Breeding humans for fun and profit!

Factual Questions
1

Is it possible to breed humans to a degree of diversity that we see in canines? Could humans be bred to express significantly differing physical traits beyond the superficial ones we currently see? Nothing too weird like extra limbs and eyes or a fourth heart, but significant changes to the parts we already have. To the point where you might wonder if two human breeds were still the same species ala Chihuahua & Great Dane.

Certainly it is fairly common for humans to express wildly different heights, hairs, colorings, temperaments…but can/have humans be selectively bred to such a degree that even the most extreme limits of expression can be made to be predictable and functional?

2

Certainly it’s possible. Those who have attempted to do this, however, have not been treated well in the popular press.

3

Ironic understatement is the rarest form of humor on the SDMB. To find such a pure, unspoiled example of it is like finding a precious, delicate orchid in the steaming jungle.

Bravo to you, sir, if sir you be. :slight_smile:

4

It is physically possible, but not socially or politically possible.

The people you breed will have to be slaves, otherwise you cannot exercise control over their reproduction. Small problem, slavery is illegal. No big whoop, you’re the emperor, you just reinstate slavery, done and done. So you happily proceed with your breeding program. You select specimens that have the physical characteristics you want, you breed them to each other, the resulting generation expresses those traits even more strongly, you breed those that exhibit the traits most strongly to each other again, and so on. Standard stockbreeding technique, it will work on humans just like on any other animal if you can control their reproduction.

OK, but the problem is that human generation times are what we scientists call very long. You’ve got a 15 year minimum generation time, and each breeding is likely to produce only one offspring. Since you will try to breed your prize specimens more than once, average generation time is going to be more than 15 years. So realistically, you’re only going to have 4 or 5 generations of breeding before you die. And die you will, you’re the emperor, but you’re not immortal. No problem, your successor will continue your breeding program. Or not. Wait, actually they probably won’t, once you’re dead the breeding program will likely be abandoned.

And that’s the rub. There doesn’t seem to be any way to perpetuate a multigenerational breeding scheme because the people who start the breeding scheme won’t be around more than one generation themselves. With livestock that’s not a problem, because livestock generations are shorter, but also because the desired traits are likely to be desired by subsequent generations. All dairy farmers want cows that produce more milk, all poultry farmers want chickens that produce more eggs, all pig farmers want pigs that gain weight more quickly. And so formal breeding programs that span multiple human generations are possible. Of course, for most of human history selective breeding hasn’t been so formal…but farmers have always culled and eaten undesirable animals and bred the most desireable animals. Keep this up for a few thousand years and you’re going to get somewhere.

But how is that going to work for humans? The only way it will work is if there were a multigenerational consensus on what human traits were desireable, and a conscious decision to preserve those traits. And it seems that smart, healthy, beautiful people are more likely to selected as breeding partners than stupid, sickly ugly people. So there you go, human breeding programs.

5

Which is exactly why we needed the Bene Gesserit to come along. Before the BG, the idea of continuous projects spanning multiple human lifetimes was unheard of. It took ninety generations to breed the Kwisatz Haderach, after all. :D:D:D

6

There are sperm banks that will sell you the sperm of a Nobel prize winner, but that doesn’t guarentee anything. There are extremely few families where even two generations are outstanding at anything, and there’s always the chance of a slip up–Johnny & Edgar Winters family had no professional musicians or albinos in it prior to them.

7

“Life is short…”

8

I think the only “slip-up” here was Mrs. Winter getting knocked up by the albino, guitar playing mailman while Mr. Winter was at work. :cool:

9

But the trouble with the Howard Foundation is that it assumed that the trustees will continue the program for several hundred years. But why? Eventually all Howard trustees were Howards themselves. Given that the Howard Foundation kept the real purpose of the Howard Foundation secret, that means that the trustees had a license to give away that money any way they pleased. If a trustee unethically gave all the money to (say) himself, how would the other Howard family members get relief? Take them to court? That would blow the masquerade.

A secret trust is going to be run for the benefit of the trustees. Public trustees are legally required to manage the trust responsibly. How can this be enforced in a secret trust?

10

Were the Howards into captive breeding then? I…I’m so confused. :smiley:

11

If we’re allowed to back out of Heinlein’s fantasy world into the real world for a minute…

it seems to me that some selective breeding of humans has already happened. That’s why we have pygmy tribes in Africa, for instance, and also very tall tribes like the Masai. Both pygmies and giants derive from the same original human stock, but both groups bred only among themselves. Presumably the ancestors of the pygmies were only a little shorter than the ancestors of the Masai, but natural selection accentuated the difference. And that was without anybody *trying *to breed giants or pygmies.

12

Or the Priest Kings.

13

Who needs to waste time breeding when genetic engineering will do the trick. We’re not quite there yet, but it shouldn’t be too long before we can custom make humans in many new varieties. Oh, brave new world!

14

We debate the genetic differences or non-differences between humans at such a detailed level on these boards, I think people have lost track of the obvious. The different groups you point out are good example but I am pretty sure we could put on a pretty good human show just like a dog show. Dogs, even within the same breed, show some fairly large genetic diversity and it is up to define a “standard” to specify what the ideal specimen for that breed is. Once we come up with the standard, we can go out and find the best examples of that breed. The Scandinavian group, the Mediterranean group, the Chinese group, and many others could be put together rather easily by selecting photos if we only want to arrive at the same level of scientific validity of dog breeds although the breadth of differences won’t be as big. I am not sure what group would be most likely to win Best In Show however.

15

Sure, this is possible…as long as we remember that the “Scandinavian” class standards are arbitrary. So we can arbitrarily say that the Scandinavian breed should be over 6 feet, straight blond hair, copious beard in males, blue eyes, straight nose, skin pale as milk, with an aggressive disposition and an instinct for boating and looting. And we could breed humans to conform to that standard, and after a few dozen generations we could get a breed that would breed true.

That doesn’t change the fact that most real life Scandinavians wouldn’t conform to that standard, the standard doesn’t exist in real life, any more than the standard for Jack Russell Terriers means anything more than we’ve decided that Jack Russell Terriers should be small, white with spots, smooth coated and yippy. If we decided tomorrow that Jack Russell Terriers should be large, long-tailed, black coated and with copious drool, then that’s what the standard would be.

16

** Pondering the Kurt Russell Terrier **

AHHHH! You made me hijack my own thread!

17

It’s called the Miss Universe pageant.

18

Not exactly. The breed standards for humans would be attractive in their own way but they would need to fit the standard for that group as well. “Mutts” such as people that have obviously mixed heritage are right out even if they are stunningly attractive. This would exclude most people especially those in North America. We need the people that still appear as purebreds in the same way that dogs are such as the white haired tall Scandinavians, the Chinese man with slight build and perfect eye slants, and some almost purple skinned African tribesman for example. This is fairly subjective of course but so is any concept of breeds that humans create.

19

Sort of like WASPs should be good with numbers and capable of imbibing ungodly amounts of alcohol?

20

SO we get this years top of class Limey. Notice the particularly stiff upper lip, the long excentric walking pattern and the mating calls of “excuzemi” “par don” and “sorree” :slight_smile: