Posted on 08/22/2006 2:04:20 PM PDT by js1138
You are assuming that because something can be viewed as 'natural' that it must be accepted as the best option. This is ridiculous on the face of it and ignores our ability to make judgment calls which can and do determine future paths. This is a genetic fallacy which states that because something happens in the past it must be the best option for the future.
Labeling something 'natural' no more makes it appropriate in biological replication/reproduction than it does in medical science. There are many substances labeled 'natural' that are effective medical treatments but there are also some 'natural' substances which are not just poor treatments but can be dangerous treatments. In medicine, the label of 'natural' does not automatically signify something that is 'good'. This is also true of biological reproduction - natural selection is an active and highly effective means of directing the percentage of specific alleles within a population but we do not have to accept the methods used by natural selection as the 'best' thing for a population.
Other animals are subject to natural selection and operate within that limit, for them natural selection is a necessity. That is simply not true of humans. We can evaluate 'natural' processes and compare them with processes born of our understanding and technology and determine the appropriateness of taking nature paths.
We routinely examine processes such as floods and droughts, which by your criterion are quite natural and therefore should be allowed to continue unimpeded, and after making a judgment call as to the appropriateness of interfering with nature, use our technology to prevent, divert or mitigate those processes.
Even if you can make a direct correlation between Nazi eugenics and Darwinian Evolution, we do not need to accept Nazi eugenics, no matter how 'natural' you feel it is, as an acceptable process.
The human mind, and therefore the ability to make judgment calls based on an assessment of past events and future consequences, is very much a part of the natural world. Evolution gave us the ability to recognize and make judgments about the appropriateness of external natural processes.
The removal of inferior members of a population is very much a part of natural selection, but so is communal care of infants and the elderly. Although many anti-evolutionists desire to pigeonhole selection as 'survival of the fittest' with fitness determined by the biggest and strongest and most 'red in tooth and claw' this is nothing more than a false representation of the definition of 'fittest'. In some cases, fittest does mean the most brutal, the most violent, the most uncaring. However in many other cases, fitness is not based on who is the biggest or the strongest or the most violent but is based on those who are the most caring and cooperative. In those cases where the most cooperative are the most fit, those that are most violent are generally a very bad thing for the population - they lower the probability for the population to survive. (I'm not advocating group selection here) In nonhuman populations they will be selected against, reducing the percentage of their particular set of alleles within the population. In human populations we can send them off to war or put them in jails where their opportunity to reproduce is reduced. (Again I'm not saying that the group selects for anything, just that our morals and laws, as well as conflicts between groups frequently result from population demographics and density)
Being 'natural' is not necessary and sufficient to be the best option. Trying to claim that Evolution requires us to mindlessly follow one natural process over another is at best a mistake in understanding and at worst disingenouois.
Eugenics as practiced by the Nazis is not the best path for human populations to take, we have recognized this and have consequently rejected it. That rejection is evolutionarily sensible and just as natural as any other selective path. Accepting evolution does not necessitate we accept the anti-evolutionist concept of 'fitness', just the opposite, our cooperative adaptations tend to convince us to prevent one subgroup from subjugating or eliminating another subgroup.
Nazi eugenics is the antithesis of the most appropriate 'natural selection' as it applies to the current human population.
"do you agree that human are special, not merely just another animal?
As in - special creations of a God? No. We are animals every bit as much as the other apes.
As in - because we of all the animals can document historical events, note their consequences and reconsider similar actions, then yes we are special. No other animal has equivalent ability to make decisions based on historical event and extrapolations into the future. As far as we can tell we are the only animals capable of predicting the consequences of future actions beyond the immediate.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
Sorry, but this thread started with a discussion of a misuse of fake documents. Fakery is not a conservative value in my world.
Second, it progressed into a generalized bitch and moan session indistinguishable from a liberal rant about gun control. Apparently ideas, like guns, kill people, so let's outlaw ideas. Nevermind the fact that they are true.
Neither is playing the bigotry card.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
"Eugenics as practiced by the Nazis is not the best path for human populations to take, we have recognized this and have consequently rejected it."
