# Armchair Speculation: Will modern cosmetic techniques destroy natural selection? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 5, 2011, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569 "2011-08-05T09:03:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/41 "2011-08-06T19:37:35Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I should point out that many of those carriers of bad genetic traits are _also_ carriers of GOOD genetic traits we want to keep. If you sterilize the carriers and by extension most of the population you’ll be reducing the _good_ genes as well as the bad, and may even inadvertently eliminate some completely. Or they may have some resistance to something we’ll need in the future. More genes in the gene pool = better. “Bad” genes don’t crowd out “good” genes. We had this discussion recently in a GQ thread where someone claimed that genes for blue eyes were going to disappear in the US. The genes aren’t going anywhere unless the people move. A larger % of Americans have brown eyes now than in the past, and that will continue in the future. But the blue eyed genes are still there, they’re just not expressed in the same % of people. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/42 "2011-08-06T19:39:52Z")
Not to mention the occasional gene-deficient guy with an automatic weapon who might reduce your imput into the gene pool, on account of your Eugenic Ass needs to be dealt with. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/43 "2011-08-06T20:56:12Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > I should point out that many of those carriers of bad genetic traits are _also_ carriers of GOOD genetic traits we want to keep. If you sterilize the carriers and by extension most of the population you’ll be reducing the _good_ genes as well as the bad, and may even inadvertently eliminate some completely. Exactly. Even if you grant the theory that modern medicine and such are increasing the prevalence of “bad genes” it makes far more sense to wait a while until we have good enough genetic engineering to simply eliminate them and leave the desirable genes intact. No sterilizations, no shooting “inferior” people; just fix the broken genes and leave the person they are a part of intact. Given how slow evolution operates, we have the time to wait until we can do the job right. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/44 "2011-08-08T09:04:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Let’s not practice genetic engineering on humans. Instead, we should be experimenting on chimps and other non-human great apes. What could possibly go wrong? The decimation of our entire species as they inherit the planet… yet… A critical and box-office success! > [@even\_sven](#): > > I have no problem with the OP. My main issue is with people who want to say “I like Fruit Loops because berries are round and in cavman days it was adaptive to eat a variety of berries to get different vitamins…” and other far-fetched and unverifiable just so stories, especially when these are used to justiy some sort of social policy. Hrmm. Are you just not familiar with the scientific method? By “justifying a social policy”, are you thinking of some broad movement of propaganda, forced mutilation, or even genocide like Eugenics? I’m not saying that certain trends and movements in scientific thinking might never have an agenda attached to it, but asking honest questions, or speculating loosely on our origins and how it still affects our behaviors today is the nature of science. If we threw the baby out with the bath water, we’d still _largely_ be in the dark ages. Most all the sciences require logical, physical and rational rigor, as much as it requires _abstraction and imagination_ to connect the vast gaps in our understanding on anything in which it’s either practically or literally impossible to test. A hypothesis begins with speculation, and just because it sounds ridiculous to you, doesn’t mean it’s necessarily wrong, so long as what’s proposed doesn’t contradict the scientific method, empirical evidence, factual objective observation, or well established physical laws. Perhaps there _is_ a connection between round, sweet cereal and an emotional response to is that stems from when we foraged? If you’re a scientist, and you work out a hypothesis as such, that’s where it remains until you find a way to gather evidence to support your ideas. And so on, until you have enough to establish a clearer theory. In that vein, you can’t dismiss any speculation out of hand just because it smacks of inanity or you think it’s impossible to ever know with any certainty? It certainly hasn’t stopped anthropologists, paleontologists, archaeologists and the like. When looking back on human history, “justification for some sort of social policy” seems to stem _far more_ from non-scientific institutions and groups. Evolution is still largely challenged by groups with a closed philosophy or religious stance, despite the enormous amount of evidence, research, corroboration and most importantly humans employing the scientific method to piece it all together. > [@Triskadecamus](#): > > Not to mention the occasional gene-deficient guy with an automatic weapon who might reduce your imput into the gene pool, on account of your Eugenic Ass needs to be dealt with. > > Tris So that’s a _GOOD_ gene(s), then? I know my grandfather had to do such things during his service in the army during WWII. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/45 "2011-08-08T09:16:06Z")
> [@cmyk](#): > > So that’s a _GOOD_ gene(s), then? Of course. A drive to defend oneself and others is generally a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/46 "2011-08-08T11:40:09Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Exactly. Even if you grant the theory that modern medicine and such are increasing the prevalence of “bad genes” it makes far more sense to wait a while until we have good enough genetic engineering to simply eliminate them and leave the desirable genes intact. No sterilizations, no shooting “inferior” people; just fix the broken genes and leave the person they are a part of intact. Given how slow evolution operates, we have the time to wait until we can do the job right. As the sole person in this thread who has suggested active attempts at elimination of certain conditions through _voluntary_ sterilization, I want to re-state that I do NOT support any of the methods above. Any such program should be entirely voluntary, reversible as technology allows, and beneficial to the participants with no negative repercussions. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569/47 "2011-08-08T14:33:21Z")
One problem here is identifying which are the good and bad genes. That can depend on environment, and our environment is in no way guaranteed to always be the same as it is now. Let’s say there’s a gene that causes people to eat too much when food is plentiful, resulting in the person’s being overweight. In our current environment, where food is plentiful, that’s a bad gene. But say an asteroid like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs hits the Earth, or the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts, and food is not plentiful for a while. The people who put on too much weight back when food was plentiful are more likely to survive than the people who didn’t. If we had genetically engineered everybody to not overeat and gain weight before the catastrophe happened, the human species could be in real trouble. The sickle cell anemia gene is another example. You have some protection against malaria if you have one copy of that gene, but people with two copies have problems. Whether that gene is good or bad depends on how common, how treatable, and how deadly malaria is. Remember, malaria parasites are evolving, too. There’s no guarantee that our techniques for keeping malaria in check are going to keep pace with the evolution of the parasites. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/armchair-speculation-will-modern-cosmetic-techniques-destroy-natural-selection/591569.md?page=2)