Clarence Darrow's (1926) essay "The Eugenics Cult" now online

Clarence Darrow wrote (in 1926): No idiot knows that he is an idiot. As a rule, those of small intellectual equipment are so sure of themselves that they are eager to make the race over in their own image. This is a controlling reason why they should not be encouraged to exercise their power.

The bigoted and the ignorant are very sure of themselves. No business seems to be too important or too personal for them to undertake. One of their chief pastimes is the regulation of other people. They are willing to do anything to others that to them seems important. To compel all others to adopt their own views and ways of living is their aim. In fact, one of their chief sources of comfort and pleasure is making others unhappy.

In principle, eugenics ought to be a positive thing for the human race. Who wouldn't want their children to be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier, etc? Who wouldn't want their children to avoid heritable diseases or deficiencies? The problem with eugenics is not in the choices, but in who gets to make the choices and for whom. The problem is in who has the power. No one wants someone else to make those choices for them. One might counsel a couple that their children will have an X% chance of serious condition Y, but who is to tell them that they are not allowed to have children? Or that they must have children? Even worse is when some group tries to make such choices for some other group, based on nothing more than prejudice or cultural bias. (Does the term "fundamentalist" come to mind? ;-)

It's like any position of power that people touch. In principle, the most efficient form of government ought to be a benign monarchy, or maybe even a communist one. But once an actual person is granted such power, no one else would want to live under such a system.

So, even though, in principle, eugenics ought to be a positive for the species, in actual practice it just isn't worth the ways in which we could screw it up for the individuals involved. And unlike species of domesticated animals (where eugenics is otherwise known as "animal husbandry"), we tend to place a higher value on human individuals (especially the ones we know) than on the human species in the abstract.

Many people with serious genetic diseases in the family *want* to have selective reproduction because they have seen the effects of the disease in relatives. But as you say, Scott, the main problem comes when institutions try to implement rules about who can breed with whom. With very few exceptions, there should be no role for government in deciding these questions. The only exception I can think of right now is the unfortunate practice of sex selection for cultural reasons -- and even then I'm not sure that any coercive government measures wouldn't be worse than the problem itself. Perhaps a financial "girl bonus" would help, but a culture heavily biased against female children is unlikely to appoint politicians and bureaucrats interested in eradicating the bias.

In principle, eugenics ought to be a positive thing for the human race. Who wouldn’t want their children to be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier, etc? Who wouldn’t want their children to avoid heritable diseases or deficiencies? The problem with eugenics is not in the choices,

Remember that eugenics is not natural selection. Also that, insofar as it is evolution, it is microevolution, operating within "mankind". Eugenics is (supposedly) the opposite of "random chance". It has nothing to do with the natural origins of "complexity" or "information". So how does creationism/intelligent design/teach the controversy differ from eugenics?

In principle, eugenics ought to be a positive thing for the human race. Who wouldn’t want their children to be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier, etc?

Excellent!. It's noteworthy that Darrow never mentioned Darwin. He also omitted mention of Plato, who famously argued for eugenics -- well, he recommended state-supervised selective breeding of children. It's in The Republic, Book 5.

If evolution says anything about what's best for a species, it's that variety is the best defense against a changing environment. So reduction of what variety we have is not in the best interests of survival of our species.

(From what I recall reading some time back, our species had a genetic bottleneck some 100,000 or so years ago, with this conclusion based on the amount of variety present in the species today. )

Henry J said: (From what I recall reading some time back, our species had a genetic bottleneck some 100,000 or so years ago...

Paul Burnett said:

Henry J said: (From what I recall reading some time back, our species had a genetic bottleneck some 100,000 or so years ago...

Did that have anything to do with a certain Flood?

