http://www.eugenics.net/

1. Human intelligence is largely hereditary.

2. Civilization depends totally upon innate intelligence. Without innate intelligence, civilization would never have been created. When intelligence declines, so does civilization.

3. The higher the level of civilization, the better off the population. Civilization is not an either-or proposition. Rather, it's a matter of degree, and each degree, up or down, affects the well-being of every citizen.

4. At the present time, we are evolving to become less intelligent with each new generation. Why is this happening? Simple: the least-intelligent people are having the most children.

5. Unless we halt or reverse this trend, our civilization will invariably decline. Any decline in civilization produces a commensurate increase in the collective "misery quotient."

Logic and scientific evidence stand behind each statement listed above.

So, what are your thoughts?

Interesting website - I've read about 5 of the articles thus far. Most certainly, the authors make some very good points in regards to dysgenics. I found this quote to be quite relevant, especially to some of our own forum members who wonder why we don't provide more resources to areas such as metaphysics and pseudosciences:


The Western world has accepted uncritically a huge amount of misinformation about human nature, and as a result of our "mega- superstition," we're causing ourselves, and all our descendants, "mega-suffering." We squander vast amounts of time, effort, and money on misguided programs when all the while our innate intelligence, the very foundation for our civilization and well-being, is silently and steadily slipping away.

I thought something was wrong with the Flynn-effect, because clearly, we are not getting any smarter. This is indeed a very interesting read.

well, the site is a bit misleading. yes hereditary effects intelligence (40-80%), but environment also does. so if you are trying to engineer children or something, you will have to make sure that the genes you use as your basis are not picked from environmentally advantageous people.

hereditary effects intelligence (40-80%), but environment also does...


One U.S. study found that in families with 2 or more brothers, boys with higher IQs than their fathers tended to move up on the socioeconomic-economic ladder when they became adults, whereas those with lower IQs tended to move down (Jencks, 1982). Brothers have almost identical environments - same parents, same house, same food, same schools, same neighborhood. Why do they often differ? Because they get different rolls of their parents' genetic dice. Siblings share their environment almost entirely, but on average, they share only 50% of their genes. Some will share more, some less. [Sperm and eggs are made with half the genes of each parent, so that when they unite, the fertilized egg will have the full complement of genes. But one child won't get the same identical half from his father, and the same identical half from his mother, that his sibling got.] Is it any wonder brothers and sisters often grow up to be quite different? The fact that the smarter ones move up, and the duller ones down, proves that SES is significantly influenced by innate intelligence.

Logic and scientific evidence stand behind each statement listed above.

It would be very amusing to see you try to substantiate any of your post with genuine scientific references. Your link certainly doesn't qualify - it's a website of subjective personal opinion. None of your five points are scientific fact.

Not that I disagree with eugenics, as such. For instance, I fully support pre-implantation screening of embryos for diseases and undesirable traits. At the moment the traits that can be screened for are disease and disease susceptibility, but in the near future we will be in the position to screen for non-disease physical traits and personality traits. I see no logical objection for using science to allow parents to have a tall child with musical ability, for instance.

But society must proceed on a sound basis. "Intelligence" is a complex thing; there are many different types of intelligence and there is a substantial nurture basis to learning and intelligence. It's not all genetics. Basing eugenics on some subjective notion of what constitutes “intelligence” is stupid.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/06/04/1117825100891.html<P>

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I was totally thinking about this today. When reading a magazine article about sharon stones new adopted baby..

Thinking about the amount of successful people adopting children, leaving it until too late in life to have kids, or chosing to have none or few children of their own.

It's kind of amusing really. Killing ourselves off due to our tendancies..

smarter - > less kids - > less intelligent parts of genepool take over - > smarter - > less kids etc etc

nevermind.

ps human civilization is rooted anyway.. we're far beyond repair.

You people are aware that eugenics laws were passed and enforced in both Canada and the US in the early 20th century, right? And that these served as a basis for many of Hitler's beliefs regarding racial superiority? We used forced sterilization to prevent retarded people from procreating here in Ontario. Is that what you're advocating, that we go back to killing the procreative abilities of people we find inconvenient? It fits in nicely with the Left's fetishing of Terri Chiavo's death. Sieg Heil, glorious future!

Sorry, Terri Schiavo. I was too worked up to stop and look it up.

Hitler was also into getting rid of all the mentally retarded and psychologically disturbed people--unfortunately he didn't include himself among their number--I guess he figured that a perfect race shouldn't be embarrassed by the presence of Aryan people who weren't quite up to the mark. But it was all part of the climate of the 1930's--Hitler just went further than most in his nuttiness.

But it was all part of the climate of the 1930's--Hitler just went further than most in his nuttiness.
You think? I nominate this for understatement of the year.

