Tim Tyler wrote:

Well, yes, it is. Look below, and see two uses of
"presumed". The presumptions of eugenics enforcers
typically have had little if anything to do with
"fitness" (whatever the might mean once a severe
case of civilization has set in) and everything to do
with "social (un)desirability".

John's objection is spot on, which is why eugenics,
based on its sins of the past, is in such disrepute
today. Sterilizing someone whose mental deficiency
is due to being choked by the umbilical cord at
birth, or partially suffocated by carbon monoxide in
a home accident during childhood, makes neither
genetic nor evolutionary sense, yet it sure is
"eugenics", boy, howdy.

Tim Tyler wrote:

The 'concept' of eugenics has been used as a pretext for systematically
exterminating the physically and mentally unfit in Nazi Germany and a
prelude to the Holocaust...racial cleansing. It was also used...

Tim Tyler wrote:

That's nonsense, Tim. In the sense you use it, _any_
species is "obviously maladapted", since no species
ever has had sufficient time perfectly to adapt to
its always changing environment. Used that way,
"maladapted" becomes a meaningless tautology.

How bad is our gene pool in the west where the weak have as many
children as the strong? I look at the British royal family for example.
They are quite ugly and not that bright.
Does low intelligence, ugliness, bad teeth, etc become prevalent very
quickly. When you look at animals, sometimes 80 percent die off in a
bad winter leaving only those with good genes. At some point, wont we
have to start doing managing genetics. Was Hitler right on this point?
Churchill , as well?

wiseman wrote:

No, Hitler wasn't right on this point. Involuntarily sterilizing and
killing Germany's physically disabled and mentally ill wasn't right.
This wasn't managing genetics so much as wholesale premeditated...

wiseman wrote:

Yes, genes will be managed. What will happen is this:

http://alife.co.uk/essays/engineered_future/

Duff genes will continue to be selected against - as is happening
now and as has happened ever since the origin of life.

I didnt say eugenics was good. I said the gene pool will deteriorate if
we dont intervene in some way. Both Hitler and Churchill understood
this. I find it ironical that we are so ready to say darwinism is good
for animals but not for humans. Well, humans are animals.

RAGLANDMYCOOL@AOL.COM wrote:

Good article. The problem is that I want my children genetically
engineered now. I cant wait until we learn how to do it. People who are
slow to adopt genetic engineering will end up lookin like prince
charles because the gene pool gets dirtier and dirtier when the unfit
survive.

Tim Tyler wrote:

wiseman yahoo.com> wrote:

What sense is there to "deteriorate"? The fitness of a genome or gene
pool is relative to its environment. This argument assumes that our
"natural" environment (say, as Pleistocene foragers) is somehow
absoutely more healthy than our present environment. But all that is
happening is that our genome will have different fitness in the context
of modern medicine. The worst that can happen is that we get allelic
diversity down to low to respond to future crises, but as we don't know
what they will be, we cannot anticipate it, and anyway, I doubt this is
a realistic prospect if the population size is maintained.

Eugenics is based on a misunderstanding, and in fact rejection, of
evolutionary theory.

"wiseman" yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:emqbbv$1t8c$1@darwin.ediacara.org...

What you say might seem very convincing if people in the west were not now
living longer, on average, that at any known time in history.

Please don't get in a hurry to dispose of eighty percent of the population.
More and more evidence is being uncovered to suggest that some of the great
calamities in the world have resulted from extraordinarily large geothermal
events (larger than Krakatoa).