# Should we bring back eugenics? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 19, 2010, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691 "2010-10-19T19:44:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/21 "2010-10-20T01:41:08Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > How about if we sterilize rapists and child molesters? Can you point me to a few cites that would show that that would a) prevent the rapist and molesters from repeating themselves b) prevent future rapists and child molesters (in other words, that rape and child molestation is genetic). thank you ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/22 "2010-10-20T02:24:46Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > WHY? Most of what I was going to say has been said already, but in the interest of following up on this question: Because I believe that it’s unethical to declare certain people “unfit” to breed, even in the name of wiping out certain undesirable genetic traits. History has born this out. The Nazis, for one. And if you think about it – where would it end? Would only “pretty” people be allowed to breed? People with certain talents, or skills? The OP talks about “increasing the fertility” of some groups. Which groups would those be? The whole idea sickens me. (BTW, I believe those with Downs Syndrome are usually sterile anyways.) ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/23 "2010-10-20T03:12:39Z")
It’s not clear to me what the advantages of eugenics are, exactly. A well-functioning society requires a fairly broad range of abilities and characteristics. I don’t think, for instance, that you’d create a very good society if everyone were talented academicians with superior athletic prowess. Even if you bought into eugenics, the ability of government–or society–to control procreation is negligible. At an individual level, the concept behind “eugenics” in it’s purest sense is obviously the future. Only an idiot (literally) would deliberately select inferior genes for his offspring were better genes available. Already those looking for surrogate parents use all sorts of markers and proxies to ascertain they are getting the best possible genetic material from egg and sperm donors. But at the population level, it’s essentially unworkable, in my opinion. And in any case, society needs Epsilons to function. ---
**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:** [October 20, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/24 "2010-10-20T03:32:36Z")
That’s an argument that society itself is evil. Society needs weak and stupid people so it can exploit them? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/25 "2010-10-20T03:32:45Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > And in any case, society needs Epsilons to function. Wait a minute. The Epsilons of _Brave New World_ were engineered. Julian Huxley was a eugenicist, and Aldous’ caste system was partly inspired by that. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/26 "2010-10-20T03:47:29Z")
The only form of eugenics that’s ever been shown to work is the kind that we have always had, still have now, and probably always will have. If I think that a person is not fit to breed, then I don’t breed with that person. And everyone else on the planet also makes that kind of choice. If someone really, truly is unfit to breed, and everyone can agree on that, then the problem takes care of itself. It’s also a system that allows for a lot more degree of gradation than the usually-presented scenario of forced sterilizations. For instance, it also allows for people to be considered more fit to breed. To pick a recent example, for instance, lots of people apparently considered Tiger Woods unusually fit for breeding, and so he got to breed more. Governments would have a very difficult time trying to implement something like that. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/27 "2010-10-20T12:01:03Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What track record? > > If the government of Israel required genetic testing to prevent things like tay Sachs. Is that eugneics? > > What if the government sterilized folks with Down’s syndrome or the mentally retarded? > > How about we chemically sterilize poor people (something reversible) who accept welfare? > > How about if we forcibly chemically sterilize drug addicts? > > How about if we sterilize rapists and child molesters? How about if we sterilze Jews, Negros, Gypsys, Homosexuals, and people under 5’ tall? All of these suggestions come frome a wrongheaded sort of thinking where government can somehow “engineer” a perfect society. A free society is the product of the decisions of the members of that society, for good or ill. When you start talking about eugenics, you are basically advocating a position that society should be run by a group of elites and you are giving them the power to remove “undesirables”. Inevitably, that list of undesirables will expand to include anyone who isn’t part of that elite or who is a threat to them. **Chronos** - Tiger Woods gets a lot more attention from the ladies, but from a evolutionary standpoint he is actually less “fit to breed” than the Octomom or John and Kate Goslein with their 8 kids apiece. Evolution doesn’t care about how rich, good looking and awesome you are at golf. All that matters is how many kids you have. **spark240** - I thought Brave New World was a cautionary tale. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/28 "2010-10-20T12:04:42Z")