Time to bone up on genetices people. There is (nor can there be) such a thing as 'genetic intelligence'. Genetics is a science of accumulated probability. Intelligence (at best) is a highly relativistic, environmentally embedded measurement. The absolute sum toto one could gleam from a genetic profile of someone would be a probabilistic range of aptitude to learning. This of course, is a few factors removed from even the most common concept of 'intelligence'.
Always remember to keep in mind the agenda of your sources.

Excellent points, Glaucon. Your argument about accumlated probability puts the lie to the main thrust of the eugenicists' argument: that removing "defective" individuals from the gene pool will significantly decrease the likelihood of future "defects". The probabilities leading to defect are the accumulation of millions of years of breeding. The ne plus ultra example of my point is homosexuality. Homosexuals are historically non-procreative, and yet incidents of homosexuality flourish. This is something beyond a shallow genetic trait that can be bread out in a few generations. It's not as if the sum toto of a human being were no more difficult to change than the shade of a dog's coat. And as you say, what constitutes intelligence is so difficult to quantify that it's nearly impossible to predict what combinations of genes make it happen.

Er, might make it happen.

Actually, it's surprising that most people don't see this, especially those of somewhat scientific bent. I mean, even heavily science laden sci-fi flicks depicting some highly-ordered dystopia ( a la Gattaca, et. al.) invariably involve some dissenting characters who have managed to 'sneak through' whatever genetic manipulation [or whatever scientific source of control is chosen (Matrix anyone?)] the 'System' has in place as its control measure. Admittedly, perhaps this is just a poetic license taken by the romantics among us who believe that humanity cannot be reduced so easily. Or, as indeed many leading evolutionary theorists (R Dawkins for one) believe, intelligence (and perhaps other human qualia) is quite simply not reducible.

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4. At the present time, we are evolving to become less intelligent with each new generation. Why is this happening? Simple: the least-intelligent people are having the most children.
Haven't IQ scores been steadily increasing since they first started testing with them? And I want to see no bullshit about how IQ tests dont measure intelligence.

Haven't IQ scores been steadily increasing since they first started testing with them? And I want to see no bullshit about how IQ tests dont measure intelligence.
IQ tests being relative to acquired knowledge, and acquired knowledge being relative to education, and the quality of education improving as time goes by, you could reasonably expect IQ scores to generally improve without needing an explanation based in genetic theory.

In short, the only thing that actually can make any kind of sense at all actually makes no sense whatsoever, scientifically speaking.

Gad! That would make such a good Fortune Cookie...

You Brits are funny. I take it back when I said (other thread, can't remember which) you should "be allowed to drown in your own blood in the coming Euro-apocalypse." I'm paraphrasing my own post here.

You read that article as well eh Roman?
You seem to have forgotten the part where they mentioned that over the past 30 years the test(s) have also been made easier and easier. (We wouldn't want to hurt little Johnny's feelings now would we?)

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It's true. And we have the Primeminister to prove it.
You know, I always thought Tony resembled the Charles puppet from Spitting Image. "Oh, I've got a lovely bunch of co-kee-nuts..."

We keep growing less intelligent yet our technological advancements and philosophical concerns keep getting more complex; a small contradiction, isn't it?

We keep growing less intelligent yet our technological advancements and philosophical concerns keep getting more complex; a small contradiction, isn't it?

Oh, not at all! In fact, it even has precedent in history. Sailors of old could find their positions by the sun and the stars. Today's sailors can't do that BECAUSE they have GPS units and radios and radar. See? The technology advanced to the point of sailors knowing less and less.

But that's true for many, many things. How many people can actually cook these days? ...with microwave foods and even full-course meals, why bother?

People don't know how to churn butter anymore, either!

How many of us can fix/repair their own cars? When I was a kid, we took the damned engines and transmissions apart, replaced the bad parts, put it all back together again and .....voila'... "new" car! Can't do that now because of all the electronics in the damned things.

And don't forget ....our markets are set up for cheap goods that are "throw-away" models. We don't "repair" things anymore, we just buy new ones.

Baron Max

We keep growing less intelligent yet our technological advancements and philosophical concerns keep getting more complex; a small contradiction, isn't it?

Yup. Just yesterday I was reading Scientific American about this newfangled, um...what was I talking about?

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Oh, not at all! In fact, it even has precedent in history. Sailors of old could find their positions by the sun and the stars. Today's sailors can't do that BECAUSE they have GPS units and radios and radar. See? The technology advanced to the point of sailors knowing less and less.

But that's true for many, many things. How many people can actually cook these days? ...with microwave foods and even full-course meals, why bother?

People don't know how to churn butter anymore, either!

