Yes, actually it does. Eugenics is not a thing. Stop trying to make it a thing.
36 Likes
Nursing Clio, FTW:
9 Likes
Iām sure @tomxvesely doesnāt understand how evolution works. Iām not saying this to be mean to him, but his comment demonstrated that with impressive efficiency.
Or heās just trying to resurrect eugenics, but (on my good days) I prefer to assume lack of knowledge before malice.
17 Likes
I donāt think that a support of eugenics is necessarily malicious, at least intentionally so. After all, many proponents of the āscienceā really believed that they were helping people and humanity.
7 Likes
Indeed. But as you pointed out, itās long since been thoroughly debunked. I have to remind myself that younger people arenāt necessarily taught history these days and might legitimately not realize the question has been settled. @tomxvesely appreciates RadioLab, so Iām inclined to think he just doesnāt know the history and science in this case and is open to learning more.
Fortunately we have professional historians in the BBS community 
8 Likes
Oh, I suspect they know all too well.
This is America. No matter how well-intentioned any program is, it will be abused to uphold white majority rule. Vote ID. Eugenics. GI Bill. Voting rights.
10 Likes
If anybody can recommend a distinct term that others will recognize for egalitarian selective breeding, I would be happy to use it instead. I am not aware of word that conveys the meaning without the baggage of abuse, so a contentious word is all I have.
2 Likes
ā¦ maybe meritocratic? Meritocratic mating? Not sure anybodyās coined a term for that yet. Coitus meritous indeed.
2 Likes
Well not getting into Eugenics or what have you, the fact we were able to domesticate one species of fox doesnāt mean that will work with ALL animals or humans.
We can tame some animals to a degree, but true docile domestication is very rare. Why werenāt we riding zebras out of Africa? Because they look like horses, but donāt act like horses. Same with bison. Hell today the ātameā ones we have a pretty much all hybrids with cattle.
We donāt fully understand domestication, but there is most likely a genetic element to it. But to think it is as simple as selective breeding is naive. Try breeding a dog who doesnāt want to sniff another dogs butt.
11 Likes
I think OMIM is a valuable research tool.
1 Like
When we do it to animals, we usually call it breeding, not eugenics. So, cool, letās start breeding humans. What could go wrong?
8 Likes
Yeah, no really, what you are proposing is horrific. The fact that you are proposing it is horrific. Please stop.
14 Likes
Gahhhh!!! Honestly!!! Just stop!!!
11 Likes
There is no evidence for such a thing as a ārape geneā. You might as well suggest the answer lay in a phrenology approach.
20 Likes
No, they werenāt. The foxes underwent the process of domestication - thatās not the same as āpeacefulā (see, for example, dogs, which are fully capable of attacking people despite being domesticated). It does not mean theyāre not capable of acts of aggression. Also, human beings arenāt foxes, but we are usually considered self-domesticated.
13 Likes
Folks, in case you havenāt noticed, itās the 2010s. There is no idea so discredited, so bankrupt in theory or utterly horrible in even the smallest taste of practice, that we canāt give it another shot. Nazism, eugenics, whatever. Why not give foot binding, trial by ordeal, or weregild a try? Itās a whole new world, where all the lessons of the past donāt apply for reasons.
31 Likes
I had to look that up, I thought it might have something to do with lycanthropy.
Reality was infinitely more depressing.
5 Likes
Iāve foundā¦ People who useā¦ Ellipses like thatā¦ Never have anythingā¦ Usefulā¦ To sayā¦ Especially when they advocateā¦ Eugenicsā¦
9 Likes
I am not sure that these are truly two different outlooks. Might it not be that this love is sometimes a subconscious way of making the same kinds of decisions? Ingroup versus outgroup, who I would like to start a family with versus who I would not? Many seem quite attached to preferences of physique and attitude, even if they donāt quite make a taxonomy of pseudo-scientific ātraitsā.
Bringing it back a bit more on-topic (I hope!), I think there is an argument to be made that keeping love, sex, and reproduction distinct in oneās life can result in more civilized and altruistic outcomes. And by civilized, I do not mean white or aristocratic, I mean deliberate. Then if a person rapes another, they canāt resort to the excuse that they needed an orgasm to exert control over somebody else.
I can respect you insisting that this is the definition that you prefer to work from, but defining it for both of us unilaterally seems dishonest. Thatās why earlier I pointed out the distinction between the denotation and connotation of the term. People seem adamant in forcing a consensus about this rather than having an open discussion. That means that anybody who disagrees is either Misinformed or A Bad Person, and we only need to figure out which. Natural selection, indeed!
No, whatās dishonest is you redefining words to suit your purpose. The actual definition is: āthe science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics.ā
Human population. Not tomatoes.
14 Likes
