Eugenics seriously?

in science •  5 years ago 

It goes to show that not everyone who claims to be fighting for the good side has figured everything out entirely. I mean, how else could we still see people attempting to make these assertions as if they are describing a simple tuesday.



Some historical context


The reason why the very idea of eugenics is polemic has a very charged background. It might be enough to say that racism, and the best example of a fascist authoritarian racist regime, Nazism, preached eugenics as the way we ought to "save the world".

So it's not a surprise that if anyone brings up the subject it would raise a red flag in our minds. Unless the person is completely ignorant of history, there's literally no excuse for condoning or even entertaining these toxic ideas.

A Humanist Author?


Now that seems so paradoxical, my face has not recovered from the wtf expression since yesterday. A Humanist, at least as we understand it in popular culture, is someone who values all life, and yes that includes people with so called "defective genes".

The very idea that someone should not be allowed to live, or to reproduce, which is what this "humanist" author is proposing here, because of their "defective genes" is absolutely disgusting and that is me being generous.


bitch.png
https://twitter.com/taslimanasreen/status/1140856456222146560

I guess you could defend her position, by pointing out the fact that she's making a moral appeal and not commanding us to obey her position. But, and this is a pet peeve of mine, anyone who is attempting to practice moral imposition on others, is in fact inviting push back.

As you might imagine Talisma Nasreen, the so called "humanist" author is currently playing the victim card, and is saying that the right wing is attacking her for the comment. I find that to be quite pathetic, this is not a right wing left wing discussion.

This is about being true to the idea of humanism and personal freedom.

MenO

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I guess the question then becomes should it raise a Red Flag? Yes the idea of "selectively breeding" humans is abhorrent, but it predates Nazism by a few thousand years through arranged marriages and religious doctrine. In more modern times eugenics is practiced (in part) by any country that sterilizes the feeble minded this includes most of the civilized world and many countries offer and even encourage parents to abort their pregnancy if the child is genetically "unfit". Isn't that Eugenics in a purer form? Make no mistake, what the Nazi's did was wrong, how they perverted the science was unforgivable
but at the core of the idea that natural selection can be tuned for the betterment of mankind is solid. How it is achieved, well that is the real debate isn't it?

That being said, I don't agree with how Ms. Nasreen worded that tweet, or the sentiment behind it. We as a people should stop attacking those that had no choice in there lot and instead encourage them to find ways to mitigate the genetic issues they inherited to give their future children a better life.

Men and women who have "bad genes" with genetic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cancer...

Those are literally all man-made diseases that get cured with diet and exercise and not being exposed to a million chemical compounds. That is such an insulting and ignorant thing to say.

Do you really believe that cancer can be cured with diet and excercise (in spite of the medical evidence to the contrary?

Those are literally all man-made diseases

The problem with an absolute statement like this one is that it only takes one example of someone with a healthy lifestyle that suffers from one of those medical conditions to prove it inaccurate (there are plenty of examples).

Those diseases have several causal conditions, lifestyle, diet and genetics play a role in some cases. For example a mutation in the BRCA1 gene increases the probability of breast cancer. Almost all of the cases of cervical cancer are caused by the VPH virus which has nothing to do with exposure to chemicals to name another example.

The exception proves the rule.

I thought we already have a natural selection of people who have ailments, its called medicare if you can't afford it you die!

Everyone has the right to life its what you make of it. people who have opinions about other peoples lives clearly need to find something else to put their time and energy into.

we are still a far way from figuring out how to culture the best of humanity, meaning how to raise and educate and proportion our place on this one fragile and priceless earth we have

I think a good start is to get rid of anyone who holds XRP ;D

LOL! I bought in XRP at 0.003 and sold at 0.05 and I don't ever regret being a HOLDR of it for that short period of time. Sometimes you gotta put your principles to the side for a little profit

Ah Eugenics. Our former prime-minister was a big believer in it with forced sterilizations and fines being meted out back in the 80s. He's widely respected but on some things he was absolute bonkers.

Nobody has a right to dictate your actions because of something that "may" happen. My mother has diabetes but myself and none of my siblings do. By this standard I would not be here. Every child has a right to be born not matter what selfish adults want.thanks for sharing.
Heck the idea behind Panned parenthood was founded by Margret Sanger who wanted to cleanse the world of poor and tan people. Her words not mine. Thanks.

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