who would have previously died survive, and grow up and have their own kids. We have sunscreen, so fair skinned people are equally able to live in equitorial areas. We have vitamin-D fortified milk so dark skinned folk are equally able to survive in northern latitudes (and southern, for that matter, but there isn't much habitated land down there). Asthma? Get some Singulair(tm). Broke your neck doing something dumb and 'unadaptive'? Who cares? (Christopher Reeve is still getting some). Born with four fingers and no toes? For that matter, born with a person growing out of you head? So what? Live a happy healthy life. Maybe you'll even have kids.




Quick point...you plainly have a scientific background so youre well aware that populations evolve, individuals do not. To the extent that the singular most important and distinctive adaptation expressed in the phenotype of homo sapiens (along with bipedal locomotion) is the capacity for abstract reasoning and problem solving, it stands to reason that those populations which you allude to earlier, where technology and science are applied in earnest, will be the most apt to successfully propagate themselves. Christopher Reeve getting some tail is beside the point... for much of the world the type of medical and technical advancements you refer to are nonexistent. I think natural selection will exert itself most forcibly by culling those populations which have fallen behind technologically, and favoring those who have applied their intellects most effectively.

As far as the grief over dead babies rather than adults, there is an interesting school of thought which espouses that grief felt at the death of non-related people is actually something of an adaptive trigger to force parents to be more mindful of their own children who are not yet able to care for themselves. Hence, it is selfish in its way to grieve for your neighbor's dead kid...it reminds you to make sure the baby isnt sucking on a plastic bag in his crib.

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[ADF]

But you SHOULD be upset about immediate family members. They carry the most similar DNA to you!


Maybe I was adopted.

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[TooCute]

Quick point...you plainly have a scientific background so youre well aware that populations evolve, individuals do not.

Indeed. But by the same token, selection occurs at an individual level, and it is selection that leads to evolution. The fact that individuals who one hundred or five hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years ago would have died now live to reproduce is entirely relevant, and indeed the only relevant fact as far as the evolution of Homo sapiens sapiens is concerned.

In the sense that a population that has certain technologies and abilities may eventually displace a population that does not (and think for a moment - is this at all likely? Or is it more likely that technologies will be shared?) you might consider evolution to occur at a population level, but in the end it still comes down to the fact that there is very little, if anything that prevents almost anyone from having children.

A man that comes up with a cure for AIDS is not necessarily more or less likely to have children than a man that does not; Joe Redneck from the trailer park down the street is no more or less likely to have children than Bill Gates is.

As long as society continues to proceed in the way that it has and does, there will be less and less selective pressure to firstly develop any new or modify any existing physical characteristics, or secondly really change any mental characteristics.

As far as grieving for dead babies being adaptive as a 'reminder' mechanism, what do I know? I prefer my study organisms not to have such confounding factors as 'feelings' :)


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[Death Metal Moe]

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[flipper21]

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And Oscar Mayer will file for Chapter 11 protection.


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[ChickenHawk]

In a general sense, does this seem true, or am I totally nuts?
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[ADF]

Eugenics are dead!


Shouldn't it be "Eugenics is dead"?

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[TooCute]

Shouldn't it be "Eugenics is dead"?

I don't know. I debated with myself which it should be, and decided that since it's Eugenics, not Eugene, I'd play it safe and go with the are.

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[HordeKing1]

feel the use of the plural when discussing eugenics is appropriate.

TOOCUTE - You raise many interesting points.

People get REALLY upset when babies die.

The people who are most affected by the death of a baby are the parents, b/c they put the most energy into producing it. Pregnency, nursing, weaning, providing, caregiving. All require vast amounts of energy. When the baby dies young, the energy (and potential) is wasted. That's an evolutionary perspective. A social perspective is that we care about other people's babies because we identify with the loss experienced by the parents. We bring the parents food, give them attention, visit them, grieve with them, counsel them, because "There but for random fluctuations in the quantum foam go I." While single, I had a friend lose a child. While married with kids, I've known many people lose children. Some I know well, some professionally, some just peripherally. It affects you much more as a parent than it does before you have kids. Life is fragile. It's all there is. Losing a child, is losing your connection with immortality, to the future.

People get REALLY upset when mothers and fathers die. Their poor children!

I disagree. Often I've seen people experience great relief when their parents die - especially when they were in poor health and/or suffering. Death ends their pain. It frees the kids from the agony of watching their parents who cared for them reduced to infantile states. This does not diminish the grief at the loss of their parents, but death of parents, and older people in general, is expected as part of the natural flow of life. How often have you heard something along the lines of "How old was she?" "She was 92." "Oh, at least she had a nice long life."

People don't get nearly as upset when childless young adults die. Waste of life, had a promising future. Oh well.

