WMN: t3_2rkzen_t1_cnh4xt7

[TITLE]

CMV: Eugenics isn't all that bad... And we don't even have to kill anyone for it

[Seventh_______]

Okay, I'm talking about making the human race smarter, forever. Intelligence is at least partially genetic and therefore passed down by parents, yes? [Yes.](http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40459/title/Inherited-Intelligence/) So, what if, instead of killing off the less-intelligent people (I'm against killing. Of most things.) we just limit offspring? For example, we could use the IQ scale (for want of a better intelligence measure) to determine the number of offspring a person should be able to genetically contribute to. Like, round the IQ to the nearest multiple of 50, then divide by 50, and that's the number of offspring you're allowed to create. So someone with near average intelligence (near 100 IQ, 75-124) would have their IQ rounded to 100 and then divided by 50 to make 2 offspring. The total offspring is presumably equal to the number of people who contributed to it. A man and a woman with average IQ can have two children (not each.) and sustain their population. Conversely, really above average IQs of 125-174 can contribute genetically towards 3 children... and so on. This would eventually make the human race smarter, and therefore more likely to survive and advance the human race. I know this would be a bitch to implement and it's near impossible to actually do, but I'm just looking at the concept. I know the IQ test has its faults and every policy can be abused... I know all that. Exceptions would be made when you accidentally have twins which causes you to go over your limit, or etc. (If a mother can make 2, and has twins, she can't make more, but if she already has one and has twins after one which makes 3, we're not gonna kill one) Perhaps if you have a major, heritable health issue your IQ has 25 subtracted from it before being rounded? Or maybe weighted differently, like extremely high chance of cancer (almost 100 percent or something) takes off more... Something like that. Much better than "Kill off those with IQ less than 80" I wouldn't mind a smarter human race... EDIT: **I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race.** EDIT 2: "**It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect.**" -nikeson I suppose that's true, now.... _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[hacksoncode]

In addition to all of the other ways in which your view has already changed... I would like to point out that whatever we're doing *already* is having the effect that you would like, and without the negative downsides that any actual eugenics program implemented by actual humans would have. Read up on the [Flynn Effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect). Basically, we've increased our IQ by more than a standard deviation in less than 100 years. This is *lightning fast* by the standards of evolution. There's really no need to increase our IQs faster than they already are increasing. The results of your proposal wouldn't be seen while you are alive in any case.

[n1c0_ds]

Who gets to draw the line? Who defines what a suitable parent is? Would the deciders be among the senators who deny global warming or the theory of evolution? Could it be any of the people who were conned into [campaigning against water](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax#Public_efforts_involving_the_DHMO_hoax)? How can you be sure that the idea isn't bastardized by lobbyists or anyone in the decision chain? What about those who are deemed unfit? Do you expect them to be treated as equals now that they are lesser humans by law? Would they become a new caste of untouchables? How do you get them to accept the idea that their primary biological purpose will be denied to them? How do you think it will go down? Do you think your parents would have been exempt?

[runescapethug]

A high level of intelligence, as **currently** seen in humans, isn't a purely positive trait. Besides, if you believe in pure calculatory power, shouldn't you be clamoring to create the next super computer with AI ability? That would be much faster. If it has to be human intelligence, genetic engineering or creating an android would get the job done sooner. My view is that life is meaningless, there is no goal to complete. The need to breed a more perfect human is moot, because why do we need a more perfect human? Anyways, if you are still so dead set on perfection, technology will solve any mortal problems we have, we don't have to change ourselves to be better tools. Have some self-respect Let me be retarded enough to enjoy the *non sensible* things in life

[CallMeDoc24]

You, or anyone else, have no inherent right to influence another person's life, especially if it's unwanted and regarding an issue as personal as offspring. Your view on *advancing* the human race is completely arbitrary. Amazing things come from all facets of life, whether it's deemed intelligent or not. To simply deny life on the basis of intelligence, even if you have a perfect test (which you never will), is nonsense. What you want isn't necessarily what everyone else wants.

[zouhair]

What is intelligence? People throw this word like there is some truth in it? Can you define intelligence for me?

[cacheflow]

[STA-CITE]> I know this would be a bitch to implement and it's near impossible to actually do, but I'm just looking at the concept [END-CITE]The problem is, this is really the main reason not to do it. How do you prevent people from having more than the allotted number of children? Forced sterilization? Forced abortions? Prison? Fines? Taking away the children? All of these are terrible options, and there aren't any good ones.

[Seventh_______]

Right but thats not really what I'm trying to argue... Let me be more clear: I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race.

[Herpderp409]

A view of, "If we could do all of these things that are impossible wouldn't that be totally cool bro." Is pointless. You can just keep arguing in hypotheticals until you're right and no one can contradict you because you can always say, "Yeah thats how it really works but what if......"

[Seventh_______]

Eh? I'm specifically trying to argue mostly against people who think that eugenics is wrong in any flavor... Using hypotheticals to point out a specific /not wrong/ flavor would prove them wrong... So I don't really agree that it's pointless...

[tom_the_tanker]

It's akin to arguing "Would murder be bad if no one died?" Removing any negative aspects of anything would of course make it the perfect solution.

[Seventh_______]

Eh, no, I'm not removing ALL negative aspects. Possible miscalculation of intelligence is always possible, ethicality of limiting offspring rights.... Etc "Eugenics would be worth (above) if we had a better measure of intelligence and a way to implement it" basically

[grimoiregirl]

Basically this is the exact thing I came here to say. The problem is "How do we implement any type of policy that keeps other people from breeding without creating a society full of people that are taught from a young age that human life has a very low value? How do we limit other people's ability to breed without the use of excessive coercive force? And it's not just measuring intelligence- say you are the Bene Gesserit from Dune. So you aren't forcing other people not to breed, you've just got your cult of the most highly trained, most intelligent people and you are controlling their breeding over a long period of time, and you've come up with an easy way to measure intelligence. But then along comes this random person who has this other ability you didn't think you needed- say you started your breeding cult on Reddit today, so you picked all people who are great at STEM and educated all your children and grandchildren to place a higher value on those types of talents. Then along comes this other culture with some ability you didn't think was important to survival, and they decide they don't like you because you're a bunch of control freaks who think they are better than everyone else, and they wreck your shit up, and you have no defense against that because you bred out all the people with strong abilities that could have helped because they weren't conducive to the STEM mindset of your culture.

[tom_the_tanker]

I can't help but wonder, too, if this wouldn't delineate society too far. A society made up completely of geniuses would be really sucky for some of those geniuses, because someone would have to mop the floors and take out the garbage and shovel elephant shit at the zoo. I foresee a lot of unhappy people, because the creation of tons of smarter individuals does not in any way mean that the demand for low-paying and blue-collar labor will go away. I know I'd go crazy if I worked retail for the rest of my life...I've done it before, and the repetition was what got to me. I'm in the military now because I prefer a job with varied demands, complex problems, and different tasks every day even if they're shittier tasks. I feel that if you make everyone that much smarter (even provided that it's feasible or measurable) you're tampering with something that nature itself has fine-tuned pretty well. Evolution has gotten us to a very, very good place compared to most other species, at least from my point of view. Do we really want to tamper with a working system? If it isn't broken, why fix it?

