From: hal@finney.org
Date: Tue Oct 05 1999 - 10:38:01 MDT
Robert J. Bradbury, <bradbury@www.aeiveos.com>, writes:
> On Mon, 4 Oct 1999, Chris Fedeli forwarded a message regarding
> a "movement" opposed to "Techno-eugenics". So we are all
> educated to discuss this, I wanted to provide foundation
> material.
>
> >From The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary:
> eugenic (adj): of, concerned with, or encouraging the production of
> healthy children.
> eugenics (n): the study of methods of protecting and improving the
> quality of the human race by selective breeding
> eugenist (n): fr. Greek: eu (well) + genes (born)
My dictionary provides slightly different definitinos for two of these:
eugenics: the movement devoted to improving the human species through the
control of hereditary factors in mating
eugenicist: a specialist in or advocate of eugenics: also eugenist
> > I want to alert you to a nascent movement originating here in
> > Berkeley opposed to "Techno-eugenics'" i.e. human germ-line engineering
> > with the intent of producing super-people, which presents some very
> > serious threats to the future of humanity, social equality and the
> > like..
>
> To start with, the term is applied improperly. Since human germ-line
> engineering does not involve selective breeding, the term of
> "Techno-eugenics" seems a distortion designed to invoke the spectre
> of the eugenics movement in the early part of this century and
> more seriously the NAZI eugenics efforts.
However the more inclusive definition in my dictionary, improving the
human species through control of hereditary factors, would seem to apply
to genetic engineering. I don't think we should rely too heavily on
dictionaries in drawing a fine line between what is eugenics and what
is not.
What you need to do is to look at the history of the eugenics movement
and to see what it is which people have reacted to so negatively.
The movement has been closely associated with racism in many forms, with
cries of alarm that so-called inferior races were outbreeding the superior
(i.e. white) races. This reached its culmination in Nazi Germany,
which forced sterilization and attempted extermination of minority groups.
This is the baggage which these opponents are attempting to load onto
proposals for human genetic engineering. It is necessary to distinguish
the modern efforts from this historical record.
This can be done relatively easily, I think. Any advocate of genetic
engineering must first begin by denouncing, in the strongest terms
possible, the racist component of the eugenics movement. He must make
it clear that all human races are equally valuable and unique, that
all individuals have a contribution to make. There are no inferior
races or inferior individuals whose procreation should be suppressed.
Racism is the sign of a sick, fearful, primitive mind, and has no part
in modern society. All civilized human beings will shun any hint of
racism or elitism towards other groups.
By capturing the moral high ground from the beginning, genetic engineering
can then be introduced in its proper context, as an extension of modern
medical practice. We already go into the body to correct problems and
improve deficiencies. We are beginning "in vivo" genetic engineering
to heal people with specific diseases by modifying the errant cells, and
this is going to be a very important technology in the next few decades.
Modifying genes before the child is born is a natural extension of this
technology, one which has the advantage that the corrections can be
applied to just one or a few cells before they reproduce, rather than
waiting until there are billions of cells that we have to try to track
down and individually fix.
This rhetorical technique is valuable when proposing a variety of
unconventional or challenging ideas: defusing criticism by going to its
heart and clearly showing that your goals are diametrically opposed to
the fundamental philosophy being ascribed to you. I read of it years ago
in some libertarian literature, but I don't recall the name it was given.
Hal
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