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originally posted in:Psykana Librarius
4/16/2015 5:36:24 PM
16

Let's talk about Eugenics (and other genetic stuff)

[b]Topic 1: EUGENICS[/b] For everyone's convenience, here is a dictionary definition of the subject: [quote]Eugenics: The science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the [url=http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law]-godwinslaw!-[/url].[/quote] Eugenics is a very hotly debated subject. The "word on the street" where I live is that people largely agree that those with serious medical defects shouldn't pass on those genes, but people hesitate to say at what point someone is considered unfit. [b]Discussion guide:[/b] What do you think about controlled breeding? How do we decide if someone is genetically defective/what sort of arbitrary bar do we use to measure them? [b]Topic 2: GENETICS[/b] As our understanding of biological science continues to fly forward at an incredible rate, we are suddenly facing a future in which we can genetically modify our offspring to be better than us, or to have desirable traits. [b]Discussion guide:[/b] What are the ramifications of genetics research and modification? Do you support genetics research? If you had a disease, and the money to do so, would you have your offspring modified to not posses the disease? This is a public post for the sake of gathering input from people outside of the Psykana Librarius, please be respectful and calm. A ninja is on standby, so behave.

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  • Directed evolution has some benefits and just as many problems. We would have to screen comprehensively all participants and make sterile all non participants, cutting down the gene pool in this way could lead to bad evolutionary decisions and genetic creep/errors would become more apparent and by that point it might be to late to correct. Also gene sets express differently even in close family members, for example I have a triplication on my 7th chromosome, one of the genes associated deals with neuron synaptic growth, I have had few issues and have a relatively high iq and very few problems, on the other hand my daughter has been diagnosed as a high functioning autistic and shares my genetic quirk. What if we decided to breed something similar into ourselves (aiming for a slightly higher than average iq in the populace) and didn't realize the long term ramifications of these modifications until we were to many generations in to back out? The current model of reproduction while not perfect helps prevent such possibilities.

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