[AzeTheGreat]

First problem I can see with this right away is that smarter people tend to have fewer children [(Source).] (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2384787/Too-clever-mother-The-maternal-urge-decreases-QUARTER-15-extra-IQ-points.html) So even in theory this won't really work.

[Seventh_______]

I typed this in another reply: >I know about number two... I'm not proposing we implement it. In a perfect world, sure. But at least my theory limits the offspring of less-intelligent people. Less intelligent- less babies than contributors- less "less intelligent people" (and that would always be the case...)

[AzeTheGreat]

Oh that's true, it would increase the proportion of intelligent people...not sure how I forgot basic reasoning...

[Seventh_______]

Please tag your sarcasm haha

[Lurker_IV]

I agree with you that eugenics can be used in a good, ethical way. The hard part is finding and sticking to only that ethical method when doing eugenics. The problem with eugenics in the past is that we simply didn't have the technology to ethically implement it. The problem with your view and with eugenics now is that we don't *quite* have the technology, but we are very close and getting closer every year. Have you seen the movie [Gattaca](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/)? I think that movie shows an almost perfect implementation of ethical eugenics. You don't need to limit the number of children people have when you can make sure make sure their children will turn out good at the moment of conception. Even stupid people can have smart children with genetic counseling at conception. Make sure everyone gets a free genetic consultation and offer to correct any identifiable genetic diseases and you have ethical eugenics. In Gattaca it wasn't the genetic engineering that made all the 'regular' people live on the streets and have to work as janitors it was people's, humanity's, unfortunate habit of finding someone to discriminate against and then being assholes. Ethical eugenics isn't possible. But it will be very soon.

[alopexus37]

As you put it, the entire goal of eugenics is to make the human race more likely to advance and survive, but the irony of eugenics is that one of the best ways we can guarantee our survival is to maximize the size of our gene pool. Eugenics makes the assumption that we know which genes are good and which genes are bad, and by maximizing the "good" genes and minimizing the "bad" genes, our society will be vastly better off. On the surface, this seems like a good idea - eliminating cystic fibrosis or Lou Gehrig's disease from the gene pool by preventing people with these genes from breeding would strengthen the human race, right? Except in the past few decades, advances in cystic fibrosis treatment have many people suffering from CF a near-normal life expectancy, and some people with Lou Gehrig's disease (I'm looking at you Stephen Hawking) have still managed to be some of the most influential minds of our generation. I'm reminded of a story I was told in college about a young girl who had been diagnosed with late-stage rabies (which is pretty much always fatal when its caught so late). Doctors were trying crazy treatments, like drastically lowering her body temperature to slow down the infection, in a last-ditch effort to save the girl. Miraculously, she ended up surviving. As doctors tried to figure out what they did to save the girl, they eventually discovered that she had a special mutation that essentially made her immune to rabies - while she was certainly sick, she was one of the very, very few people carrying the right gene that made rabies about as dangerous as the cold. She may have had the highest IQ on earth, she may have had down syndrome. But its feasible to think of a situation where her anti-rabies gene could make her genetic makeup crucial to "making the human race more likely to advance and survive." TL;DR Its very dangerous to start calling certain genes "good" and other genes "bad." Environment combines with genes to make a person who they are, and we're ultimately better off as a species if we have the largest gene pool possible.

[audiostatic82]

Hey! This is one of my great ideas that's so crazy it'll never even be discussed. Seriously, you want to tell americans they have limits on how many kids they can have? The conservatives will make parallels to China, and the religious will make it they're goal to create an army in retaliation and out of fear. Hell, they're doing that now without being threatened. That being said ... I wouldn't use IQ, it just sucks ... it could also be detrimental. I think we all know lots of really smart people who are fairly useless, and other dumb people who accomplish all kinds of stuff and are super successful. The goal should be to create a better society, not just one aspect like intelligence. So we shouldn't reward intelligence, per se, but ambition and education. So here's my idea. Each person is allowed one child. So every married couple can have two kids. It's not directly attached to the person though, kind of like a ticket to get cashed in. So you can sell your ticket if you don't want to have children, or want money for ... whatever. This obviously benefits the wealthy. It's supposed to because if a person has more resources they are better suited to take care of more children, financially. It could also become a thing where kids sell away their reproductive rights and travel, or use it to pay for education, only to do the same with their disposable income when they get older, allowing the next generation to have some disposable income when they have the time and energy to use it. The second part is education. If you graduate college, or a trade school (note that these would have to be properly defined with criteria, so that diploma mills aren't equivalent to real universities), but achieving a higher degree of education or a advanced knowledge of a craft provides you with the ability to earn a better living, and therefore have additional children if you so desire. Not to mention the major point of this is to make the world a better place, and the more people in your society that have advanced training leads towards a better society. So obtaining a degree of higher learning would earn you an additional 'ticket'. Doctoral graduates would be another. This creates an interesting dynamic in the society, as those who are permitted to have children won't always have the time to properly raise them, as they have careers and such. A nearly complete overhaul of our culture would have to take place for this to have a positive result. We'd have to take a 'it takes a village to raise a child' approach and establish a government provided child care service group to establish programming, employee requirements, pay, increase in taxes, oversight, etc. This would be combined with an overhaul of the education system to create programs that teach kids things, instead of just testing them constantly. This is pretty much where the idea falls apart, since this would require a 180 degree priority change of our government from military to education. Since education is almost entirely funded and run by the states right now ... well, we all know what happens when you try to take a right away from the states. The third part is a necessity and the final nail in the coffin as to why nothing like this will happen in my lifetime; mandatory birth control. It would have to be for either all women not currently trying to get pregnant, or everyone. (It won't work with guys only because of rape and other sexual crimes. There's already an issue with girls since they all hit puberty at different times, and birth control for a 13 year old might not be good for her, medically) This is where my idea completely collapses and where I stopped thinking about it. When does someone get to have their child? So now the government tells you when you're ready to be a parent? What happens to the 1% of the times that the birth control doesn't work? Even if it's less than 1%, birth control isn't perfect, so it's going to happen. And it gets worse when you try to figure out how to even execute this plan ... we can't reach everyone now-a-days to give away free condoms and clean needles, you want to get these people into a real clinc, to have a real procedure, that the probably don't' even want? And then we have immigrants, legal and illegal. What about refuges, like we're seeing now, what do we do with them? I mean, this is a heavy regulation ... and the world is a fluid, war torn place. Like I said, this is where things collapsed. A barrage of other problems arise, to me it proved that until we have a government system that actually works with the people's best interests in mind, this sort of thing would only make things worse. Mainly because it gives additional power and control to people who shouldn't have it, and they'll do what they do best, manipulate people with speeches for their benefit. What are the reasons behind this? What about other genetic flaws? Auto-immune diseases, Cancers, heart disease ... hell even bad eyesight is genetic. If an argument is made that raising the average intelligence of the populace would be beneficial, so much that we can institute regulations on your ability to reproduce (considered by most to be a basic human right), then I can make an equally powerful argument against most any genetic trait. As long as I can show one trait, or attribute is better than the other; then the topic gets pushed into a grey area and a person's individual priorities and opinions would have a heavy influence on their views. Imagine trying to have this conversation with a christian zealot who wants to kill all non-baptists, because they're all going to hell and it's our duty to fix god's world by eliminating this genetic flaw. (I know it's not genetic, but you'll never convince them of that) The better path currently is a worldwide emphasis on education, skepticism and rational thinking. Some people are dumb, and some people are smart ... but 90% of the world can learn. An educated populace who's goal is to make a better world, instead of protect what's mine, would probably solve a shit ton of problems in the world over 2-3 generations. However, solving the problems means distributing power, and those in charge like the current imbalance so they fight against their citizens having knowledge and the ability to communicate. The extreme ends are the Nordic countries where access to the internet, education, and proper health care is considered a basic human right ... and North Korea, which is basically a country sized prison. Those in charge have to be willing to give up some of their power for the betterment of the people, the country and the world. Even in the US we saw the 'No child left behind' legislation pass. Although this is a simplistic view of the bill, the result seems to have made the entire country less educated. By making sure no child was left behind, we slowed down the entire class to the learning capabilities of the dumbest kid (or the kid who simply doesn't care). So instead of the genius kid building a model rocket from pop bottle in 8th grade, they're reviewing basic arithmetic ... again.

