Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?

[angrysoba]

Richard Dawkins writes:


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

It seems pretty obvious that what Dawkins is saying is correct.

When reading the tweet, you have to separate the facts and the values.

It is pretty obvious that if you want to "breed" a particular trait in humans, you could do it.

It happens in some way now anyway. You could surely breed very taller people, or more muscular people, or people with most other phenotypes.

I think Dawkins's point is that if you argue against eugenics, you should at least argue the morality of it. You just confuse the issue if you argue:

"You shouldn't have eugenics because it wouldn't work!"

 

[angrysoba]

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.

Jesus! No! That's not what he's saying!

 

[abaddon]

Jesus! No! That's not what he's saying!

Yes. He even identified that with...

For those determined to miss the point,

People simply don't read for understanding. They read for confirmation bias.

 

[Pope130]

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.

As Metullus noted, this seems to be Heinlein's Lazarus Long, specifically "Methuselah's Children". Not an ancient secret society (at least by our standards), but a 19th century law firm handling a trust with the purpose of extending human life.

Their procedure was indeed selective breeding based on longevity of ancestors. The results were collectively known as the Howard Families.

Later the protagonist notes: "They should have bred for brains rather than age."

 

[The Great Zaganza]

My Prophet and my Religion are being attacked!

 

[TragicMonkey]

If our early ancestors had been able to pick the traits their descendants would possess, they'd have acted on the best of their knowledge of their times and selected for tree-climbing ability, branch-gripping, and the ability to keep perfectly balanced while sleeping so as not to fall out of the tree. It's not a question of morality, it's a question of knowledge: we in the present cannot anticipate the needs of the future, so it's madly reckless for us to tamper with future humanity's basic composition. We'd likely guess wrongly.

Although we're totally within our rights to modify our own selves completely. If I can get mechnical laser eyes (with mood-sensitive color changing mode) in my lifetime I'm totally going for that.

Let's give the future humans the gift of all we know, then they can use that knowledge and build on it and fix themselves up to suit themselves. For all we know they may be back in the trees by then, trimming unwanted branches with blasts from their mechanical laser eyes.

 

[TragicMonkey]

My Prophet and my Religion are being attacked!

We shall breed a prophet who doesn't take offense to things.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

to answer the OP:
no, Eugenics on humans isn't possible because there are too many around.
The one thing you need for Eugenics is a population you can screen for a trait and control their reproduction accordingly.
not a chance with billions of people in hundreds of countries.

 

[p0lka]

Richard Dawkins writes:


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

'Is Dawkins wrong about eugenics?'
No.
Eugenics works, we have been doing it for centuries with our useful animals.

 

[p0lka]

to answer the OP:
no, Eugenics on humans isn't possible because there are too many around.
The one thing you need for Eugenics is a population you can screen for a trait and control their reproduction accordingly.
not a chance with billions of people in hundreds of countries.

we used eugenics on wolves to get dogs, yet there are still wolves?

surely that would indicate that 'billions of people in hundreds of countries' is irrelevant when it comes to the possibility of doing eugenics on humans? You could do it to a subset of humans.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

we used eugenics on wolves to get dogs, yet there are still wolves?

surely that would indicate that 'billions of people in hundreds of countries' is irrelevant when it comes to the possibility of doing eugenics on humans? You could do it to a subset of humans.

that would require changing a subset of humans to a degree that they aren't able to or don't want to interbreed anymore with the rest.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

that would require changing a subset of humans to a degree that they aren't able to or don't want to interbreed anymore with the rest.

No it wouldn't. Wolves and dogs can interbreed (dogs are a subspecies of wolves).

 

[The Great Zaganza]

No it wouldn't. Wolves and dogs can interbreed (dogs are a subspecies of wolves).

Not the point.
Dogs and wolves don't interbreed because they are kept apart, physically and because the of the pack-nature of wolves makes it hard to mix at any scale.

Unless you propose a multi-generation breeding program in isolation, followed by a multi-generation cultural separation, Eugenics on humans is not practically possible.

The Soviets tried. I believe the Chinese are still trying.

 

[p0lka]

Not the point.
Dogs and wolves don't interbreed because they are kept apart, physically and because the of the pack-nature of wolves makes it hard to mix at any scale.

Unless you propose a multi-generation breeding program in isolation, followed by a multi-generation cultural separation, Eugenics on humans is not practically possible.
The Soviets tried. I believe the Chinese are still trying.

re: the highlighted
You initially said it was not possible, now you have just proposed a scenario where it would be possible. Doesn't that make it not 'not possible'?

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Unless you propose a multi-generation breeding program in isolation, followed by a multi-generation cultural separation, Eugenics on humans is not practically possible.

That's basically "unless you do eugenics, you don't do eugenics". And that has happened so anything that has actually happened is possible.

 

[arthwollipot]

Technically no, he is not wrong, but is this really a thing that needs to be pointed out?

 

[Checkmite]

re: the highlighted
You initially said it was not possible, now you have just proposed a scenario where it would be possible. Doesn't that make it not 'not possible'?

Except that the scenario that would be required to make it possible is itself not possible. See how that works?

 

[Roboramma]

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

I don't see anything wrong with what he said. Saying that eugenics is technically possible is not the same as saying it's a good idea, a point that he actually makes in the tweet. Yet so far everyone is only commenting on whether or not it would be a good idea.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Anything is possible when you make your example hypothetical enough.

But I would argue that not even a Manhattan Project level of effort could manage to do something that would have any effect beyond a few generations.

The Nazis did their very best with their Arian-heritage documents for marriage, and it produced exactly one generation that, arguably, is slightly less genetically diverse than it would have been otherwise.

 

[Checkmite]

I don't see anything wrong with what he said. Saying that eugenics is technically possible is not the same as saying it's a good idea, a point that he actually makes in the tweet.

Sure; but perhaps it's telling that he had to be essentially scolded on social media before he actually made it clear whether he feels it's a good idea or not.

The bolded:

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.

...is an irritatingly neutral statement. "It's one thing" - but is it his thing? He had to be poked for us to find out, and even seems a little annoyed at having to clarify his neutral remark.