Genetic engineering to cure diseases is eugenics. And eugenics has more wrong with it than guilt by association. It’s inherently a dangerous activity, potentially far more dangerous than anything Hitler did. Its danger is contextually expanded due to our dearth of understanding of the processes we engineer, and expanded even further by the social construction of our society.
Genetic engineering to cure diseases is eugenics. And eugenics has more wrong with it than guilt by association. It’s inherently a dangerous activity, potentially far more dangerous than anything Hitler did.
That’s the worst argument in the world.
Its danger is contextually expanded due to our dearth of understanding of the processes we engineer
And that is closer to discussing the substance instead of the archetypal example in the category, so might as well skip the first part.
No, I was referencing the “worst argument” as posited in the article, and contrasting from it. I can see how this might have been misunderstood (my wording was poor) but it would be quite silly to literally repeat the fallacious argument from the article as if it hadn’t already been discredited, wouldn’t it?
Eugenics is inherently dangerous; the danger is far worse than the associations drawn in the “worst argument”. I am not saying eugenics is bad because Hitler did it, in fact I’m saying the connection to Hitler does a disservice to understanding the dangers of eugenics. It’s inherently dangerous—interfering with genes for arbitrary purposes risks upsetting the entire balance the gene pool has developed without purpose.
And that is closer to discussing the substance instead of the archetypal example in the category, so might as well skip the first part.
interfering with genes for arbitrary purposes risks upsetting the entire balance the gene pool has developed without purpose.
Let us look at some of the history of eugenics. Humans have been practicing eugenics for 100s of years with crops and domesticated animals. The results include a much enhanced food supply (from both animals and plants), and a “partnership” with dogs that works well for humans and appears to work well for dogs.
So it looks like interfering with the gene pool for our purposes certainly shifts any “balance” the gene pool had developed without purpose, but I can’t put my finger on the bad part of that without help.
I’m guessing your comment was aimed more at changes in the human gene pool. Given that 1) evolution changes the gene pool all the time (I’m not sure if this contradicts your idea of balance) and 2) changing plant and animal gene pools is something humans have been doing for 1000s of years and appears to be quite useful to humans, I’m clueless as to how you infer that all of the sudden this is going to turn in to a bad idea when we do it more deliberately to ourselves.
Genetic engineering to cure diseases is eugenics. And eugenics has more wrong with it than guilt by association. It’s inherently a dangerous activity, potentially far more dangerous than anything Hitler did. Its danger is contextually expanded due to our dearth of understanding of the processes we engineer, and expanded even further by the social construction of our society.
That’s the worst argument in the world.
And that is closer to discussing the substance instead of the archetypal example in the category, so might as well skip the first part.
No, I was referencing the “worst argument” as posited in the article, and contrasting from it. I can see how this might have been misunderstood (my wording was poor) but it would be quite silly to literally repeat the fallacious argument from the article as if it hadn’t already been discredited, wouldn’t it?
Eugenics is inherently dangerous; the danger is far worse than the associations drawn in the “worst argument”. I am not saying eugenics is bad because Hitler did it, in fact I’m saying the connection to Hitler does a disservice to understanding the dangers of eugenics. It’s inherently dangerous—interfering with genes for arbitrary purposes risks upsetting the entire balance the gene pool has developed without purpose.
That was my entire point.
Let us look at some of the history of eugenics. Humans have been practicing eugenics for 100s of years with crops and domesticated animals. The results include a much enhanced food supply (from both animals and plants), and a “partnership” with dogs that works well for humans and appears to work well for dogs.
So it looks like interfering with the gene pool for our purposes certainly shifts any “balance” the gene pool had developed without purpose, but I can’t put my finger on the bad part of that without help.
I’m guessing your comment was aimed more at changes in the human gene pool. Given that 1) evolution changes the gene pool all the time (I’m not sure if this contradicts your idea of balance) and 2) changing plant and animal gene pools is something humans have been doing for 1000s of years and appears to be quite useful to humans, I’m clueless as to how you infer that all of the sudden this is going to turn in to a bad idea when we do it more deliberately to ourselves.
The problem is what happens when there’s no distinction between the “breeder” and the “bred”.