[Seventh_______]

Holy halloween batman

[TBFProgrammer]

There are a couple major problems with optimization when it comes to biology and genetics. The first deals with a few factors of evolution that are typically misunderstood. Evolution does not select for the *best* examples of a given species, but rather eliminates those who cannot (fail to) survive to adulthood or cannot (fail to) secure a mate. Additionally, sufficiently optimized species typically have a great deal of difficulty surviving transitions in their environment as they are optimized to a given environment (many humans would like to make a transition to being a space-faring species). As such, the support of weaker/less intelligent individuals not only does not exactly sacrifice an optimizing agent we used to enjoy, but also could leave us in an evolutionary cul de sac and much more vulnerable to extinction. The other major issue is that the interactions amongst genes and between genes and the environment is not nearly so straightforward as introductory biology classes may leave one with the impression of. For instance, conditions like schizophrenia arise from the combination of a number of different genes and there are several combinations that yield similar symptoms. The other effects of each of these individual genes may be positive in their own right. Additionally, the activation of a given gene is dependent on numerous factors, some of them environmental. This means that we cannot conclusively state that we understand the effects of a given gene, at least not with the current limitations on our knowledge in this area. What we are starting to really gain access to is the ability to replicate the effects of a given gene, to either suppress a negative or induce a positive trait. As-needed gene therapy provides a much more robust gene pool should our society ever be placed in evolutionary bottle-neck conditions (such as a highly lethal pandemic) whilst allowing individuals to still optimize themselves to their own preferences and therefore seems an ultimately better course to pursue.

[Comedian]

I'm not getting into the debate about whether eugenics is inherently bad or not, but for the OP, I thought you may find this interesting: [STA-CITE]> limit offspring [END-CITE]There's a better way, which seems likely to happen within 20 years, if we're to believe [Stephen Hsu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Hsu), and that's using embryo selection after we've mapped out which alleles contributes to cognitive abilities. Read his recently published popularized account [*"Super-Intelligent Humans Are Coming"*](http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/super_intelligent-humans-are-coming) for a quick overview. He also [gave a talk at Google](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62jZENi1ed8) a few years back on the topic.

[ReverendEarthwormJim]

Given your exceptions I still think there is a serious risk. We could be wrong about the traits we are encouraging. We also risk reducing species hardiness by limiting variation.

[4o4Hellfire]

IQ is definitely not a way to determine whether or not somebody should have children. Also we don't understand enough about the brain for this to work yet. Now, playing devil's advocate, we can use eugenics to stop diseases like Huntington's and Tay-Sachs. This is something we do understand and can eliminate from the pool. While it might be difficult, a one-child policy could make these diseases easier to control through eugenics.

[russianlime]

The first question I ask myself in cases like these is "Would I be comfortable giving a corrupt government this power?" If the answer is no, then no matter how beneficial such an idea may be, it should never be accepted.

[iamdimpho]

The inherent cultural bias of IQ and similar tests would perhaps be a point to change your view. most IQ tests have been shown to have a middle-class bias i.e certain questions would yield different answers purely based on what you have been exposed to in your childhood & environment and not necessarily intellect. depending on how widely it's implemented, this would be a fantastic way to rid off minorities.

[doopie]

Evolution is about producing fit individuals over time. What the media portrays as "fitness" is actually catalog of unusual people. We're amazed when we see the performance of a math genius, but rarely wonder what's it like to live with unusual trait like that. Traits that give the person exceptional scores on any task are the kind that are useful in a very narrow field. You're arguing that certain kind of exceptionality should be the norm. This would *reduce* the fitness of our species. Many endangered species are endangered because they can't adapt to changing circumstances.

[JackPanzer]

Much easier to reform education and ensure that every child has access to free education through all walks of life: Pre-K through College in the US and 1st year through University in Europe.

[arcrinsis]

You're still approaching this the wrong way. Why not devote resources to advancing genetic engineering and make every newborn smarter than its parents?

[Raintee97]

So are you going to draconianly force people to submit to tests to see who is a human for birthing status and who is a subhuman. And, for the people who resist, which will be lots, what then. Jail time? excusuction? Forced castration? For this to really have any measurable effect you have to have total buy in. To have everyone do this means that you have to go over the top of anyone who disagrees . Is there any way to do that that respectful of human rights because I don't' see any.

[throwaway_who]

What makes a better species is genetic variation, if you breed off a part of the variation you are making us more vulnerable to disease and you never know what you are going to lose.

[agenthex]

There are other factors besides intelligence that could be selected. Physical strength, immune robustness, empathy and sensitivity, or simply to avoid the traits we identify as bad. We can ponder this all we want, but applying it universally will be meet with resistance, and as long as there are any philosophical questions, any form of eugenics will be controversial at best.

[sciguy2000]

True, yes, a smarter humanity does sound like a good thing. But the thing is, there's so many other things that a human needs to survive that artificially selecting for specific traits like you recommend can lead to catastrophic outcomes. Consider dogs. Many of us regard purebred dogs as the healthier kinds of dogs, and mutts as, well, mutts. But in artificially selecting for specific characteristics, many breeds of dogs are gaining a lot of genetic defects. Each breed comes with a list of potential issues, large dogs get bloat, cocker spaniels have brains too big for their skulls, German shepherds get hip dysplasia, don't even get me started on bulldogs. We've artificially selected for appearance and personality (including traits like intelligence) without considering health. Obviously with humans we wouldn't go that far, but the fact of the matter is, we can't reliably breed out genetic disorders, not without trillions of dollars in effort and research. We just don't have the tech or the infrastructure to decode everyone's genome yet. And even if we could, how should we select? Sickle-cell anemia is a terrible thing for a lot of people in first-world countries. But in malaria infested parts of the world, it gives people increased immunity. So, what do we do with that? So, in order for your proposal to work, we need a much better guideline. Not just going for "intelligence" (a poorly defined trait, but whatever), but health, drive, success in society, and so on. My question is: aren't we already doing that? In an idealized capitalist society, the harder workers, the smarter engineers, the people that are offering more to society get more money, which allows them a greater chance at raising children who can then raise their own children and spread whatever it is that allowed their parents to be successful. And it's working. Just with intelligence alone, the Flynn effect shows that globally, humanity is getting smarter, or at least is achieving better in standardized IQ tests. We are at the most successful, most powerful, most creative, most intelligent era of the human race. You want to make it better? The answer isn't eugenics. We don't really need it. Let nature run its course. We've got it.

