[DieHard the Hunter]

A very interesting read: I don’t know much about Eugenics, haven’t seen much presented on it before.

Setting aside the obvious ethical issues (the over-riding morality of which being acknowledged), it would seem that eugenics would have some solid scientific support thru what we have learned from Animal Husbandry and Plant Propagation.

We can reliably produce an animal — say, a dog — to have very precise characteristics and few-or-no flaws. We can do the same with plants.

So why not Humans? Why is Eugenics discredited?

[Ethan Clive Osgoode]

Why is Eugenics discredited?

Because there is no gene for prostitution, "hereditary pauperism" or "feeble-mindedness". And the studies (e.g., Jukes) were fraudulent.

IIRC Sweden stopped involuntary sterilizations only relatively recently.

[KarlInOhio]

Setting aside the obvious ethical issues (the over-riding morality of which being acknowledged), it would seem that eugenics would have some solid scientific support thru what we have learned from Animal Husbandry and Plant Propagation.

That is very much an "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" statement.

Could the human race, if treated as nothing more than animal stock, be changed through selective breeding? Yes, it certainly could. A lot of genetic problems could be removed by not allowing those who are carriers of them to breed. Similarly, desirable traits could be selectively chosen to be spread more widely or even universally.

The only real problem in that case is that the "breeding stock" has the same lifespan as those making the eugenics decisions. If you are breeding cattle or dogs, you can get a new generation every couple of years or so, thus during a career a breeder can handle a couple dozen generations. You might only get two complete generations during a career of a eugenicist.

However, the morality of it is the primary issue. Who would have the right to tell another whether or not to have children and that some of those children should be killed because they have genetically undesirable traits and society's resources shouldn't be "wasted" on them? Would you trust our current Congressional Clowns to make those decisions? Would you want a Kennedy (or, perhaps worse, a Clinton) deciding on the eugenics goals? Would we be bred for the population's benefit, or only the benefit of those deciding what the breeding goals are?