That's an interesting observation that definitely sounds like it has prima facia validity. However, if the childless young adult in question is known to you (a friend, a brother, a sister, etc) the impact of their death can be much more severe than the death of an older aquaintance or even older relative.


Is anyone else saddened by the fact that humans have essentially ceased to evolve?

All life evolves. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the criteria for the definition of life. Everything changes. We've evolved to the point where we've completley fucked up the natural progression of our evolution, but perhaps when intelligence reaches a certain level, evolution is directed to some purpose beneficial to that life form. Given the general level of stupidity in the world however, (and the precipitious decline in IQ, knoweldge, ability and capacity, I'm sure we're far away from that level.

Readers of Asimov, Clarke and especially the short stories of Phil Dick know that superior technology does not assure a victiory against a more primitive (but more determined, or muscular, or numerous) foe.

Anyone remember the name of the story where mammals (mice) overwhelm and kill a T-Rex? Or the story where the interplanatory war was lost by the pursuit of the "ultimate" weapon?


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[TooCute]

HK - although all your points are true, what I was really referring to was feelings towards unrelated people, and towards young parents who are killed, not dying of old age.

All life evolves. I'm pretty sure that this is one of the criteria for the definition of life.

Sure it is, but maybe we need a new definition for humans. I suspect that the definition - and it is a fairly vague and arbitrary definition at best - was designed for 'other' life. Humans have a tendency to separate themselves from the rest of the world in that sense.

I just don't see natural selection really happening on humans anymore. Maybe on human intelligence - and I don't even see how that works; I see perhaps a building on, generation to generation, previous knowledge, but no selection FOR increased intelligence, per se - but short of some catastrophic event that wipes out 95% of the human population and forces us through some bottleneck, perhaps without all the technology we have today, I don't see evolution really happening on human bodies anymore. I'm just not entirely certain that the questionable evolution of human intelligence is enough to assert that humans are still evolving. I want to know what the selective pressures are

evolution is directed to some purpose beneficial to that life form

???????? I'm sure you're not really saying that evolution is directed towards a purpose?

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[HordeKing1]

evolution is directed to some purpose beneficial to that life form

What I should have said was that the life form itself takes charge of it's furture development, augmenting intelligence, strength, height, appearance, etc. So perhaps after a certain point, we direct our own evolution. (And yes there is a strong eugenics component to it.) If we wanted to direct development towards a certain goal by increasing the alleles in the population for example, it would involve eugenics, but also preventing the breeding of those with undesireable traits to decrease the frequency of the allelles in the population.

This is discussed in the chilling but compelling field of utilitarian bioethics. There is a movement in AMERICA today, to once again require sterilization of "undesireables" and encourage the responsible breeding of the "desireables." The thing that is most frightening about this, is that the advocates of this are well educated, intelligent people, who seem to be normal, not members of white supremisist groups, or fundementalists groups but rather doctors. Really scary. Among the things they advocate are killing certain people if by doing so, their organs can be used to safe 2 others. (That's where the "utilitarian" part of their name comes from.) Some see killing the sick and disabled and elderly as mercy killings and things to prevent them from draining the resources of society.

I doubt one in 100 average Americans even knows about this crap going on in our own country. They're too busy cheering Bush's efforts to help spread AIDS in Africa by teaching abstinence. Not a dime is budgeted for condom distribution and the administration has flatly refused to promote condom use for those who are going to have sex. Fucking morons. Anyway, at planned parenthood you can send a condom (for free) in Bush's name and send Bush a letter telling him you did so. For a small donation you can send many.

Looks like I got a bit off track, but supper is waiting.

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[ChrisTheCop]

Eugenics
I really dont see what the size of someone's Enics has to do with anything.so youre well aware that populations evolve, individuals do not.
After reading this entire thread(and I really did!), I feel that I, as an individual, have indeed evolved. Thank you TooCute, and others, for helping me learn without talking over my head.

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This message was edited by ChrisTheCop on 2-17-03 @ 7:50 PM

[furie]

Eugenics


KHAN!!!

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[A.J.]

KHAN!!!


Eh, I'm laughing at the superior intellect.

EDIT: I was just paraphrasing Kirk's taunting of Khan in STII. As a product of Eugenic breeding, he may have been intellectually and physically superior to Kirk: but ultimately his "one dimensional thinking" did him in.

Man, I REALLY need to get a life.

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This message was edited by AJinDC on 2-17-03 @ 10:28 PM

[HordeKing1]

Eh, Kahn ends up dead by the thrid movie. So much for superior intellect.

(Or more accurately, so much for our being comfortable with the concept of a superior intellect winning.)

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[IrishAlkey]

I'd just like to note that this thread hasn't deteriorated into name-calling.

Things that make ya' go hmmmm...

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[TheMojoPin]

STINKY FUCKSTICK.

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