[jay520]

[STA-CITE]> I am trying to argue that this process, if not abused, if followed by the people, and if we found an increasingly accurate measure of intelligence, would be ultimately a good thing to advance the human race. [END-CITE]Ignoring the moral and logistical problems with your argument, how exactly would eugenics advance the human race? Your proposal would not make us smarter. It would leave us with fewer low-IQ persons, meaning the *average* IQ would be higher. However, this would not increase the *total* number of persons with high-IQs, which I find more important for advancing the human race. In fact, your proposal would *decrease* the total number of high-IQ persons, since high-IQ families would have less children and low-IQ families would be less likely to produce outliers with high IQs. I believe the total number of high-IQ persons is more important for advancing the human race. The human race is not advanced by the average population. The human race is advanced by the inventions and discoveries of the extremely gifted and creative individuals. It's those rare individual geniuses that create advancements. The average guys in the lower 90% will, for the most part, have no impact (neither beneficial or detrimental) on the advancement of the human race. *What we need is more geniuses*. Or at least more smart people. Your proposal limits the number of geniuses and smart people. Therefore, your proposal decreases, rather than increases, the advancement of the human race. Even if your argument was morally and logistically sound, it still would be counter-productive to the goal you want to achieve. A "better" goal would be to force super high-IQ families to have more children. By "better", I don't mean it's morally or logistically better; just that if it worked in theory, it would at least produce the goal.

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[Seventh_______]

I love you bot <3 Sorry for a hotter topic but that's just how I am. Hot. /s

[avenlanzer]

Forget the morals or the layout of how to make it work or how to enforce the limit, smarter people tend to have less children. Period. You can limit the less intelligent, but you can't force the more intelligent to have them. That's the real flaw in the plan.

[h76CH36]

Intelligence, although partially heritable, is an ['emergent' genetic property](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence). That is, it's controlled by many genes and the combined output of the their collective actions. So basically, you can take two very smart people, breed them, and get a dumbass. The opposite is also true. It's all very hard to predict, as is the nature of systems biology. Basically, by removing some people who perform poorly on these tests, we may be unknowingly removing a large portion of the genes which could potentially result in future generations of smarter people. It's functionally impossible right now to actually do eugenics properly, even if we wanted to. That may change in the future, by it is currently impractical. This also ignores the possibility that some genes which don't currently contribute to intelligence may hold the potential (through subtle mutations) to unlock unsurpassed human intelligence in the future. Remove those genes and you squelch that potential. What we want is enough genetic diversity to allow crazy outliers (think Einstein) to emerge. It doesn't take many of those outliers to change the world and they teach us even more about intelligence. Reduce the genetic diversity, remove the outliers. If you are concerned with increasing human intelligence, eugenics is a shortsighted strategy. It's based more upon 'fut feelings' than on the types of game theory strategies that the genes themselves are playing. It's a misunderstanding of the math involved in genetics. And thus, a total dead end.

[namae_nanka]

Eugenics is already happening, I doubt it will be undone anytime soon.

[h76CH36]

[STA-CITE]>Eugenics: the social movement claiming to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization, based on the idea that it is possible to distinguish between superior and inferior elements of society [END-CITE]How is that happening?

[namae_nanka]

The smart are breeding with the smart, if your objection to it holds up we might see them not breeding with each other in the future.

[h76CH36]

I think you're missing the other parts of the definition.

[namae_nanka]

I think you're missing something if you think that matters.

[h76CH36]

It matters because it's not eugenics. And thus, not at all what we're talking about. Unless you are proposing not allowing people to select their own mates, I'm afraid that you're out of luck.

[namae_nanka]

Well, here's to the next generation of janitors bringing forth the next Einsteins.

[h76CH36]

Seeing as how intelligence seems to be an emergent property, it's not that long a shot. BTW, his mother was a house-wife and his father an electrician.

[Bl4nkface]

What makes you thing that dumb people aren't necessary for society? Edit: Grammar.

[MageZero]

I disagree with your logic that intelligence is necessary for the likelihood of long term species survival. My evidence for this is every *other* species on the planet. To paraphrase the esteemed biologist J. B. S. Haldane, nature has an inordinate fondness for beetles.

[Seventh_______]

That paraphrase made me smile! There are of course other factors that influence survival, but having more intelligence will increase survival... Sure, a beetles early reproduction age and diversity in food source or something may make it a good candidate for survival, but if we had beetles with human like intelligence, they would survive much better. Though I like your point, I disagree.

[tom_the_tanker]

Not...necessarily. A beetle is really good at being a beetle. Also, I think you're drastically overestimating the benefits increased intelligence could bring the human race, and not the drawbacks. Some of the nastiest human beings, some of the people who have lit the world on fire to watch it burn, have been some of the most intelligent. Make the good people smarter? You make them smarter too. Intelligence will not make people better.

[Seventh_______]

∆h, okay. I can see that. Intelligence will generally make a population better, though, right? I would trust that society would eliminate evil people... Removing their genes from the process. But then again, you did CMV, and I never considered any of that. Kudos Edit: The delta was for explaining how making good smart people be smarter, also increases bad smart people. I did not consider the good/smart/bad/evil thing before tom_the_tanker's post

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[gepeg-libre]

They did that. For a long time. They gave people IQ tests and sterilized people they suspected of being 'congenital imbeciles'. Without their consent. In the United States. Until the fucking 70s. And it didn't work, so I think that's proof enough. And if the thought of it actually happening in practice doesn't make you want to puke here's a description. Some "doctor" arbitrarily decides someone is an 'imbecile' (note that we're not even talking about people who we would today call mentally disabled, just regular people who may or may not be slower than your average), or maybe gives them some crank fuckin IQ test to prove it. Then their daughter gets taken in to the doctor's office for appendicitis or something and they just tie her fallopian tubes while she's under. No need to tell her, or the parents. Fast forward a couple decades and you have ruined marriages, childless couples who can't figure out why.... and legacy of vicious classism and racism held up by the almost certainly false idea that there is a single, biological, immutable and heritable quality called 'intelligence' and that it can be quantified so as to rank people on a linear scale. I recommend reading 'The Mismeasure of Man' by Stephen Jay Gould, he really kicks the shit out of these theories of intelligence

[namae_nanka]

[STA-CITE]>And it didn't work, so I think that's proof enough. [END-CITE]It didn't? [STA-CITE]>or maybe gives them some crank fuckin IQ test to prove it [END-CITE]They are still used. [STA-CITE]>I recommend reading 'The Mismeasure of Man' by Stephen Jay Gould, he really kicks the shit out of these theories of intelligence [END-CITE]lol people should read some Jensen where he really kicks the shit out of such charlatans.

