What is immoral about eugenics?

[antagon]

social evolution is the outcome of genetic response of individuals to ecological pressure within the constraints imposed by phylogenetic inertia

this is bio determinism by my measure. your reduction to your 'ultimate cause' is a fallacy in that variations in 'phylogenetic inertia' rolleyes within humanity have been shown by the last 5 millennia's anthropological history to be inert.

 

[JBeukema]

social evolution is the outcome of genetic response of individuals to ecological pressure within the constraints imposed by phylogenetic inertia

this is bio determinism by my measure.

your reduction to your 'ultimate cause' is a fallacy in that variations in 'phylogenetic inertia' rolleyes within humanity have been shown by the last 5 millennia's anthropological history to be inert.

Really? That's why we suddenly developed wings, grew legs like mantises and split into two species- one of which has beaks?

Do you even know what phylogenetic inertia means. Try reading the book before making an even bigger fool of yourself.

 

[antagon]

you've lost it JB. unable to come to grips with the fact that what you advocate is biodeterminist, reductionist fallacy, you have digressed to ad absurdum arguments about winged folks with beaks. no doubt, the undertow from your failure to absorb meaning from simple english or comprehend concepts not reduced to a single marginal contributor has dragged you under.

 

[JBeukema]

Winged folk with beaks and reptilian skin would certainly prove your claim that phylogenetic inertia is a fallacy. So, too, would a sudden and significant change in brain structure and inborn instinct or humans suddenly taking on a biological caste system like that seen in the social insects.

I get the distinct impression you have no idea what phylogenetic inertia is. I suggest you actually read mister Wilson's book.

 

[antagon]

Winged folk with beaks and reptilian skin would certainly prove your claim that phylogenetic inertia is a fallacy. So, too, would a sudden and significant change in brain structure and inborn instinct or humans suddenly taking on a biological caste system like that seen in the social insects.

I get the distinct impression you have no idea what phylogenetic inertia is. I suggest you actually read mister Wilson's book.

phylogenic inertia is essentially an implication of heredity. it is certainly not absolute because of the way gene selection works. human societies, further to my argument, have exploited the luxury of selecting recessive, subjectively inferior traits without the natural consequences which regulate the rest of the animal kingdom. we even do so with our pets. again, our social evolution, independent from your connection between this evolution and our genes, is the facilitator of this luxury.

for the avoidance of doubt that you can't understand simple english or that your hopes to pretend that science or credible scientists corroborate your claims, i've color coded the quote from which you've drawn your presumptions about my position:

your reduction to your 'ultimate cause' is a fallacy in that variations in 'phylogenetic inertia' rolleyes within humanity have been shown by the last 5 millennia's anthropological history to be inert.

 

[antagon]

but amanda, i argue that soft/liberal eugenics which offers certain freedoms to participants is not eugenics at all, semantically. i'd call that euthenics. there are still concerns raised about playing got an what-not, but i dont think there is such a negative sentiment about genome mapping. pushing the barriers of its implications might lend to some ethical arguments, but where those explorations are altruistic and aren't simply vain, they are fairly welcomed.

 

[JBeukema]

but amanda, i argue that soft/liberal eugenics which offers certain freedoms to participants is not eugenics at all, semantically

And you're simply wrong. It's eugenics by definition. Hence why it's called Liberal Eugenics.


Let's ask the guy who coined the term, what it means:

He first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development,[52] a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read: That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditary endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viticulture which I once ventured to use.[53] In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as "the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage."[54]

Eugenics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia