# US Federal Eugenics Program **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 6, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993 "2014-01-06T01:53:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2014, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/161 "2014-01-08T18:17:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That’s not really the topic here. It is what **Jonathan Chance** asserted. > [@](#): > > Eugenics only makes sense if you accept the following premises: > > 1. Intelligence is a fixed genetic trait. Not true. Even if intelligence is subject to variability from the environment, if it sets an upper limit, selecting for those with a higher upper limit, all other things being equal, will increase the average. > [@](#): > > 1. Intelligence is the only measure of worth. Also untrue. There can be multiple measures of worth, and intelligence can be one of them. > [@](#): > > 1. Intelligence can be separated from other desirable genetic traits. The only reason evolution “works” is because the advantages of selecting for one genetic trait outweigh the disadvantages. It is no different with eugenics. > [@](#): > > 1. People with lower intelligence subtract from society. Also not the case. If people with lower IQ contribute less to society, on average, than those with higher IQ, then it makes sense to try to have more of the higher-contributing member. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/162 "2014-01-09T03:22:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Tell you what - we’ll couple eugenics with the elimination of inherited wealth, just to level the playing field. And everybody starts life with a trust fund and an arsenal. The amount of the trust fund be determined at age 18 based on your kill-score. Eugenics in action! 🙂 ---
**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:** [January 9, 2014, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/163 "2014-01-09T03:36:12Z")
Ah. The Götterdämmerung-er Games, then. ---
**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:** [January 9, 2014, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/164 "2014-01-09T03:55:55Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If people with lower IQ contribute less to society, on average, than those with higher IQ, then it makes sense to try to have more of the higher-contributing member. Suppose you want to be wealthier. So you come up with a plan to throw out all the coins you receive. Your strategy is that coins are worth less than bills, so you’ll be increasing the average value of your money. And with your money having a higher average, you figure you must be wealthier. I’ll assume you can see the flaw in this plan. But it’s the exact same logic eugenicists apply to intelligence and society. They just assume that if you eliminate the less intelligent people you’ll increase the average intelligence and society will be better. But it’s the same mistake. People with above average intelligence and people with below average intelligence both contribute to the collective intelligence of society, even if they contribute different amounts. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/165 "2014-01-09T05:41:57Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > And I’d like your response better if it weren’t just an ad hominem. It’s not an ad hominem as the fact that they are signatories to a racist manifesto seems pretty relevant since we all know that the subject of this thread is really about bribing black people to stop having babies. It also speaks to their credibility in general, as The Bell Curve is so sparsely populated with actual science that anyone defending it is going to appear either incredibly stupid or incredibly racist. I sleep just fine ignoring cites from such people. > [@](#): > > Perhaps you would like to actually address any of the points raised. Do you believe in **Jonathan Chance** ’s un-cited assertion that there is no correlation between intelligence and contributions to society? If so, why? I highly doubt if there is any such correlation as that would require one to actually define what is meant by “contributions to society”, which I’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find any two people who could come to an agreement. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/166 "2014-01-09T14:10:13Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Suppose you want to be wealthier. So you come up with a plan to throw out all the coins you receive. Your strategy is that coins are worth less than bills, so you’ll be increasing the average value of your money. And with your money having a higher average, you figure you must be wealthier. If you thought this was a good analogy, you were wrong. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/167 "2014-01-09T14:14:56Z")
[QUOTE=DMC] It’s not an ad hominem as the fact that they are signatories to a racist manifesto seems pretty relevant… [/QUOTE] Which is pretty much the definition of an ad hominem. So we have an analogy which isn’t analogous, and an ad hominem which is an ad hominem. _:shrugs:_ Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/168 "2014-01-09T14:26:00Z")
In this brave new world of higher average intelligence, how much do we pay PhD level ditch diggers? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/169 "2014-01-09T15:01:48Z")
This is why I’ve always found bizarre the notion that we can vastly improve society by making everybody smarter or more educated. Suppose that we could instantly make everybody in the world utterly brilliant and hard-working, and suppose we made sure that everybody was educated to the best of their abilities. How would this change the mix of jobs in the world? There would still have to be the same amount of purely physical labor jobs that (unless you, by fiat, change their salaries) pay poorly. How would this make the unemployment built into the system disappear? Yes, over the past centuries (and in fact over the past millennia) we’ve slowly increased the average educational level of people in the world and the average education required for jobs. But there’s no way we can do that any quicker than we’re doing now. Anybody who thinks that eugenics or increased education will solve everything immediately isn’t thinking things through. To reduce income inequality in the short run, you have to do something about wages, not education or intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/170 "2014-01-10T04:55:29Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Which is pretty much the definition of an ad hominem. Ad hominems are typically irrelevant to the issue at hand. Showing that a climate science denier is a racist is an ad hominem. Showing that someone who claims that blacks are more likely to be criminals is a racist is not one. In this case, someone who claims that IQ is the bomb is also a defender of crap studies that claim that blacks have shit for IQs. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/171 "2014-01-10T05:08:35Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > Ad hominems are typically irrelevant to the issue at hand. Showing that a climate science denier is a racist is an ad hominem. Showing that someone who claims that blacks are more likely to be criminals is a racist is not one. Well, maybe it is, but that just means that what are commonly called “fallacies” are not automatically wrong, though we should recognize their use. Sometimes slippery-slope arguments can be valid, for example. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/172 "2014-01-10T06:12:35Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > If you thought this was a good analogy, you were wrong. If that’s the case, then it should be easy for you to explain what’s wrong with it. Personally, I don’t think you can do it. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/173 "2014-01-10T06:30:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If that’s the case, then it should be easy for you to explain what’s wrong with it. You seem to be implying that intelligence is cumulative - that two stupid people are smarter than one smart person. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/174 "2014-01-10T07:23:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You seem to be implying that intelligence is cumulative - that two stupid people are smarter than one smart person. No. What I said is that a smart person and a stupid person is more intelligent than just a smart person. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/175 "2014-01-10T07:42:10Z")
I dunno, is the stupid person yelling a lot, starting fires, being a distraction? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/176 "2014-01-10T08:27:54Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No. What I said is that a smart person and a stupid person is more intelligent than just a smart person. I think it could be read both ways. Look - I agree with the point you were trying to make. I just think it was a poor analogy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/177 "2014-01-10T15:08:23Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > In this brave new world of higher average intelligence, how much do we pay PhD level ditch diggers? That depends on whether they did their postgraduate work digging ditches on the grounds of Harvard or [_snort_] Wharton! ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/178 "2014-01-10T17:36:11Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think it could be read both ways. > > Look - I agree with the point you were trying to make. I just think it was a poor analogy. I honestly don’t see how my analogy could be interpreted that way and I’d like to hear how you came by that interpretation. The analogy I made was coins and paper currency and I don’t think anyone would think it’s normal for two coins to be worth more than a single bill. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2014, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/179 "2014-01-10T19:41:20Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I dunno, is the stupid person yelling a lot, starting fires, being a distraction? “stupid” = “psychotic”? ---
**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:** [January 10, 2014, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993/180 "2014-01-10T22:37:15Z")
Not automatically, but I gather the OP feels stupid people are harming America or something. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-federal-eugenics-program/677993.md?page=10)