From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Aug 22 2001 - 12:22:45 MDT
On Wed, Aug 22, 2001 at 10:10:29AM -0700, hibbert@netcom.com wrote:
>
> Lee Corbin, Emlyn, Robert Bradbury and others have been talking in a
> relatively calm tone about "eugenics" recently. I just want to point out
> that while it may be possible for some people to use this term calmly, it's
> an extremely loaded term when used in public. It's loaded enough that it
> would really be a good idea to find a better word.
I agree. here is a hopefully educational anecdote:
When I attended the World Future Society meeting in Washington a few
years back, I listened to Walter Kistler (of Kistler Aerospace and
Foundation for the Future) held a talk named "Reprogenics and the future
of reproduction".
Among the first things he mentioned was eugenics and how modern genetics
could make embryo selection possible. He also mentioned dysgenics, the
worry that since our medicine saves many people who would otherwise have
died the incidence of bad genes in the gene pool would increase.
At that point nearly a third of the audience left.
I think I can see how they saw it: an old man, with a german-sounding
name talking about eugenics and dysgenics calmly and without immediately
denouncing the concept. Clearly he must be an evil nazi! So they left.
Meanwhile the talk moved on, and while I think he severely overstated
the problem of dysgenics he eventually reached a very liberal
conclusion: to make best use of the genetic technologies we have or will
be having, we should leave the choice to parents. Since they will be
interested in the wellfare of their children they will - by themselves,
for their own reasons and with no need for central coordination - help
keep the gene pool healthy. Kistler made a good argument more people
should hear, but because he alienated so many in the audience from the
start by using the term eugenics his argument was not heard.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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