I’ve been to waterparks that _dreamt_ of having slopes this slippery. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/29 "2010-10-20T12:22:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > **spark240** - I thought Brave New World was a cautionary tale. Me too. I’m startled to see it (apparently) cited approvingly by **Chief Pedant**. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/30 "2010-10-20T13:00:14Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Me too. I’m startled to see it (apparently) cited approvingly by **Chief Pedant**. I am making the point that society needs a broad range of individuals to function smoothly, including the less capable. The generally-accepted notion of Eugenics is to improve the overall genetics of a population. It’s not to centrally engineer multiple hierarchies a la Brave New World, although perhaps Huxley was making the point that that would be the logical extension of applied Eugenics, since any successful effort at improving the overall gene pool would immediately run into the problem that not everyone can be the Queen Bee. Think of it this way: If everyone has an engineering PhD, who is going to change the diapers of the elderly in nursing homes? It’s not a question of what’s fair, although that would make an interesting debate. It’s a question of what creates a functioning society. Huxley had one thing right: a functioning society has layers upon layers of differentially-enabled members, from Alphas to Epsilons. And I am saying that a society wherein everyone is a genetic clone with identical abilities–the logical end-point of perfectly-applied eugenics–would not function. While it would be feel-good nice if mother nature had doled out exactly the same genes to everyone and every sub-group within a species, she didn’t, and for good reason. In the human and animal worlds, social creatures from ants to monkeys live in a complex hierarchy utterly dependent upon different genes. Different roles for sexes; different abilities; different temperaments…on and on. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/31 "2010-10-20T13:00:49Z")
Eugenics requires that the government accurately sort of those who are genetically “fit” and “unfit”. Who on Earth would trust the government to do so? Isn’t it obvious that whenever the government tries to sort things into categories, it messes up at least some of the time? Well-known examples are evident in everything from the USDA Food Pyramid to agriculture subsidies to tariffs to deciding which Middle Eastern countries to invade. ---
**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:** [October 20, 2010, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/32 "2010-10-20T13:21:58Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am making the point that society needs a broad range of individuals to function smoothly, including the less capable. > > The generally-accepted notion of Eugenics is to improve the overall genetics of a population. It’s not to centrally engineer multiple hierarchies a la Brave New World, although perhaps Huxley was making the point that that would be the logical extension of applied Eugenics, since any successful effort at improving the overall gene pool would immediately run into the problem that not everyone can be the Queen Bee. > > Think of it this way: If everyone has an engineering PhD, who is going to change the diapers of the elderly in nursing homes? A false argument, since an engineering degree isn’t a genetic trait. I see no reason to believe that we need to keep a class of people who are stupid so we can exploit them. And sooner or later we will be able to genetically engineer everyone for a high intelligence; do you intend to tell the poor that they are going to be forced to bear stupid children so that the rich will have servants and workers they can lord over? And if society is the parasitic thing you describe, why should anyone but the elite want to preserve it? > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > . And I am saying that a society wherein everyone is a genetic clone with identical abilities–the logical end-point of perfectly-applied eugenics–would not function. That’s wrong on an number of levels. It assumes that there is some sort of perfect human standard to aim for. It assumes that some sort of omnicapable human is possible. And it assumes that the goal of a eugenic society is an equal one instead of the master and servant society you advocate. The logical extension of your beliefs IS the caste society of _Brave New World_. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > While it would be feel-good nice if mother nature had doled out exactly the same genes to everyone and every sub-group within a species, she didn’t, and for good reason. Because nature is a chaotic mess that cares nothing for the welfare and happiness of individuals. Forget nature; health, fairness and happiness are more important than mindless, ruthless genetic competition. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/33 "2010-10-20T14:07:53Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am making the point that society needs a broad range of individuals to function smoothly, including the less capable. > … > Think of it this way: If everyone has an engineering PhD, who is going to change the diapers of the elderly in nursing homes? Assuming that “engineering PhD” is shorthand for “very smart and capable,” then of course tending nursing home patients, and every other job, will be done by very smart and capable people. I think that sounds great. I don’t subscribe to the notion that everyone’s _job_ is or should be the summation of their capacity and value, and in fact I think society benefits by having lots of people with “spare” ability and energy. