I created a thread about the Eugenics SIG in the American Mensa Facebook group, and it stimulated some interesting conversation. I will recreate that topic here. https://facebook/groups/19301432288/permalink/10152593775317289/ Many of us care about inequality that may follow from eugenics, but what if inequality were permanently embedded in our genes? That seems to be present in modern populations, but we are on course for much more of that in the future. Charles Murray makes the case for it well. It is a controversial hypothesis, but variations in intelligence seem to be largely genetic, and class mobility is relatively recent in human civilization. That means those people who have greater intelligence would tend to move up to the upper class, and those with lower intelligence would tend to move down to the lower class. Men tend to prefer to breed with more beautiful women, and women tend to prefer to breed with wealthier men, so the genes for beauty and intelligence would more correlate, as it does already. We will have an upper class with the more desirable genetics--health, beauty, height, intelligence--and a lower class with the less desirable genetics, and the gap will only accelerate with time because of the feedback effect. The result that Gattaca fears would actually be a natural result without eugenics! Have you ever seen Gattaca? Great movie.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 21:33:33 +0000
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