This carries us too far off-topic, but I just wanted to note that the situation is not that there is no eugenics and that we don't want it to start. Rather, there is no centralized eugenics but lots of anarchic eugenics is about to happen. In many parts of the world sex ratios are being massively skewed (which may have little long-term effect on the gene pool but create lots of social side effects in the near term). And as genetic technologies are advancing rapidly, parental intervention to manipulate eye color, hair color, and height are going to occur fairly massively and fairly soon. So eugenics is about to happen, decentralized but on a large scale, and for reasons that involve no general social benefit, just to make lots of people look like Ken and Barbie.

Joe Felsenstein said: So eugenics is about to happen, decentralized but on a large scale, and for reasons that involve no general social benefit, just to make lots of people look like Ken and Barbie.

Joe Felsenstein said: So eugenics is about to happen, decentralized but on a large scale, and for reasons that involve no general social benefit, just to make lots of people look like Ken and Barbie.

mrg said: I'm not sure that human genetic modification is right around the corner -- who wants their kids to be first? -- but it's gonna happen and when it does ... hoo boy, there's going to a riot going on.

You guys are talking about "intelligently (or at least purposefully) designed" humans.

Scott F said: I think the riot is going to be when the "haves" can afford to have GM healthier, smarter kids, and the "have nots" won't be able to afford it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3042601/pdf/ukmss-34220.pdf

This is a 1000 genome project paper where they give the initial estimate of how many mutations the average individual has that is already listed in the HGMD-DM (human genetic disease database). The estimate is an individual is heterozygous for 50 to 100 mutations already in the disease database. That is a lot of genetic manipulation just to fix the known ones everyone carries. If you wanted to super ovulate your mate and find the egg without any of her detrimental mutations the probability of finding that egg would be 0.5E50. That would be to find just one clean egg. Unless you could sort sperm you will need an equal number of clean eggs to find the one zygote that doesn't have any detrimentals from the father.

With this number of defects we are going to have to be selective until some type of nanotech gets developed that will fix all the negative mutations.

What defects are going to be important enough to select against? Even the traits that some posters are claiming will be engineered into babies like blue eyes and red hair are detrimental mutations, so how many bad things can you do to your kids that will be OK with society?

On one band, certain traits that our society deems desirable do have genetic components.

We are quite a lot further from having single allele explanations for most such traits, though.

No other animals perform music, do mathematics, write poetry, etc, so experimental models to determine genetic contributions to those particular traits are problematic.

Even where there is an animal model and a clear-cut case of a single allelic change leading to what we see as "better" phenotype, the story isn't straightforward.

These mice excel at endurance exercise -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=ppr-delta%20endurance%20mice%202004

Myostatin knockout mice have twice as much skeletal muscle as normal mice (the same mutation is found in a breed of cattle from Belgium) -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myostatin

http://www.cloningresources.com/research/Mighty_Mice_Made_Mightier.asp

So where are the mice with bulging muscles that can also win marathons?

One reason for their apparent absence could be that the respective genotypes have quite antagonistic effects.

The tireless treadmill mice have a phenotype that converts fast twitch muscle into slow twitch muscle.

Humans who win marathons (note - a highly different subset from humans who "run" marathons) are already very thin, with a preponderance of slow twitch muscle. These humans are somewhat limited in ability on the many tasks that require fast twitch muscle.

Humans who are genetically prone to have greater fast twitch muscle mass are also quite common. It's unknown whether these humans could realistically eliminate enough muscle mass to be marathon champions (fast twitch muscle is useful but above a limited amount serves as extra mass to be carried in a marathon). Usually these people are drawn to activities in which their extra strength is an asset.

If you try to breed a Supermouse by crossing the marathon mouse with the muscle mouse, you may well end up with rather ordinary mice.

To put it another way, selection may have favored ordinary mice because they have a fairly optimal combination, with individual variability, of slow and fast twitch muscle, to begin with.

Humans are probably much less genetically diverse as a species than many or most mouse species, but we may have superficially greater phenotypic diversity (wild mice are typically under extremely high selective pressure).

Superficially, both phenotypes seem "better" than "average" for a mouse, to human eyes, but they may be to some degree exclusive and limiting.

