# 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:** 14\ **Page:** 4
**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, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/61 "2010-10-20T19:25:32Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Tell that to this guy … > > [http://www.news.com.au/national/sterilise-child-abusing-parents-says-former-ombudsman/story-e6frfkvr-1225941410319#ixzz12vcIwgvu](http://www.news.com.au/national/sterilise-child-abusing-parents-says-former-ombudsman/story-e6frfkvr-1225941410319#ixzz12vcIwgvu) He has a bad idea, but he’s not talking about the same thing **tomndebb** was. Geschke is talking about parents who neglect their children, not rapists and molesters. And he’s not saying there is a genetic component to any of it. He’s saying parents who neglect their kids shouldn’t be allowed to have more kids. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/62 "2010-10-20T20:29:20Z")
The problem with eugenics is that it doesn’t understand the science it’s supposedly based on. Social problems like crime and poverty are not caused by genetics. As for actual genetic disorders, you have to remember that people are a bundle of genes not a carrier of a single gene. A person who has one bad gene may also have a dozen good ones - look at Stephen Hawking. Eugenics is the equivalent of state planning - an assumption that one answer is right to every problem and we know what it is. Natural selection is like the free market - have a wide variety of genes out there, try as many combinations as possible, and allow circumstances to give advantages to the better ones. ---
**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, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/63 "2010-10-20T21:04:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > As for actual genetic disorders, you have to remember that people are a bundle of genes not a carrier of a single gene. A person who has one bad gene may also have a dozen good ones - look at Stephen Hawking. > > Eugenics is the equivalent of state planning - an assumption that one answer is right to every problem and we know what it is. Natural selection is like the free market - have a wide variety of genes out there, try as many combinations as possible, and allow circumstances to give advantages to the better ones. And if we are that determined to improve the human race we should wait for genetic engineering to become good enough for the purpose. One of the major flaws of both natural selection and eugenics is as you say it treats genes as part of a package deal; weeding out Hawking’s ALS that way means weeding out Hawking himself too. Wait a while and we should just be able to snip out the offending genes. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/64 "2010-10-20T21:30:30Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > :rolleyes: > > It means the idea you were suggesting (or appeared to be suggesting in with a straight face) was put into practice by the Nazis.That’s normally a hint that it’s not something anybody else should be doing. In point of fact I think Hitler got the idea from proposals and programs in the U.S., so if you like, you can say American eugenics theories inspired him. Again, that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement for those ideas. There was a little more to Nazism than sterilizing retarded people, so I think the question “Does that make us Nazis?” is loaded and without meaning. Regardless, sterilizing people without their consent is a horrible thing to do. And it’s generally agreed that wiping out groups of “genetically inferior” peopel is also horrible. > Well, you asked if eugenics deserves its negative connotations, and I wrote “Fuck yes.” I thought you would take that to mean I am opposed to it. I’m not really in favor of eugenics either (I’m one of the guys arguing that we shouldn’t be paying drug addicts to get vesectomies) but from the post we see in the other thread, i was wondering how receptive this board was to eugenics. I’m not totally opposed either, if I thought my great great great grandkids would have laser beam eyes, i would be willing to deal with selective breeding to get that for them. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/65 "2010-10-20T21:57:58Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I’m not totally opposed either, if I thought my great great great grandkids would have laser beam eyes, i would be willing to deal with selective breeding to get that for them. How about if people in 120 years can have laser beam eyes, but the way to reach this goal is for you not to breed? ---
**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 21, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/66 "2010-10-21T02:03:05Z")
( by **CP** : ) If everyone has an engineering PhD, who is going to change the diapers of the elderly in nursing homes? > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If we are all engineers won’t they hjave robots doing taht sort of stuff? There’s no guarantee that just because applied Eugenics solves the problem of genetic inequality all other problems are solved, although it’s true that those with brighter genes have been able to get rid of a lots of grunt work by inventing cool stuff. Still, one suspects there would be a hierarchy of job/role desirability in any society. It does not seem likely we’d get to a society where everyone (or no one) is the Queen Bee. The notion expressed above that we’ll just equally distribute the crappy work is laughable liberal pollyanna pipedream pap. A few decades of communism pretty much proved that if you take from each according to his ability and give according to need, human nature just slacks off. (What, the Party Leaders are gonna dig potatoes?) Why work harder than the next guy over when there’s no personal gain? What mother nature has done is to disseminate a wide variety of genes, and society is built upon that wide variety. Leona Helmsley and Nancy Pelosi need flunkies, and so do I. ---
**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 21, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/67 "2010-10-21T02:14:11Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > The notion expressed above that we’ll just equally distribute the crappy work is laughable liberal pollyanna pipedream pap. A few decades of communism pretty much proved that if you take from each according to his ability and give according to need, human nature just slacks off. Excuse me, but that’s exactly what you are saying we have now. You are claiming that the common people are in the social slot Nature has mandated for them and they should be good serfs and not aspire to anything better, that the limited rewards they get are what they deserve, nothing more > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > What mother nature has done is to disseminate a wide variety of genes, and society is built upon that wide variety. Leona Helmsley and Nancy Pelosi need flunkies, and so do I. Ah, the good old argument that the poor are subhuman. Born slaves. And if you think amoral nature is such a great thing, would you think it wrong if those “flunkies” did the natural, survival-of-the-fittest thing and banded together to kill you and take everything you have? Given that fairness is just a liberal pipe dream and all. Somehow I doubt it. Like most people with such attitudes, I expect your fondness for ruthless exploitation only extends to situations where you are the one doing the exploiting, not the one being exploited. