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Tuesday Morning Open

224
lostlakehiker4/07/2009 11:41:46 am PDT

Seen from the outside, we cannot “help out” evolution. Everything that happens to our genome, including things that happen by our own intent and design, is part of evolution.

The strongest objection to eugenics, from the point of view of arguing around people who don’t already agree that it’s wrong, is that it’s wrong because it won’t work. Breeding for specific traits that are deemed desirable by the political consensus of the day is communism taken into the realm of production of human beings. Communism fails at producing needles and nougats; how can it have any prospects when applied to producing butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers? How can any little committee know, trait by trait, gene by gene, which traits are going to be useful and which genes are going to be worth their price? Everything has a price. Bigger muscles require more food. Stronger bones make one heavier. Speed makes one frail and narrow hips can hamper delivery.

At present, the committee of the whole, humanity, lets the marriage market take care of deciding who should bring forth the next generation. Putting that decision in the hands of the government all but guarantees not only oppression, but over time, the breeding of a new race, a parody of humanity, shorn of our idiosyncracies and rough edges—-the stuff that makes us effective, versatile, —-and human.

Research into stem cells is going to continue because it has all sorts of medical uses. Breeding a race of supermen, or more likely superbly feckless johnny one-notes, is a project that has been within the formal power of the authorities for centuries. Somehow, nobody ever gets that project up and running. People will follow the State so far, and no further. Advances in stem cell science won’t change that.