Is modern eugenics wrong? - Part 1 of 6

The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering with Michael Sandel and William Haseltine speaking at the 2007 Aspen Ideas Festival. Elliot Gerson moderates the discussion.

Eugenics is a dirty word. It is usually associated with forced sterilization, infanticide and all sorts of violations of human rights. But what about modern liberal consumer-driven eugenics? With the coercive and harmful aspects removed, is it still wrong?
Tell me what you think. Would you want it for your child?

http://fora.tv/2007/07/03/Ethics_in_the_Age_of_Genetic_Engineering

Category:

Education

Tags:

• eugenics
• genetic
• engineering
• ethics
• designer
• children
• evolution
• science
• biology
• foratv

[simplybornhuman]

The Japanese DID practice eugenics, and to some degree, Ireland did too.

Other nations which practiced eugenics:

Israel,Sweeden, USA, China, Canada, Britan...

Jews still practice eugenics today, they won't let hitler get them down. google: Victor Centers for Jewish Genetic Diseases

has been much progress too, ie Tay sachs went from 1/25 jews to almost none.

only 1 illness out of thousands, and already millions of lives, and tens of billions of dollars are saved each year.

[riversonthemoon]

Thanks for the info!

[harricoles]

... as for people who cant have children i would prefer they found a way to cope having a baby that isn't "their blood" like adopting if they can override their pride maybe they could do this .... intelligence isn't every thing what about experience senses feelings etc its a small part of a person .... I notice that sometimes certain people when they see others make a grammar mistake or/and spelling mistake they seem to treat that person like they are less worthy or evil examples like that.

[riversonthemoon]

""intelligent" world with a world that isn't sadistic cruel and selfish"

I think on the whole, intelligence has served us well. We constantly have to contend with the law of unintended consequences when we come up with new technology, but I don't think higher intelligence is in any way correlated to sadistic, cruel and selfish, which seems to be what you are implying.

"prefer they found a way to cope having a baby that isn't "their blood"

I think they would prefer to have their own baby.

[riversonthemoon]

"intelligence isn't every thing"

I agree. But it sure is valuable.

:-)

[ooglebydoogleby]

you just keep them comming every one a corcker. i just love your video's i wish we could make some video's together discussing the issues.

[riversonthemoon]

Glad you liked the video. These issues are really great things to bring up at dinner. It's not as emotive as abortion or God's existence, but there is diversity in opinion which makes for great conversation.

If you ever use MSN, let me know and I'll get online. We can discuss it there and talk about how we could make a video.

[supermurloc64]

Have two children your okay but if you have a third people will think your a criminal...Something is wrong here.

[eugenicsdebate]

It's usually best to keep the government out of people's personal reproductive choices.

[AForkSpoon]

If I had a serious medical condition that has a high chance of passing it down I would want to find a way to not pass it down. If i have to not have children so be it. The effect of natural selection is gone with modern medicine. If natural selection is gone we need artificial selection to take its place. Plain and simple as that. We can continue like we are for hundreds of years, eventually modern medicine will not be able to keep up.

[thedisbatcher]

"little people" aka midgets SHOULD have children, a race of dwarves would be awesome

[Adeikov]

EVOLVE THE HUMAN RACE!!!

[CloningAficionado]

I remain unpersuaded by the main argument presented: that eugenics is harmful, because it's morally equivalent to exerting too much pressure on children to succeed. You can love your children unconditionally, yet out of that love want your children to have a good life, and thus apply pressure for them to have ambition to make a good life for themselves. It sounds as though eugenics could help children to, at the least, pass the HS classes to get into college and later to graduate from college.

[FloridaRaider]

@TrinketStarFire "Eugenics erodes at the base of Unconditional Love. " what the hell ever. You live in a fantasy world. In that world all the lions and tigers would be vegetarians. And that's just not reality.

[FloridaRaider]

If you don't advocate some form of survival of the fittest, how else are you going to control overpopulation? Keep stewing over a viable solution while the world's population growths exponentially, the world's resources disappear, animals go extinct, humans quality of life goes down the toilet, and the list goes on and on.