Thanks for your response. You write:
> Because people are not dogs.
(Grin!) Some people might say “more’s the pity”, but I take your point.
> To answer the question of why it would be undesirable, consider who would be the dog-people, and who would be the dog-people buyers who go to the dog-people breeder to get the precise dog-person they want. And who would be the dog-people breeders, in this scenario?
I suppose that might be a role taken up by those who do arranged marriages like they do in some cultures. One of which being muslims...
...ok, which I guess answers that question rather tidily.
I guess where I am getting to in my learning on this thread is that Eugenics isn’t “bad science” or “false science” that has been proven scientifically to be false, but rather that it is “unethical science” or “evil science” that we as humans oughtn’t to meddle with.
Just because we *can* technically do something doesn’t mean that we *have* to or *ought* to or *must* do it.
Come on, man! "Hereditary pauperism"? Of course it is bad science. Ellis's article should be illustration enough. But read more on it here: Inbred Science
but rather that it is “unethical science” or “evil science” that we as humans oughtn’t to meddle with.
Eugenics poses a problem for Darwinians. Because if one cannot breed humans like dogs to obtain desired breeds (artificial selection), then neither can nature do it by natural selection. So a Darwinian biologist must affirm, in the back of his mind, the scientific validity of eugenics. He may say that it is immoral, or undesirable. Or he may feel that it is desirable, but not politically wise to talk about it. Then there is the type who thinks it is good science and desirable and politically expedient. Richard Dawkins (like Julian Huxley) is that type. He says that we can breed musical geniuses by eugenic selection. He has a heavy ideological commitment to Darwinism, so he has to say that. Because if eugenics is a false science, so is Darwinism.
Just because we *can* technically do something doesn’t mean that we *have* to or *ought* to or *must* do it.
That pretty well sums it up, I'd say.
It goes to show the danger of divorcing science from any moral constraints. This is the danger that those who wish to keep *religion* out of science fail to see.
Science can deal with the *can* part. Religion deals with the *ought not to* part.
That's also the crux of the embryonic stem cell research issue. And the euthanasia issue.