Genetic engineering was simple enough for our neolithic ancestors when it involved choices like "cow who gives more milk is pretty much 'better' to any reasonable person".

"Designing" human or mice to have this or that "superior" trait may be far trickier.

Eugenics ideas were the evidence of the decline of the foundations of the modern world. The world continued to achieve but it was no longer a world, they said at the top, of human beings made in God's image and having and deserving all rights and love one can give but instead details of body or mind made you worthwhile or not so.

Evolutionism did push heredity and so it was seen every kid had the parents problems and the better parents made better kids.
it was the same crowd in small circles that first and deeply embraced evolution who embraced eugenics.

It all comes down to whether or not kids inherit from parents their problems or abilities.!
If so do these attributes trump the innate value of people!

The bible says, and the Anglo American civilization historically generally, that who we are ARE souls created by God and merely put into these bodies. We do not have any genetic moral or intellectual in us.
We are completely separate from the natural world.
Therefore no attributes are handed down good or bad.

Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking. Thats just malfunction.

It was crazy and weird for people to have any hope to influence mankind ints millions but trite attempts at breeding control.

Someone said human or natural selection can anything into a better thing.
This reasoning was taken to heart by the wrong people.

Byers says: Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking.

Robert Byers babbled: Eugenics ideas were the evidence of the decline of the foundations of the modern world.

The world continued to achieve but it was no longer a world, they said at the top, of human beings made in God's image and having and deserving all rights and love one can give but instead details of body or mind made you worthwhile or not so.

Try this test on any creationist claim: See if it is at least as correct when applied to reproduction or development instead of evolution.

Mr. Byers,
Just for my information, I would like to know exactly what you mean by "human beings made in God’s image."

Do humans physically look like God? Or to put it another way, does God have a physically human-appearing body?

If that's not what you mean by "in God’s image", then what exactly do you mean?

To answer that question, God looks a lot like George Burns.

harold said: Scott F -

In principle, eugenics ought to be a positive thing for the human race. Who wouldn’t want their children to be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier, etc?

Although Rolf is correct that these are all arbitrary goals, and often arbitrarily defined, your basic point is well taken.

What does tasticness mean

eric said:

harold said: Scott F -

In principle, eugenics ought to be a positive thing for the human race. Who wouldn’t want their children to be faster, smarter, stronger, healthier, etc?

Although Rolf is correct that these are all arbitrary goals, and often arbitrarily defined, your basic point is well taken.

I disagree, I don't think Scott F is right. All of those traits require trade-offs. They have both a real biological cost (in terms of energy needed and impact on the organism) and an opportunity cost (if you have more x, you get less y). The simplistic ideas of eugenics that Nick refers to as sticking around today completely miss this point. Like a lot of bad decisions, they show a confirmaton bias: people ignore the costs of their preferred decision, and so don't do a correct cost:benefit calculation. This is yet another reason (along with non-self-determination, etc...) eugenics can be so damaging to society. To get the eyesight of a hawk, you'd better be willing to dedicate 90% of your brain to visual processing. If you want to be faster and stronger, you're going to need to eat more, and you may end up paying for it with a shorter lifespan. So being faster etc. is not necessarily positive, because to make that blanket statement you have to either ignore the costs associated with those changes or pretend they are zero. Its long past time we threw out Scott's unrealistic rhetorical question and replaced it with more realistic ones. Who wouldn't want their kids to be faster and stronger...if it cut 10 years off their lifespan? Many people might still take that deal, but parsing it that way changes it from rhetorical to a bit of a thinker, doesn't it? Suddenly, the 'ought to be a good thing' is not so clear cut, is it?

latibulum said: What does tasticness mean

Henry J said: To answer that question, God looks a lot like George Burns.

Dave Luckett said:

Byers says: Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking.

