Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

[d4m10n]

Richard Dawkins writes:

It’s one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological, political, moral grounds. It’s quite another to conclude that it wouldn’t work in practice. Of course it would. It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs & roses. Why on earth wouldn’t it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology.

Here is the original tweet:
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1228943686953664512

 

[The Man]

I suppose it depends on what you are breeding for, what traits that is. If it's empathy, compassion, morality and or equity (meaning mostly fairness). Then there is no reason that selective breeding can't breed out the very desire for, well, selective breeding.

 

[BobTheCoward]

I think the biggest problem is even being able to know what traits are desirable.

 

[The Man]

I think the biggest problem is even being able to know what traits are desirable.

Desirable or undesirable, it's hardly the point, just pick a trait any trait. Now can people as a group, society or family (breeding and rearing structure) adhere to the program. What happens to mutations or no conforming offspring? Much of what makes us human, self-awareness, independence, adaptability, planning, forethought and such I just don't see as being conducive to maintaining such a program.

 

[shemp]

The internet is a eugenics program that creates Untermenschen.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

What was once purported to be a gene that denoted potential for violence was then discovered to also be correlated to empathy depending on how it expresses.

So if nothing else, this is a bad idea because we seem to have no idea what we're doing.

 

[d4m10n]

I think the biggest problem is even being able to know what traits are desirable.

I vaguely remember a short story about an ancient secret society which started off with a few people who had eight living great-grandparents (over a certain age) and paired them off as breeding couples. The offspring of the couples would be allowed to join the society if they agreed to choose only partners who fulfilled similarly stringent criteria. Eventually, the society became wealthy, long-lived, and implemented even more stringent entry criteria.

I share this anecdote (likely mangled in retelling) only because longevity seems like an uncontroversially desirable trait.

 

[casebro]

What was once purported to be a gene that denoted potential for violence was then discovered to also be correlated to empathy depending on how it expresses.

So if nothing else, this is a bad idea because we seem to have no idea what we're doing.

Not yet, you mean. It's going to take AI. or something close.

Or maybe, instead of breeding for that gene, breed for that trait. It worked with dogs long before we knew what genes are.

So far as empathy and violence using common genes, hmmmm, that would mean some ethnic group would have higher levels of both. And another group lower? Or maybe "I care about you,so I'm going to kick your ass"? Toss in "I only spank you because I love you."? Hmm, S/M gene?

 

[Arcade22]

Richard Dawkins writes:


Here is the original tweet:
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/1228943686953664512

Of course "eugenics", as in artificial selection for "desirable" inherited traits, is not theoretically impossible. The practical problem is that humans have a very long generation time and the most "exotic" traits depend on multiple genes whose effects are often difficult to predict. It takes a very long time (up 20 years+) for humans to become fully developed.

Of course there's no need to for very high accuracy if Dawkins wants to create a breed subhuman slaves that toil in filthy pits as cheap labourers. It sure sounds like something he would be interested in.

 

[Arcade22]

I share this anecdote (likely mangled in retelling) only because longevity seems like an uncontroversially desirable trait.

There's a difference between just living, or rather surviving, for a longer period of time and actually living longer while being healthy.

People living longer only to suffer from age-related diseases and conditions, perhaps to the point of being totally dependent on life-support and unable to enjoy a decent life, is not a very good development. That's basically what's happening now after life-sustaining treatment has outpaced humans normal life spans.

 

[Checkmite]

"Well actually, eugenics would technically work just fine" is the most Dawkins take ever.

 

[Trebuchet]

I think the biggest problem is even being able to know what traits are desirable.

Whiteness, mostly. Dawkins happens to be right about religion but seriously, he's kind of an *******.

 

[Metullus]

I vaguely remember a short story about an ancient secret society which started off with a few people who had eight living great-grandparents (over a certain age) and paired them off as breeding couples. The offspring of the couples would be allowed to join the society if they agreed to choose only partners who fulfilled similarly stringent criteria. Eventually, the society became wealthy, long-lived, and implemented even more stringent entry criteria.

I share this anecdote (likely mangled in retelling) only because longevity seems like an uncontroversially desirable trait.

Sounds like a Heinlein Lazarus Long story...

 

[d4m10n]

There's a difference between just living, or rather surviving, for a longer period of time and actually living longer while being healthy.

That likely wouldn't matter to a sufficiently ancient secret society (since most medical advancements are modern) but your point is well taken.

 

[HighRiser]

It seems obvious to me that many of the early 20th century permutations of eugenics were leading to genocide, which I cannot condone.

Now, with the bio technology that appears to be leading inevitably to designer babies, the question of the morality of eugenics will probably some day be moot. The wealthy and powerful will always press their advantage regardless of consequence. It's hard to argue against the potential elimination of disadvantageous genetic disorders through gene editing. It's also hard to argue for the indiscriminate removal of potential for people who would perhaps have led long and happy lives.

What worries me most about the whole thing is the Law of Unintended Consequences.

 

[Cain]

What traits do people want from sperm and egg donors? I don't recall many requests for empathy.

 

[Ian Osborne]

Dawkins didn't say eugenics was desirable, only that it was feasible. He's not in any way advocating it in that tweet.

 

[Checkmite]

It seems obvious to me that many of the early 20th century permutations of eugenics were leading to genocide, which I cannot condone.

Right; because eugenics isn't additive, it's subtractive. It doesn't work by identifying "desirable" traits and collecting them, it works by identifying "undesirable" traits and trying to eliminate them - which means either killing people with those traits or compelling their removal from the breeding population.

Now, with the bio technology that appears to be leading inevitably to designer babies, the question of the morality of eugenics will probably some day be moot. The wealthy and powerful will always press their advantage regardless of consequence. It's hard to argue against the potential elimination of disadvantageous genetic disorders through gene editing. It's also hard to argue for the indiscriminate removal of potential for people who would perhaps have led long and happy lives.

Partners choosing each other based on "good traits", or parents using genetic technology to influence their own (and only their own) child, isn't eugenics though. Eugenics is a program that's applied to a population.

 

[abaddon]

Dawkins is not advocating for it. He is merely stating the obvious fact that it is technically possible to accomplish. What he is advocating is that those arguing against eugenics on scientific grounds should not do so since it is a plainly false argument and does not help.

He makes that clear in the two immediately following tweets...

For those determined to miss the point, I deplore the idea of a eugenic policy. I simply said deploring it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work. Just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher. But heaven forbid that we should do it.

And...

A eugenic policy would be bad. I’m combating the illogical step from “X would be bad” to “So X is impossible”. It would work in the same sense as it works for cows. Let’s fight it on moral grounds. Deny obvious scientific facts & we lose – or at best derail – the argument.

That said, I agree with other respondents to that twitter thread. It is not an argument against eugenics I have ever seen used in the wild, as it were. Why Dawkins felt the need to address it is anyone's guess.

 

[Checkmite]

Dawkins didn't say eugenics was desirable, only that it was feasible. He's not in any way advocating it in that tweet.

Of course not; but even positively arguing for the "feasibility" of eugenics is immensely tone-deaf - which, as I said, is certainly a Dawkins specialty. Dawkins is narrow-mindedly focused on "making a (completely unnecessary) point" about humans being no different from other kinds of animals, utterly oblivious to the implications of what he's chosen to say. The optics of for instance casually comparing the lives of the kinds of people most typically targeted by eugenics schemes to farm livestock; or the non-sequitur of trying to compare economically-driven breeding programs executed by humans against chattel animals for the benefit of those humans, with a socially-driven program that is executed by humans against other humans that will benefit only the humans executing it while devastating the humans it targets.