[Bookworm12k]

By limiting offspring, I assume you mean sterilization. This practice has occurred before, and targets "undesirables," which can range from the mentally ill and poor to ethnic minorities. Eugenics is extraordinarily vulnerable to influence by prejudice and bigotry. It's junk science with far more potential for harm than good.

[Seventh_______]

Not really, I meant more like laws that people follow really closely to the best of their ability. If mistakes are made, such as accidentally registering an intelligence value wrong, you can't undo sterilization (unless I'm ignorant of some way) Also, what if you have a child, but the child dies unexpectedly through no fault of genetics before it gets a chance to reproduce? Like a terrorist attack on a hospital where the baby was? Then the parents would be granted an extra child or whatever... I agree that it can be abused, in fact I said that somewhere up there. I'm trying to argue that, if not abused and if we found a good measure of intelligence, this process would be a good thing.

[moonflower]

So here's another problem that you may not have thought of: if you allow parents to have another child to replace one who died, you will get a lot of babies inexplicably dying, because parents might not be satisfied with the one they produced and want a better one - perhaps it was the wrong sex for example. Your policy will encourage parents to kill their unsatisfactory offspring and claim it was cot death or something equally unproveable.

[looklistencreate]

Your responses to these questions have me wondering exactly what your proposed policy would be. You back away at any enforcement mechanism because the problems with those are pretty obvious and gruesome. Without that, though, all you're saying is that it would be nice if the people with the best genes wanted to have the most children. That's not a controversial view at all, and it's definitely not what eugenics means. Even if the government were to encourage such behavior without enforcement, there would be somewhat of a backlash. Think of the message that's sending to people with low IQ or genetic diseases. "You are undesirable and our country doesn't want any more of you." The positive end, enticing couples with good genes to have more children, would be about as effective as population increasing measures are in countries like Denmark, Russia and Japan. Lastly, let's not forget that many people have overcome being born to less intelligent and successful parents. All of us have ancestors who wouldn't make the cut.

[blellow]

[STA-CITE]>Lastly, let's not forget that many people have overcome being born to less intelligent and successful parents. All of us have ancestors who wouldn't make the cut. [END-CITE]Yep - not all good intelligent people give birth to intelligent kids and vice versa. More likely to? Probably. But taking away the chance that a "dumb" person may give birth to a genius is unethical in my opinion. But in the end it really matters on your opinion...

[Seventh_______]

I wouldn't propose a policy, I don't trust myself to see all flaws in a policy... [STA-CITE]>Eh? I'm specifically trying to argue mostly against people who think that eugenics is wrong in any flavor... Using hypotheticals to point out a specific /not wrong/ flavor would prove them wrong... So I don't really agree that it's pointless... [END-CITE]^me earlier. I don't plan on becoming a policy maker. "What eugenics means" -Oops, the definition says "practice" as well as "belief" Well I believe in it at least. I'm not saying that " it would be nice if the people with the best genes wanted to have the most children." (though I agree with that) I'm saying that a proposed law, if implemented correctly, that limits reproduction based on actual intelligence, would be a good thing. Some people think eugenics is "bad terrible hitler"... Not so. Eugenics is totally controversial. Ah, your second paragraph has a point. But I would hope that as genetic engineering becomes more advanced we can cherrypick (or inverse cherrypick) things like "not having extreme high risks of cancer" I don't know who "people with heritable, extreme high risks of cancer" are trying to kid if they say their genes aren't undesirable (because they are) And maybe it's not kind for sending that message to low IQ people (again, I would refrain from using IQ) but if it means advancing the human race by who knows how much, I'd be willing to dent a few feelings.... I don't really know about those population increasing measures, btw. I don't feel like google, I'll look up later. But are the genes from the ancestors who wouldn't make the cut manifested? Or are they bred out, maybe through natural selection even?

[looklistencreate]

So without any implementation, you're just wishing that people followed your formula and had more than two kids only if they have above-average genes. I'm sure most people would agree that it would be a good thing if people with unequivocally bad genes just didn't feel like having children. That's not a controversial opinion. I know you don't want to worry about implementation, but I can't see any possible enforcement mechanism that doesn't interfere with peoples' basic rights. If two consenting and able adults want to have a child and keep him, any government that doesn't let them is doing something horribly wrong. This is a direct consequence of your CMV and has to be addressed. I don't see how this could be "implemented correctly." By its very nature there is no way to implement this that isn't worse than our current system.

[nikeson]

It looks to me like you've made so many exceptions to your main view that you aren't looking to have your view changed. I'd like to talk about the title of your post, but if you have to make so many exceptions to your view, then it seems you already know it's incorrect.

[Seventh_______]

*applies aloe to burn* ∆ Edit: Delta because nikeson proved that my argument has changed so much from my main point that it really just proves my argument wrong. Sorry for not explaining

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[nikeson]

Thanks for being open to that!

[Seventh_______]

No problemo. I wouldn't deny something that definitely changed my view... I'm going to have a long shower and shamefully think about my tactics for debating....

[pedanticME]

Why would we not sort for physically stronger people? Or more artistic people? Or luckier people? Or wealthier people? Or people who have more genetic variation? People who resist diseases better? Who can survive on less food? Who managed to not be impacted by poverty before recieving tests determining if they can have kids? Better looking people? What is so special about intelligence? Evolution selects for "fitness", that is- what trauts really let a species survive in the present conditions. It does this because it cannot do anything else, it is the only truth, and it arises from the necessary logical conditions for existence: if it can survive and breed, it can exist. No more and no less. And we positively cannot say that intellegence is the thing that will let the human race succeed. It is not thenonly thing we need. We need empathy. We need artistic ability, we need communicstion ability, we need dumb brute strength, we need all these random traits that some people have and some people don't. Genetic monoculturea are at great risk of single events wiping them out entirely. One disease, on problem they can't solve with their enourmous beaks and fangs, and that species is dead. Intellegence IS a powerful tool. But we can use it to odentofy OTHER powerful tools. Like, the ability to work hard, or to co-exist and cooperate in a society. These tools are EQUALLY responsible for the success of humanity. For these reasons, you cannot eliminate any subset of our species arbitrarily. It cannot be determined which traits alone will result in human "fitness". We just have to fight it out in reality, and pray that the traits that we ultimately will need can be found amongs the human population. Because at some locus in time, that trait could be something we havent even thought of yet.

[loercase]

I dispute your premise. I don't think that making people smarter will change the world. People are actually *really smart*, it's just nobody can decide on the best way to run a functioning society. The biggest problem with the world is that people are often selfish, and this is, ultimately, what leads to most of the harm in the world. If we were to breed people who were more empathetic I'm sure we would have a better outcome. I don't see eugenics as being morally wrong if it's used to cultivate ideal offspring, for instance, through genetic screening programs. Produce a bunch of embryos and let the couple select the best one to gestate. I don't think you can restrict people from having kids, though, it's just too paternalistic to me.

[spazdor]

I like this answer - if we're going to pursue a program of eugenics *ever*, in whatever scientifically cautious and practically safe way we might devise in the future, then I think it's probably best if, first and foremost, we selected forempathetic, collaborative and community-oriented traits. People are good enough already at figuring out what's best for themselves.