No, Byers. As you demonstrate with every post, learned intellectual disabilities, like prejudice, magical thinking, blindness to evidence, bigotry and false ideology are not natural, and they greatly interfere in our thinking. For that matter, wilful ignorance like yours has to be learned, too, springing as it does from an acquired attitude of fear, hatred or contempt for learning itself.

Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking.

Dave Luckett said:

Byers says: Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking.

No, Byers. As you demonstrate with every post, learned intellectual disabilities, like prejudice, magical thinking, blindness to evidence, bigotry and false ideology are not natural, and they greatly interfere in our thinking. For that matter, wilful ignorance like yours has to be learned, too, springing as it does from an acquired attitude of fear, hatred or contempt for learning itself.

Just Bob said: Mr. Byers, Just for my information, I would like to know exactly what you mean by "human beings made in God’s image." Do humans physically look like God? Or to put it another way, does God have a physically human-appearing body? If that's not what you mean by "in God’s image", then what exactly do you mean?

Karen S. said:

Only physical problems, retardation etc, can unnaturally interfere in our thinking.

What about falling in love?

Byers, I'm not here to teach you. You're unteachable. It's simply that on rare occasions it is possible to extract meaning from the shambolic incoherence of your prose. On those occasions I am here to point out to others the ignorance, prejudice, superstition, blindness to evidence and irrationality thus laid bare.

In this case, by sheer accident, you managed to enunciate an idea in a reasonably comprehensible English sentence. It was a stupid idea, a ridiculous idea, an idea patently false to fact, but it was an idea. I pointed out how obviously false to fact it is.

I didn't do that for your benefit, for you will not benefit. You're incapable of it. I did it to demonstrate to others, who may not have encountered you before, that you're wrong. But Byers, you're not merely wrong. Your wrongness is as an ice-floe to the vast ocean of your derangement.

You then gratified me by lapsing into garbled word-salad again. That latest effusion ("for the record I have concluded even retardation is not a problem of the mind as in broken parts but only a issue of memory interference however profound") is as perfect a Byersism as we have seen in recent times. Anyone who tries to parse it will emerge from the experience convinced that they are dealing, not merely with a crank, but a raving lunatic.

How right they are.

Robert Byers said: However all animal like bodies are just degrees of differences from each other. As it would be from a commom model and model maker. Not as it would be from the randomness of happanchance as evolution teaches.

Robert Byers said:

Just Bob said: Do humans physically look like God? Or to put it another way, does God have a physically human-appearing body?

A little off thread but it means our soul and thinking is entirely divine or rather a piec of the great God of the universe.

Just Bob said: If that's what you mean, then, how do you explain (or explain away) the various passages of the Bible that depict God as having a human appearance, various human body parts, etc.?

Dave Luckett said: Byers, I'm not here to teach you. You're unteachable. It's simply that on rare occasions it is possible to extract meaning from the shambolic incoherence of your prose. On those occasions I am here to point out to others the ignorance, prejudice, superstition, blindness to evidence and irrationality thus laid bare. In this case, by sheer accident, you managed to enunciate an idea in a reasonably comprehensible English sentence. It was a stupid idea, a ridiculous idea, an idea patently false to fact, but it was an idea. I pointed out how obviously false to fact it is. I didn't do that for your benefit, for you will not benefit. You're incapable of it. I did it to demonstrate to others, who may not have encountered you before, that you're wrong. But Byers, you're not merely wrong. Your wrongness is as an ice-floe to the vast ocean of your derangement. You then gratified me by lapsing into garbled word-salad again. That latest effusion ("for the record I have concluded even retardation is not a problem of the mind as in broken parts but only a issue of memory interference however profound") is as perfect a Byersism as we have seen in recent times. Anyone who tries to parse it will emerge from the experience convinced that they are dealing, not merely with a crank, but a raving lunatic. How right they are.

SonOfHastur said:

Robert Byers said: However all animal like bodies are just degrees of differences from each other. As it would be from a commom model and model maker. Not as it would be from the randomness of happanchance as evolution teaches.