Eugenics as practiced by the Nazis has been rejected on moral, not scientific, grounds.
"It would be wrong to condemn them as bad experiments, if they were carried out on mice."
- Benno Müller-Hill, Professor of Genetics at the University of Cologne, referring to Nazi experimentation upon human subjects (1984).
You show no indication of having read anything I've posted -- you certainly haven't actually responded to anything I've said, that I'm calling it quits for a while.
My only suggestion is that you at least read the links you post before you post them.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
"Apparently ideas, like guns, kill people, so let's outlaw ideas. Nevermind the fact that they are true."
Are you referring to Nazi ideas of racial hygiene, here, or are you referencing the works of Darwin that inspired Francis Galton, and in turn, the Nazis? You really need to narrow that one down, before you raise the specter of a book burning.
LOL. You really are ROM, aren't you?
If I had replied to you there (#766), you might make some sense, but I didn't, and you don't.
Your dysfunctional didactophone appears to ring only in one direction as well, LOL.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
–Victor Frankl in The Doctor and the Soul
That's not what js1138 is saying. What he is saying is that since the idea of eugenics predates Darwin and his ToE, he and it could not be directly responsible for eugenics. (Unless of course Darwin went back in time and talked to Plato - or eugenics as proposed by the Nazis is in some fundimental way (in relation to the ToE) different than previous incarnations)
Mentioning that eugenics predates the ToE also puts the two into the correct correlational relationship. Eugenics is the direct result of watching populations change due to natural selection, and more importantly human selection, as long ago as Plato and the Spartans. The theory of Evolution as proposed by Darwin was the direct result of his (and others) observations of changes in wild populations due to natural selection, and as importantly, selection of domestic animals by humans.
The upshot of this is that eugenics and evolution share a common 'cause', the observation of population changes due to external forces. This also means that the ToE could not be responsible for eugenics. (Many of the conclusions the eugenicists came to and the conclusions of Darwin are quite different).
Anti-evolutionists regularly appeal to the logical fallacy of 'ignoring the common cause' when discussing Nazi's and the ToE. They are so intent on blaming the ToE for the ills of the world that they fail to recognize that groups and individuals other than Darwin can reach conclusions (including conclusions that appalled Darwin) based on the same observations.
Another common fallacy used by anti-evolutionists is 'post hoc ergo propter hoc' where the order of Nazi eugenics and the ToE lead them to believe the one is caused by the other.
You will also note that js1138 has been trying to get people to recognize that the ideas of modern eugenics were not part of the ToE but if there is any connection whatsoever they were a bastardization of Darwin's thoughts and should be characterized as corruptions of the ToE.
Evolution happens, it is observable. The mechanisms behind those observed phenomena can be derived from the observations. Because we can observe natural selection operating in a population does not mean those same selection processes should be applied, or are acceptable, to a human population.
The tenets of the ToE, and the ideas of Darwin as a man, do not suggest the advisability or the inadvisability of applying a specific selection process. That others can take those ideas and twist them to their own application says much more about those people than it does about the theory.
That some can take those corruptions of the theory and claim the theory responsible for those corruptions says more about those people than about the theory.
Or natural selection *for* cooperation between members of a population where those most cooperative have more offspring than those not so cooperative.
Natural selection does not select exclusively for the most brutal. In many cases, brutality will be selected *against*, or selection fluctuates between cooperation and brutality over time.
The problem isn't with our 'special' status but your definition of, and expectation from, nature.
We are 'natural' beings that are subject to natural selection. However nature isn't always 'red in tooth and claw'. Nature also produces cooperation, kindness and caring.
"Because we can observe natural selection operating in a population does not mean those same selection processes should be applied, or are acceptable, to a human population."
Quite so, and said with the advantage of hindsight. Could you make this moral assertion with confidence, absent taboos adopted due to the hellish abyss created by scientists working for the Nazi regime?
Calling human actions natural does not mean that all human actions are inevitable or acceptable. Nor does it mean that any given human action is 'good' for the species or will increase the species survivability.
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