[togtogtog]

Do you know about the problems that come with selective breeding? If you breed a dog for particular characteristics, you will probably, unknowingly also breed it for particular problems, which are genetically associated with those characteristics, for example [German Shepherd Hip Dysplasia] (http://mygermanshepherd.org/my-german-shepherd/german-shepherd-health/german-shepherd-hip-dysplasia/) If you breed a flower for colour, then you probably breed it to be less disease resistant, or to flower for a shorter period of time. Human beings are a social animal, which can mean that it's good to have diversity among the group. It's good if some people are strong leaders, some are happy to do physical work, some are into creating new ideas, some like children, some are conscientious, some like exploring and so on.... By breeding for a particular characteristic, you would probably get rid of this variety and may unwittingly increase the incidence of unwanted traits.

[Namemedickles]

Firstly, IQ is not considered to be a good or accurate measure of overall intellect. Intelligence is hard to define and describe even by neurologists and reducing that complexity down to one number is incredibly challenging if not impossible. It may also be important to note that your system isn't only difficult to implement like you point out, it's also in direct conflict with how things actually work. More intelligent people tend to have less children than do the more uneducated. There are multiple reasons for this, more intelligent people tend to be more busy with careers, etc. Lastly you must recognize that the IQ test is a standardized test. This means that even if we went really extreme and killed everyone with an IQ under 80.....that would change nothing. The average IQ will still be measured in the same way, the lowest scores will be assigned the lower numbers and the average will be the same.

[Seventh_______]

Firstly, I mentioned that. ("for want of better measure of intelligence") I would love a better measure of intelligence. [Some theorize that intelligence can be defined in categories, too...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences) So, maybe a complex way to combine them. Like a total of all of them. Idc. I know about number two... I'm not proposing we implement it. In a perfect world, sure. But at least my theory limits the offspring of less-intelligent people. Less intelligent- less babies than contributors- less "less intelligent people" (and that would always be the case...) I completely understand your distaste with the IQ test. Again, I only used the IQ test in my example because so far it is (seemingly) the most available measure of intelligence. (better than SAT scores, right?) And when the IQ test is adjusted, we would adjust the cutoff rate for "da murder" if we were to take that route in the first place. (instead of killing lower than 80, it would be killing lower than like 50 or whatever) The "number of mental retardation" would be adjusted from lower than 70 to whatever it would be, too, so I don't see your point there. In total, everyone's IQ would be x points higher and so the human race would be x much smarter... My route would be a slower, more ethical way to do it.

[namae_nanka]

Theories of multiple intelligences are taken care of by IQ itself, read up on the g factor.

[cellada]

Also intelligence is not the be all benchmark. How about other traits? Like sociability kindness fitness or whatever. How About variation in environment changing the kind of intelligence that is best.. Who gets to decide on the filters. .or who gets to select the winners or losers?

[Usernameof2015]

Intelligence can never be measured, the concept isn't nearly robust enough.

[Namemedickles]

Separating intelligence into categories *is* a far better way to go about it, but by it's very nature implies you cannot sum them. A brilliant mathematician make suck in all other areas such as music ability, linguistic skills, etc. making them look like a retard compared to a guy who is okay at math but also descent in those other categories. The point is intelligence is too complicated for us to try to breed certain kinds of it. It is a complex ploygenic trait we still don't fully understand. It is also downright silly to consider since, as we know it isn't really feasible to control the populations genitals in any ethical manner. [STA-CITE]>I only used the IQ test in my example because so far it is (seemingly) the most available measure of intelligence [END-CITE] This is not a good reason to use anything. I know it sucks but I have nothing better does not justify using a sucky measurement.

[thouliha]

Getting op to define intelligence probably boils down to: People I agree with are intelligent. People I disagree with are dumb. Intelligence and eugenics snobs always think this way.

[Seventh_______]

1. Perhaps, but if we summed it, future generations would be on average smarter than past ones. If we valued and weighted the categorical intelligences... Perhaps a brilliant mathematician would end up being (weighted) almost equal to a well rounded guy. I also would like to add, hopefully if we learn more about genetics and genetic engineering we would be able to selectively breed intelligence (Pass down mathy skills of father and kinesthetic skills of mother or whatever) [STA-CITE]>(The point is intelligence is too complicated for us to try to breed certain kinds of it. It is a complex ploygenic trait we still don't fully understand.) [END-CITE]Eh, maybe we don't fully understand it, but we know that through breeding we can increase it, right? Just because we don't understand every minute aspect of it doesn't mean we can't recognize what parts are positive and how to increase it. [STA-CITE]>(something about genitals) [END-CITE]Well hopefully it wouldn't be implemented in a way that forces you to do anything except stop having children after you reached the point where any more and you'd be hurting future generation's intelligence. >(This is not a good reason to use anything. I know it sucks but I have nothing better does not justify using a sucky measurement.) Let me clarify! You misinterpreted, I wouldn't advocate using the actual IQ scale as the starting measure of doing this at all, I used it as an example of an intelligence measure, and I meant most available as the "most available/recognizable example of intelligence" I do not want our current IQ scale to be used in any way even close to this.

[Namemedickles]

[STA-CITE]>Perhaps, but if we summed it, future generations would be on average smarter than past ones. If we valued and weighted the categorical intelligences... Perhaps a brilliant mathematician would end up being (weighted) almost equal to a well rounded guy. [END-CITE] I think you are still oversimplifying it. And no you can't just increase intelligence through controlling the breeding rights of the population. Since we do not know the one to one correlations between a complex variety of genes and gene interactions and the vaguely defined intelligence that they produce you cannot feasibly do this. What if someone with a low intellect (however the hell you measure it) and high intellect want to breed? Also, only one of my parents finished high school. I am their 6th child. I have a Masters degree. (See my user history for reference). We don't know all of the complex genetic and environmental elements that go into intellect to do anything remotely like what you are describing. [STA-CITE]>I also would like to add, hopefully if we learn more about genetics and genetic engineering we would be able to selectively breed intelligence [END-CITE] I, like some of the other commentators here, find the hypothetical game to be intellectually dishonest. The "Yeah but what if..." thing just isn't going to fly. It is not conducive to a productive conversation of this sort.

[Seventh_______]

Well if someone of low intellect wanted to breed with someone of high intellect, their children count would be limited by the lower children count. Later in life, if higher intellect person wants more children, they can, only if they don't have a genetic contributor from someone who already fulfilled their amount? I think you could increase intelligence through controlling the breeding rights of a population. I don't think its feasible, though... Congrats on your degree, but degrees are no more a measure of intelligence than IQ (which kind of is, meaning degrees kind of are) We don't know all, true, but we know some, which should be enough to increase intelligence. Maybe the hypothetical game is annoying and not productive, but its not intellectually dishonest... I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have posted this topic. I posted with the actual intent of proving that a hypothetical situation could have eugenics be good. *shrug* in the end, are we agreeing that 1. Eugenics is not realistically feasible 2. But in a hypothetical world where it is feasible, it would be a good thing ?