This is precisely the opposite of a logical statement. Things that are designed do not have any reason to be seperated by simple "degrees of difference." A hammer, a car, and a microwave have almost nothing in common as all were designed for a certain purpose. Conversely, things that evolved and were modified (through "happanchance," if you like) gradually are the ones that we would expect to see being seperated by mere degrees. A modern refrigerator, for example is obviously based on older models, just with improvements in function and efficiency.

SonOfHastur said:

Robert Byers said: However all animal like bodies are just degrees of differences from each other. As it would be from a commom model and model maker. Not as it would be from the randomness of happanchance as evolution teaches.

This is precisely the opposite of a logical statement. Things that are designed do not have any reason to be seperated by simple "degrees of difference." A hammer, a car, and a microwave have almost nothing in common as all were designed for a certain purpose. Conversely, things that evolved and were modified (through "happanchance," if you like) gradually are the ones that we would expect to see being seperated by mere degrees. A modern refrigerator, for example is obviously based on older models, just with improvements in function and efficiency.

Robert Byers said of Dave Luckett: Again one can not be stung by posts like this as they truly are so eloquent and seemly deeply felt. Despite being the target its almost beautiful in its construction and studied completeness. Are you a writer?

harold said:

eric said: I disagree, I don't think Scott F is right. All of those traits require trade-offs. They have both a real biological cost (in terms of energy needed and impact on the organism) and an opportunity cost (if you have more x, you get less y). The simplistic ideas of eugenics that Nick refers to as sticking around today completely miss this point. Like a lot of bad decisions, they show a confirmaton bias: people ignore the costs of their preferred decision, and so don't do a correct cost:benefit calculation. This is yet another reason (along with non-self-determination, etc...) eugenics can be so damaging to society. To get the eyesight of a hawk, you'd better be willing to dedicate 90% of your brain to visual processing. If you want to be faster and stronger, you're going to need to eat more, and you may end up paying for it with a shorter lifespan. So being faster etc. is not necessarily positive, because to make that blanket statement you have to either ignore the costs associated with those changes or pretend they are zero. Its long past time we threw out Scott's unrealistic rhetorical question and replaced it with more realistic ones. Who wouldn't want their kids to be faster and stronger...if it cut 10 years off their lifespan? Many people might still take that deal, but parsing it that way changes it from rhetorical to a bit of a thinker, doesn't it? Suddenly, the 'ought to be a good thing' is not so clear cut, is it?

By now you probably realize that I made exactly the same point above, where I referred to mice with greater "endurance" versus mice with extra fast twitch muscle mass. If not, please see that comment. (In other words, I already agreed with you.) The rest of the comment you replied to was about the obvious weakness of traditional late nineteenth/early twentieth century phenotype-based eugenics schemes.

Thanks catshark!

Very helpful to a current project.

And, thanks Nick for the link.

I'm a liberal Christian and a passionate exponent of the reality of evolution, but I'd to be clear that support for eugenics was widespread among both liberal Christians and scientists during its heyday. Its foremost advocates and authorities, e.g., the founders of the Francis Galton Laboratory of National Eugenics in London (including Karl Pearson) were in fact scientists, not fundy Methodists. Progressive heroes Margaret Sanger, H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Bertrand Russell all supported eugenics at one time or another. THE Ronald Fisher co-founded the Cambridge Eugenics society. One could go on.

Darrow's opposition, as a secular/progressive intellectual, was brilliant but, alas, exceptional. Some of the most passionate and consistent opposition came from Catholics, notably G. K. Chesterton, who devoted an entire book to attacking eugenics: http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Eugenics.html Ah, there goes religion, "poisoning everything" again . . .

I write more on Chesterton's war against eugenics at

http://theotherjournal.com/s-word/2011/05/07/the-thing-works-out-until-it-doesn’t-gkc-and-evolution-part-i/

and

http://theotherjournal.com/s-word/2011/05/14/the-thing-works-out-until-it-doesn’t-gkc-and-evolution-part-ii/