🚀 go-pugleaf

An article by sethg@athena.mit.edu (Seth Gordon) says:
] morimoto@intvax.UUCP (Alan Morimoto) in <674@intvax.UUCP>:
] `[I]f there were a major disaster that restricted medical professionals to
] `treating those who were injured, i.e. a war, then we would have a lot of
] `dying people out there, dying from chronic illnesses.

Chronic illnesses are not genotypes, and are rarely phenotypes.
A tendency towards a chronic illness is a phenotype.

If you don't understand the difference between a genotype and
a phenotype, you can't rationally argue this issue.

] So don't go to war.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

Besides a MAJOR disaster would bring about novel selection pressures.
What these pressures might be is not predicatable with certainty.
Therefor, it can be seen that what genotypes are "desirable" to
ensure the survival of the species is not decidable with certainty.
More on this later.

] `  My point is that maybe we need to look at what long term effects
] `  we are creating by breeding diseases into our future generations.
] 
] [...] People with genetic diseases have *every right* to have children,

Consider:
  Is this a "natural right" ( assuming such exist ) or a right guaranteed
  by some "social contract"? Justify your answer. And please read on.

] because they have *no moral responsibility* to keep "our future
] generations" hale and hearty in a "stronger gene pool."

Consider:
  Is this "absolute morality" or just Western morality ? What role
  does morality have in legislation anyway ? "Ethical" instead of
  "moral" would make a stronger argument, though it gets more
  complex : Is it ethical to have willingly have children who can not
  support themselves and then demand that others (society) support them ?
  How about if there's just a high probability of the child being unable
  to support itself ? How about if the child can ALMOST support itself,
  but not quite ?

  Therefor, I think resorting to moral or ethical arguments is weak.
  There is no need to resort to them to make the case anyway.

] `  I can imagine that countries that are
] `not as medically advanced inherit a stronger gene pool of people simply
] `because the weak will perish.  Will the future of the world be inherited by
] `us, the medically pampered, or the third world?

  Who cares ? What use is this "US versus THEM" mentality ? In fact, the
  citizens of this arbitrarily-defined "Third world" of yours, being
  under more selection pressure, have a smaller (per capita) gene pool
  and therefor are less likely to adapt to novel selection pressures.

] `                {       Humans are the only animals that       }
] `                {       don't breed to improve the species.    }

  This is statement is severly flawed on several counts.

	1. It assumes a species can be improved. "Improved" implies
	   some sort of judgement criteria. How do we judge a
   	   species, specificly, what is the measure of man ?

  "Species survival" has only one criteria : propagation of the species.
  If the species survives, it passes. Else it fails. Regardless of
  whether the species gets dumber, larger, faster or whatever to do so.

	2. If you allow (for sake of argument) that you can judge
           whether one human is an "improvement" on the other, the
           notion that humans AREN'T breeding to improve the species
           is ridiculous : Most people choose the mate they choose
	   because, by THEIR personal criteria, that human is
           "improved" with respect to other available humans.

       3. The vast majority of human adaptations are exosomatic :
	i.e. outside the body, i.e. technological. Humans pass
	proportionally more information to their offspring as
	technology as opposed to genes than any other creature.
	This DOES have an effect on the gene pool : For example,
        once knives are present in a population, the selection
        pressure for strong teeth and jaws is markedly reduced.
	If we include exosomatic adaptations as part of the
	inheritance we get from our ancestors, humans are constantly
	improving the species.

  Now for an example of how difficult (if not impossible) judging
  a genotype as "good" or "bad" is : Sickle cell anemia is an
  inherited condition. In the US, it's BAD : makes you anemic,
  does you no good. However, in the parts of the world where
  it originated, the very same genotype confers an improved
  resistance to a king of malaria present there, so it's VERY GOOD.

  Now, do you want to eliminate it from the global gene pool ?

  Also, a particular "bad" phenotype ( i.e. physical attribute ) may
  be the result of a particular combination of genotypes that each
  is generally beneficial, and are only "bad" in that combination.
  Do you eliminate ALL those genotypes to prevent that phenotype ?

  Finally, remember that a hypothetical dinosaur eugenist would
  have thought SIZE to be the most important survival characteristic
  of an animal. Human eugenist tend to think INTELLIGENCE is.
  A cockroach eugenist would pick FECUNDITY. The cockroach has
  the strongest argument, believe me.

  Remember : if the "marching morons" DO take over, it must be
  counter-survival to be intelligent, BY DEFINITION.

  In summation, what it is :

    Selection pressures diminish the frequency of occurence of
    one set of genotypes in a population, and increase the frequency
    of occurence of some other. A species becomes extinct only
    if a necessary genotype is diminished to nothing, without a
    replacement genotype or set of genotypes existing or coming
    into existence. Therefor, given the near certainty the novel
    unknown selection pressures will come into existence, the best
    way to maximize the probability of species survival is to
    try and have as diverse a gene pool as possible.

    Which is to say, the unnecessary eliminating a genotype usually
    decreases the long-term viability of the species.

  Check out cheetahs for an actual example of such a case.
--
 Dennis O'Connor   oconnor%sungod@steinmetz.UUCP  ARPA: OCONNORDM@ge-crd.arpa
 "Is it fair? If Social Security taxes are considered just another tax, then
  $40K pays a 35% incremental rate, while $200K pays a 28% incremental rate."