[thouliha]

What makes you think that there is such a thing as intelligence? Your argument to me is very typical eugenics snobbery: that somehow intelligence is related to blood (it isn't), and that one persons mind is comparable to another's (it isn't). Every mind is different and incomparable to others. Let me ask you this: who gets to decide what intelligence is in your scheme? Does the autistic savant artist, or the research scientist Shane l advance to the next round? Who gets to make that decision?

[Namemedickles]

Eugenics would work if eugenics worked. That's basically all you've said. Which is basically like saying if unicorns were real, they would be real. [STA-CITE]>Congrats on your degree, but degrees are no more a measure of intelligence than IQ (which kind of is, meaning degrees kind of are) [END-CITE]No. I think you'll find someone who has a degree in topic X is a much better indicator of their holistic intellectual ability with respect to category X than a simple reductive IQ test.

[Seventh_______]

Yes and yes and sorry :/ ∆ Edit: My view was changed when Namemedickles pointed out how basically my argument depended on changing everything about how something could be implemented to the point of where it is impossible >Eugenics would work if eugenics worked. That's basically all you've said.

[Namemedickles]

I appreciate the delta, but you'll find that several of the deltas you have just given out will be rejected by the mods including mine. A bot is going to tell you that you need to describe how your view has changed on all of these comments in more detail.

[Seventh_______]

Oh sorry. I'm newish to CMV Edit: I'm editing my deltas to fix

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[One_Wheel_Drive]

And to add to that, some people aren't as good at tests as others, despite being intelligent. In some people, it could be that they don't handle pressure as well as others. Add in what OP is suggesting if they fail and that won't really help. Especially if they don't have a chance to retake.

[h76CH36]

[STA-CITE]>Firstly, IQ is not considered to be a good or accurate measure of overall intellect. [END-CITE]Although debatable, that's probably not the right way to approach the problem. IQ tests and the SATs are [very predictive of future success](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Social_correlations). But that's actually irrelevant. As it turns out, you're right for another reason: Intelligence, although partially heritable, is an ['emergent' genetic property](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence). That is, it's controlled by many genes and the combined output of the their collective actions. So basically, you can take two very smart people, breed them, and get a dumbass. The opposite is also true. It's all very hard to predict, as is the nature of systems biology. Basically, by removing some people who perform poorly on these tests, we may be unknowingly removing a large portion of the genes which could potentially result in future generations of smarter people. So the real practical reason why eugenics is foolish, is that nobody can yet be trusted to reliably target which people are carrying the genes which may combine with other genes to create offspring who are, in fact, more intelligent. It's functionally unpredictable.

[Namemedickles]

[STA-CITE]>As it turns out, you're right for another reason: Intelligence, although partially heritable, is an 'emergent' genetic property. That is, it's controlled by many genes and the combined output of the their collective actions. So basically, you can take two very smart people, breed them, and get a dumbass. The opposite is also true. It's all very hard to predict, as is the nature of systems biology. [END-CITE] I covered all of this throughout the rest of the thread.

[h76CH36]

Not sure what that means. If you mean 'refuted', then I'm going to have to admit that I'm not going to go around compiling your argument.

[Namemedickles]

No it does not mean refuted. It means I discussed everything you did throughout the rest of the thread already. I didn't talk about the polygenic inheritance of intelligence in the first post. I did mention it few times down the thread.

[h76CH36]

One thing that I didn't mention here that may be somewhat new to the conversation is that: All the people who don't count as 'intelligent' carry genetic cargo which may be only several mutations/a recombination away from creating outliers (think Einstein) who are game changers. Getting rid of this genetic noise is probably a bad idea.

[Namemedickles]

That is implied by polygenic inheritance. You are a day late to the conversation. I and other people covered this yesterday and OP has awarded deltas and changed his mind.

[h76CH36]

[STA-CITE]>You are a day late to the conversation. [END-CITE]Quite the feat for a conversation that is only 16 hours old. Wait, are you a time traveler?

[Namemedickles]

It was last night. Don't be an ass.

[h76CH36]

Damn, I was hoping you could help me pick stocks. As it turns out, my comments followed yours by about the same amount of time it takes one to sleep/prepare for the day/commute. It's almost as though reddit is a global community or something?

[ghotier]

"Success" - one of the most nebulous and most abused words in the English language.

[Dementati]

I seem to remember that while IQ is predictive of future "success" according to some measures of success, it's not predictive in a linear or even strictly increasing fashion. Something like 125 was optimal because people with very high IQ had various social disadvantages. If that's true, mapping IQ to number of offspring might not have a desirable result in the long-term.

[niffyjiffy]

Yeah, another factor is the bias of people hiring. If people didn't look at SATs in college apps, it might be an objective measurement.

[h76CH36]

It's all irrelevant though so long as intelligence is an emergent genetic property, which seems to be the case.

[MrApophenia]

Not actually arguing for OP's position, but isn't it quite possible to breed for emergent genetic properties? Genetically engineering them into an organism is much harder, but if you breed parents with emergent genetic properties, the offspring tend to be more likely to have those properties too, even if we don't fully understand the mechanism behind it. For example, one of the primary traits bred for in dogs is conformation - that is, how well they respond to training. This encompasses both the memory capacity to retain training, and obedience. Both are complex and almost certainly can't be reduced to a single gene. But you can absolutely breed for it nonetheless. *In theory* intelligence in humans should also be subject to selective breeding. (The problems arise in trying to actually put it into practice, which is where I differ from OP.)

[h76CH36]

Some genes which don't currently contribute to intelligence may hold the potential (through subtle mutations) to unlock unsurpassed human intelligence in the future. Remove those genes and you squelch that potential. What we want is enough genetic diversity to allow crazy outliers (think Einstein) to emerge. It doesn't take many of those outliers to change the world and they teach us even more about intelligence. Reduce the genetic diversity, remove the outliers. If you are concerned with increasing human intelligence, eugenics is a shortsighted strategy. It's based more upon 'gut feelings' than on the types of game theory strategies that the genes themselves are playing. It's a misunderstanding of the math involved in genetics. And thus, a total dead end.

[matthewrozon]

Or, kids of rich parents who go to good schools who are then later tested on IQ and SATs do well because they had access to the best education money can buy. Then they succeed (financially) because well their parents are rich and the number one predictor of wealth is your parents income.

[h76CH36]

It's still irrelevant though. We know that intelligence exists and that it is unevenly distributed, partially heritable, and is an 'emergent' genetic property.The rest of the argument needs no other assumptions. Whether the IQ test is predictive or not is irrelevant.

[matthewrozon]

If there's no objective test for it then it is irrelevant when talking about whether or not to remove the right to have children from a significant portion of the population

[h76CH36]

Intelligence is probably not hard to test, just impractical to do so reliably on a large scale, which is what IQ tests are trying to accomplish. Personally, I'm convinced the predictive power of IQ tests and the SATs for that matter are somewhere around 0.5 for basic intelligence and 0.75 for outcomes. That's unimportant though. With access to greater resources, I'm certain that we could compare the intelligence of several people side by side so long as we narrow our focus. Basically, intelligence surely exists. There must be a way of measuring it. It's not distributed evenly. It's partially inherited (as is everything related to brain architecture). It must be controlled by many genes. So long as everything in that logical stream holds, I can't imagine why the conclusions are anything other than air-tight.