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/68 "2010-10-21T13:47:04Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Like most people with such attitudes, I expect your fondness for ruthless exploitation only extends to situations where you are the one doing the exploiting, not the one being exploited. This is getting unreasonably personal. Please dial it back. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/69 "2010-10-21T14:03:26Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > [change diapers on old folk] > > If we are all engineers won’t they hjave robots doing taht sort of stuff? No, because they wouldn’t have had the accountants to handle payments or the solderers to put the prototype together… The kind of work engineers do requires teams of people with different skills - which in turn means both different interests and different potentials. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/70 "2010-10-21T14:14:15Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Inspired by this thread. > > [Charity bribes drug addicts to sterilise themselves - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=582206) > > Eugenics has a negative connotation but should it? > > Selective breeding cerainly occurs in most countries. At the least most countries have laws against marriage between siblings in part because of concerns over recessive traits. > > Is it unethical to suggest that we reduce the feertility of some groups and increase the fertility of other groups? Selective breeding is one thing but eugenics is quite another. Anyway, humanity has practised selective breeding for many generations - it’s only recently (at least in Europe - I don’t know about elsewhere) that people have married for love. And love itself is a sort of selective breeding. ---
**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 23, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/71 "2010-10-23T16:37:26Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Somehow I doubt it. Like most people with such attitudes, I expect your fondness for ruthless exploitation only extends to situations where you are the one doing the exploiting, not the one being exploited. Bit touchy, are we? My life and the way I’ve lived it is testimony to my personal philosophy that none of us is of greater worth than another. I don’t need to defend that to you and I trust most of the folks on this board are mature enough to recognize a rhetorical jibe about flunkies to make the point that there are layers in societal construct, however much our sense of fairness makes us think there should not be. But the facts germane to the discussion here are that mother nature has disparately enabled individuals and whole groups, and that the structure of society is predicated upon that underlying fact. Whether it’s fair or not that one’s genetic gifts drive opportunity for greater success is completely beside the point. Someone gets to be the NBA player and someone else has to be the water boy. Therefore, if one successfully drove a eugenics program to its logical extreme, the foundation upon which society is structured would fall apart. It’s for that reason that the society in Brave New World has a spectrum of genetic groups, and it’s for that reason that one answer to the OP’s question of “Should we bring back eugenics?” is, “Well, even if it were a total success, Eugenics would destroy society as we know it.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/72 "2010-10-24T05:56:34Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And if we are that determined to improve the human race we should wait for genetic engineering to become good enough for the purpose. One of the major flaws of both natural selection and eugenics is as you say it treats genes as part of a package deal; weeding out Hawking’s ALS that way means weeding out Hawking himself too. Wait a while and we should just be able to snip out the offending genes. Boo. I was hoping no one else would get to that. That’s the one type of eugenics that I don’t think is inherently evil. But only if it’s the _parents_ deciding to fix their child’s problem before they are born. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/73 "2010-10-25T03:54:24Z")
I’m against eugenics but not for the reasons everyone else is If we have some of these freaks running around, I look better in comparison. Let the bottom of the gene pool breed and breed often. Why should humanity be improved? I’m already born, that doesn’t help me any. So no, never eugenics ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2010, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691/74 "2010-10-25T06:07:32Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > 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 Chemical castration is very effective with s8x offenders. > [@](#): > > Antiandrogenic drugs and physical castration undoubtedly reduce sexual interest (libido) and sexual performance,3 and they reduce sexual reoffending. Physical castration of sex offenders was carried out in several European countries in the first part of the 20th century, and although morally dubious and not always targeted at high risk cases (many of those castrated were homosexual, mentally ill, or learning disabled), recidivism rates of less than 5% over long follow-up periods are invariably reported, compared with expected rates of 50% or more.4 > > Studies of the use of antiandrogenic drugs report similar efficacy,5 6 7 and a large meta-analysis of treatment in sex offenders found that “organic” interventions (surgical castration and hormones) reduce recidivism much more than any other treatment approach (although the authors found that nowadays drugs are usually used alongside psychological treatment)… > > When drugs work the clinical effect is often dramatic, with offenders reporting great benefit from no longer being preoccupied by sexual thoughts or dominated by sexual drive. These drugs can also allow offenders to participate in psychological treatment programmes where previously they may have been too distracted to take part. Given the transparency of benefits and risks, there is no obvious reason why an offender should not be able to make an informed choice about drugs. [http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c74.full?ijkey=rcCG6E9p6AKqY&keytype=ref&siteid=bmjjournals&utm\_campaign=6913607&utm\_content=40010383627&utm\_medium=email&utm\_source=Emailvision](http://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c74.full?ijkey=rcCG6E9p6AKqY&keytype=ref&siteid=bmjjournals&utm_campaign=6913607&utm_content=40010383627&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailvision) In terms of future offenders, behavioural traits generally are moderately heritable. There is a gene-environment intereaction though, for instance low level variants of MAO-A lead to anti-social behaviour in combination with childhood maltreatment. > **[Handbook of Psychopathy, First Edition](https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=OuNdrmHcJlgC&pg=PA530&lpg=PA530&dq=is%2Bsex%2Boffending%2Bheritable&source=bl&ots=mv589KnLmb&sig=RlZTmP9s2pP6Ud5TWNVdbFbNuVY&hl=en&ei=uR3FTNqLEYHUtQPioIiXDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CBUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=heritability&f=false)** > > This book has been replaced by Handbook of Psychopathy, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-3513-2. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-we-bring-back-eugenics/557691.md?page=3)