How many of us can fix/repair their own cars? When I was a kid, we took the damned engines and transmissions apart, replaced the bad parts, put it all back together again and .....voila'... "new" car! Can't do that now because of all the electronics in the damned things.

And don't forget ....our markets are set up for cheap goods that are "throw-away" models. We don't "repair" things anymore, we just buy new ones.

Baron Max

How does butter churning make you smarter? By your standards Stephen Hawking is a moron and the Amish are geniuses. Wait a minute. Is this sarcasm? The last paragraph makes it hard to tell.

Yet we had people who came up with radios and cars and keep improving the technology. Of course, those at the assembly lines aren't too smart, but when in history were the masses smart? On the contrary, they go to school now, and can read and write (hopefully). Perhaps the sailor can't tell his way without the technology available, but he knows other things. Look, the ancients didn't know the earth was round!

And, it all depends on the individual. Reparation of objects and cooking is a cultural thing, lack of which is particular to American consumerism and is not necessarily evident in other countries. I wouldn't even generalise so far as to say that nobody repairs and cooks in US: repair shops have workers and stores sell mostly fresh vegetables, fruits, and meat. There are even cook books that are bought.

By your standards Stephen Hawking is a moron and the Amish are geniuses.

How ...how, ....how in the world did you get that from my post????????

Baron Max

Perhaps the sailor can't tell his way without the technology available, but he knows other things.

Like what?


Look, the ancients didn't know the earth was round!

And it didn't matter at all, did it? He still sailed off into the sunset without a GPS unit or radar or radio. He didn't give one rat's turd whether the earth was round or not. Intelligence is relative, isn't it?

Baron Max

How ...how, ....how in the world did you get that from my post????????

Baron Max

Butter churning. What does my lack of skill butter churning have to do with my intelligence? If it doesn't have anything to do with my intelligence, then what were you talking about? I is confused.

I believe the best evidence that humans are not becoming less intelligent is this very forum and the participants that so beautifully exemplify the progress of human intelligence from cave dweller to modern day condominium dweller.

That human beings have progressed beyond their original animalistic selves is self-evident.
You can see it in the rationalism and contemplative manner in which they tackle such complicated subject matter, as this one, and in the cool and collected way in which they reach logical, objective perspective devoid of any emotionalism or stupid superficiality.

I consider myself proud to be one, unwilling student, amongst you all

Like what?

What kind of a sailor do you have in mind?


And it didn't matter at all, did it? He still sailed off into the sunset without a GPS unit or radar or radio. He didn't give one rat's turd whether the earth was round or not. Intelligence is relative, isn't it?

He had a compass and a map; a map at the very least. And then, there was Columbus. Plus, technology also requires knowledge of how to use and maintain it; and then, we also ask ourselves whether use of some of our tech. achievements are ethical. (See, luxury allows for contemplation, does not eliminate it.)
Yes, everything is relative. My point is that we're not less intelligent overall than our predecessors and we're not growing stupid.

You seem to have forgotten the part where they mentioned that over the past 30 years the test(s) have also been made easier and easier. (We wouldn't want to hurt little Johnny's feelings now would we?)

Ah, yes, I seem to. I was wondering if that was the case, but was unsure.

The most obvious sign of deteriorating intellects is this modern fad concerning cellular phones.
Here, for sure, the medium is the message and…..wait I’m getting a call on my other line….

It's me! Hold on, I've got a long distance on the other line...

As for the claims that IQ tests measure knowledge: do your homework! Properly constructed tests do not quantify accumulated knowledge, but rather aim to evaluate a general ability to reason: see the Ravens or any other culture-fair test... :)

It's me! Hold on, I've got a long distance on the other line...

As for the claims that IQ tests measure knowledge: do your homework! Properly constructed tests do not quantify accumulated knowledge, but rather aim to evaluate a general ability to reason: see the Ravens or any other culture-fair test... :)

Maybe I was thinking of the SATs (which I was never required to take). My ignorance. Great! Now I'll have to rethink my stance again the whole de-evolution idea.

The SATS are specifically designed to test knowledge.

No, SATs test test-taking skills, as well as IQ tests.

Yeah, that too. But what exactly is a test taking skill?

What's a skill ? O_o;

Are you kidding? They have books teaching how to take SATs. I know, it's ridiculous, yet it's the reality. If I remember right, each section is divided into levels of difficulty, the first few questions being the easiest ones; the book says that the "average" test taker will always pick the easiest, most obvious answer, or something like that.

Well of course there are ways too take tests. Answering all the easiest questions first is a good way to conserve time. Taking wild guesses is no good, as you lose points when you get questions wrong. Narrowing down those choices, then guessing from there, will more likely yield a right answer, and more points.

This hardly seems like testing test taking skills. If you don't know trig, then you don't know trig. If you don't know that 2+2=4, you lose.