[matthewrozon]

If it wasn't hard to test we'd have a test for it. Psychologists and neuroscientists can't even agree to what intelligence is, never mind how to test for it. Do you seriously think we should allow politicians decide who can and cannot have children when the experts can't even agree on a definition?

[h76CH36]

[STA-CITE]>If it wasn't hard to test we'd have a test for it. [END-CITE]I never said it was easy. But, we can test it in many ways. To do so exhaustively might require dissection or better resolution MRIs. You don't really need to go into the philosophy of intelligence either. If say, you want a population that is better at math, well then, test math skills. [STA-CITE]>Do you seriously think we should allow politicians decide [END-CITE]You may not recall that I am against Eugenics for the reasons that I mentioned. We don't even need to progress to a political question as the question of scientific desirability is a non-starter.

[namae_nanka]

[STA-CITE]> Something like 125 was optimal because people with very high IQ had various social disadvantages. [END-CITE]If eugenics happens, then they won't have these social disadvantages.

[Dementati]

How do you know that?

[namae_nanka]

Grady Towers's Outsiders essay on super high IQ individuals and they usually being socially misfits.

[Dementati]

Does that essay mention how eugenics will free them from their social disadvantages?

[sennalvera]

Every time a proposal like this comes up I am reminded of why it's such a bad idea: not because we couldn't do it, but because we don't yet have the wisdom to do it right. You've just laid out a manifesto for making the human race more intelligent, but nowhere in it have you questioned whether or not it's a good idea. *Why* do we need to be more intelligent? Why would a more intelligent society automatically be a better one? If we improve our brains in this one regard might we end up diminishing them in other, unanticipated, ways? We don't yet know enough about the biology of it to even speculate. Simply put, we are not ready for eugenics.

[Seventh_______]

Yay fuzzy logic "well we don't know *for sure* so I guess we can't ever try or find out ever" Also, I don't really understand how it's *not* a better thing to be more intelligent. Like in any way. You can make wiser, more informed decisions to impact your future in a positive way. Of course, we would also adjust the selection process to minimize "unanticipated ways" of diminishing our brain as we got better at figuring this stuff out.

[Likely_not_Eric]

That's not quite how fuzzy logic works.

[Kinnell999]

[STA-CITE]> Also, I don't really understand how it's not a better thing to be more intelligent. [END-CITE]Human intelligence is responsible for the development of nuclear weapons, global resource depletion, climate change etc. I wouldn't argue that intelligence is a bad thing but you can't claim that it's results are universally good. Ultimately what improves a species chances of survival are successful adaptation to the environment. This may or may not entail becoming more intelligent.

[whoisgeorgesand]

Intelligence ≠ Wisdom

[PopeSleepy]

You don't understand how it's not a better thing to be more intelligent, so I have a few things for you to consider. * If our metric for intelligence is IQ, we may not necessarily be getting the best and brightest. Many people agree that an IQ test not infallible. We have seen that it is possible for a person of one ancestry/race to score higher than a person of another race. This difference could be accounted for by the fact that there are faults in the test that give bias towards a particular race. * People don't always use their intelligence for good. The hive mind still exists, and otherwise intelligent people believe something that someone tells them without question. This assumption that other people are smart could even make that scenario more frequent. * If you say "People who are intelligent have better critical thinking skills," I would respond to say that critical thinking is a learned skill. Just because someone is intelligent doesn't mean they've thought through their viewpoints. Everyone can be manipulated fairly easily. Emotional thinkers and logical thinkers and introverts and extroverts all have varying intelligence.

[babacorneliu]

I'm still not understanding how a higher capacity for learning could be bad, or even just not favorable.

[PopeSleepy]

Let's start here: A metric for determining learning ability without bias does not exist, and will not exist for a very long time. Imagine the power that IQ test writers would wield.

[Seventh_______]

Yeah... Kud∆s for helping. Reminds me of the "evil people are intelligent" thing that someone said Edit: Delta for explaining how intelligence isn't always good, I never considered how it could be not good.

[DeltaBot]

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[123tejas]

Less intelligent people exist for a reason. Their genes survived through million of years of evolution. What is intelligence? Is a great painter who is poor at math and science not intelligent? I know many people who are conventionally smart but lack social skills and can't do art for shit.

[babacorneliu]

[STA-CITE]>for a reason [END-CITE]Lol. Too your other point: consider intelligence the potential for generating ideas beneficial to man.

[123tejas]

"for a reason" just means, their genes were clearly good enough to survive millennia, why start eradicating them now, not "gad mayd every1, every1 has a purpos". If you start selectively breeding for intelligence you lose whatever characteristics allowed these individuals to survive. "the potential for generating ideas beneficial to man.", will be less useful compared to ruthlessness and strength if we find ourselves in an apocalyptic situation.

[sennalvera]

You 'try and find out' with a new recipe or prototype engine design. You don't 'try and find out' with the human species. What if you're wrong? What if we end up breeding in mental instability and don't notice until too late? I may not be a genetically enhanced superhuman but I do know that our bodies and brains are a dizzyingly complex array of interconnections and balances. The brain is particularly poorly understood. Messing with it at our current level of knowledge would be insanely reckless. [STA-CITE]>Also, I don't really understand how it's not a better thing to be more intelligent. Like in any way. [END-CITE]No, you don't. As another commenter said, eugenics is vulnerable to our prejudices, and we've all been raised to believe that intelligence is unquestionably good. It's part of our culture and from earliest childhood we're urged to attain it. But if you could step into a time machine and ask people from different eras what the most valuable human trait was you might get some surprising answers. Many would say strength and courage; others virtue and piety; others duty and obedience. I think you need to step back and question your preconceptions. Can you give some concrete examples of problems that greater intelligence would solve?

[electricfistula]

[STA-CITE]>What if we end up breeding in mental instability and don't notice until too late? [END-CITE]What if our unguided evolution is adding mental instability or doing bad things to us? [STA-CITE]>You 'try and find out' with a new recipe or prototype engine design. You don't 'try and find out' with the human species. [END-CITE]The human species is more important than an engine design, so it would make sense for us to try and determine the ideal way of improving our species. The proposal in the OP, to try and increase IQ, is obviously sub-optimal. But it is a proposal written in a few minutes by an amateur meant as an example of how eugenics could be beneficial. More careful, rigorous and researched proposals wouldn't have the same deficits. Cautiously proceeding with eugenics, in ethical ways, could limit many of the downside risks that we already face with unguided evolution, while expanding the likelihood that we can capture possible benefits.

[Seventh_______]

∆ *sighs* Yeah. Edit: sennalvera points out how you shouldn't toy with thinks like human life, which I didn't consider much before my argument. That's what the delta is for. also sennalvera explained the prejudices thing in a better way

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[briguy57]

I think to add to what sennalvera is stating is the Kahn scenario. What if you end up with your more intelligent than average offspring, but they end up being very selfish and are motivated entirely by greed. You would have just created an entire generation of CEOs.

[babacorneliu]

Perhaps our preparation is hindered by the stigma.