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/34 "2010-10-20T14:23:42Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > What if the government sterilized folks with Down’s syndrome or the mentally retarded? > > How about we chemically sterilize poor people (something reversible) who accept welfare? > > How about if we forcibly chemically sterilize drug addicts? > > How about if we sterilize rapists and child molesters? These are all pointless from the perspective of actual eugenics. People with mental retardation are not significant contributors to the population pool, now. Trying to eliminate them as suppliers of genetic materials–particularly when many of the conditions, such as Down Syndrome, are not heritable–is a waste of effort. Poverty is not a genetically heritable condition and even temporarily preventing births to poor peoploe will not remove “bad genes” from society. There may be a remote chance that some forms of addictive personalities may have a genetic component, but simply sterilizing addicts does not, at this time, actually improve the gene pool, since we have no idea what gene or allele expression we would be seeking to remove and we have no idea how many addicts are simply unknown to us who would never be sterilized. Rapists and child molestors are not genetically predisposed to do so and they do not tend to breed successive generations of rapists or molestors, so this again fails the test for valid support for eugenics. * * * Testing for Tays-Sachs, (and several other conditions), is already available, but since few Tays-Sachs victims survive to reproduce, they are not actually contributing “bad” genes to society. Therefore, what you appear to be proposing is that anyone carrying any deleterious recessive gene be denied the right to reproduce ever with anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/35 "2010-10-20T14:39:04Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Poverty is not a genetically heritable condition and even temporarily preventing births to poor peoploe will not remove “bad genes” from society. The Nazi and Indira comparisons in this thread are obvious, but come to think of it this one goes back even further. It makes me think of phrenology. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/36 "2010-10-20T14:40:19Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > Think of it this way: If everyone has an engineering PhD, who is going to change the diapers of the elderly in nursing homes? We invent a diaper-changing machine. Of course, if we were serious about eugenics, we would euthanize the elderly and incontinent, and I would not be here to complain. I don’t think eugenics works for genetic purposes - it takes too long. For cultural purposes, maybe - Norplant for welfare mothers and the retarded, perhaps. [QUOTE=Justice O W Holmes, IIRC] Three generations of imbeciles is enough. [/QUOTE] not because of their genes but because of the burden on the culture. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![llcoolbj77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/eb9ed0/32.png) [@llcoolbj77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/llcoolbj77)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/37 "2010-10-20T14:43:38Z")
Government implemented eugenics is a terrible idea on many levels. Not the least of which is our lack of understanding of the science, and the law of unintended consequences. Think of how the Germans sterilized and euthanized hundreds of thousands of citizens with illnesses, disabilities, and handicaps that were NOT congenital. [Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_for_the_Prevention_of_Hereditarily_Diseased_Offspring) China’s “one child” policy, obstensibly a eugenic program in that it is a breeding limitation mandated by the government, has had some pretty terrible and unintended consequences… namely, orphanages overflowing with unwanted baby girls. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/38 "2010-10-20T14:44:52Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Of course, if we were serious about eugenics, we would euthanize the elderly and incontinent, and I would not be here to complain. I’m not going to ask which group you were putting yourself in. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/39 "2010-10-20T14:48:39Z")
Don’t imagine it is limited to only one. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/40 "2010-10-20T14:49:41Z")
To take this in a slightly different direction, would you (plural) give the courts the power to sentence sterilization? As I mentioned in the inspiring thread, I’ve seen the results of addicts having kids and I would approve a sentence of sterilization for the parents (after a jury trial). On the face of it this may seem repugnant. However, as I see it the courts already have the power to lock someone up for life or even call for execution. Is sterilization worse than a life sentence or the death penalty? (As a side note I lean against the death penalty.) What’s important is that such a penalty only occurs after a jury trial (unless the defendant waives that right). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691.md?page=3)