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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (187738)	5/30/2006 7:00:12 PM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 281500

Thank you. That was excellent. (eom)

To: one_less who wrote (187738)	5/30/2006 9:29:20 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 281500

But we have to politicize this, cuz otherwise there wouldn't be an argument. Message 22494605 If we accept the science, than we have to argue about something more substantive, like mitigating it. That would be a drag :>)

To: one_less who wrote (187738)	5/31/2006 10:30:14 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

"Eugenics must be wrong because it was associated with the Nazis" Definitions of the term vary. The term eugenics is often used to refer to a movement and social policy that was influential during the first half of the twentieth century. In an historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities". Selective breeding was suggested at least as far back as Plato, who believed human reproduction should be controlled by government. He recorded these views in The Republic. "The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior." Plato proposed that selection be performed by a fake lottery so people's feelings would not be hurt by any awareness of selection principles. Other ancient examples include the city of Sparta's purported practice of leaving weak babies outside of city borders to die. During the 1860s and 1870s Sir Francis Galton systematized these ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton noticed an interpretation of Darwin's work whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton thought, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase that he first coined in statistics, and which later changed to the now common, "regression towards the mean." In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as: *the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage.* Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The US Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those they thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963 when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States. Almost all non-Catholic western nations adopted some eugenics legislation. In July 1933 Germany passed a law allowing for the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards, sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable disease which would be passed on to their offspring..."[18] Sweden forcibly sterilized 62,000 "unfits" as part of a eugenics program over a forty-year period. Similar incidents occurred in Canada, United States, Australia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland and Iceland for people the government declared to be mentally deficient. Singapore practiced a limited form of "positive" eugenics that involved encouraging marriage between college graduates in the hope they would produce better children. Beginning in the 1980s the history and concept of eugenics were widely discussed as knowledge about genetics advanced significantly. Endeavors such as the Human Genome Project made the effective modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in the early 20th century). The difference at the beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced. Only a few scientific researchers (such as the controversial psychologist Richard Lynn) have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology but they represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural circles.[24] One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a "genius sperm bank" (1980-1999) created by Robert Klark Graham, from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donor was Nobel Prize winner William Shockley). In the USA and Europe though, these attempts have frequently been criticized as in the same spirit of classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s. Results, in any case, have been spotty at best. Because of its association with compulsory sterilization and the racial ideals of the Nazi Party, the word eugenics is rarely used by the advocates of such programs. Only a few governments in the world had anything resembling eugenic programs today. In 1994 China passed the "Maternal and Infant Health Care Law" which included mandatory pre-marital screenings for "genetic diseases of a serious nature" and "relevant mental disease." Those who were diagnosed with such diseases were required either to not marry, agree to "long term contraceptive measures" or to submit to sterilization. This law was repealed in 2004. A similar screening policy (including pre-natal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists on both sides of the island of Cyprus. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease among certain Jewish communities, is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with eugenics. In Israel, at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose the disease before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs the pregnancy may be terminated, subject to consent. Most other Ashkenazi Jewish communities also run screening programmes due to the higher incidence of the disease. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is still practised, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being homozygous for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim (which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to the condition in order to prevent others suffering the same tragedy) test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on this disease or certain other fatal conditions. If both the young man and young woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. [...so if Eugenics is wrong because of Nazis, I guess environmentalism is wrong because of?...the "left"?]