SUBJ1

"I am a machine built to propagate my genes. Not yours, not society's best, mine. That's what I'm built to do, that is my purpose, my raison d'etre. This is why I want to have my children with my genes. Any other arrangement, whether rational or not, simply won't be acceptable. End of. Jack Hughes (talk) 15:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)"[1]

<monotone> Errrrr, I am Lumenati ReasonDiva 8000. According to my sensors your lumenator has malfunctioned.</monotone> You don't seem like one who would consider themselves to be a "social darwinist" so this must be some new fashionable scientificish evolutionary theory? Could you please explain how you came to the conclusion that you are "a machine built to propagate [your] genes"? ~ Lumenos (talk) 21:55, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Lumenos, I am only going to say this once. You are a fucking nut.

Well you aren't helping me understand anything without pointing out some flaw in my reazoning.

In the absence of a like button here's a "+1"

Read the Selfish Gene by Dawkins. It gets even more interesting though. It turns out that there can be interchromosomal competition between genes in the same organism. In highly polygamous species the male chromosome often develops genes that try and over extract resources from the mother, while the mother's chromosomes try and suppress this.

I can dig up some specific papers on this if you want. One of my favorite demonstrations of it was two sub-species of mice, one was highly polygamous the other monogamous. They could interbreed though. If you took a polygamous male mated with a monogamous female you wound up with giant babies, if you did the reverse you wound up with scrawny under nourished babies. This gets into the Red Queen's race issues of signaling, but its intra-organism selection.

Que? I don't know that mice have any understanding of the future consequences of who breeds how and when, thus I don't understand how that proves that Jack Hughes is programed to propagate his genes.

Is it possible Jack has been programed by some sort of "education"?

Individuals are a product of genes, the traits that genes encode for are traits that increased the propagation of the gene that encodes that trait.

Isn't that kinda like saying computers are the product of hardware?

No, it is like saying computers are the product of the machines that built them. You might try looking up the meanings of the words "genotype" and "phenotype."

But, Teacher, I thought we were talking about the behaviour and value system of one particular "computer".

And ultimately behavior is a product of proteins.

Much like everything my computer does is the product of hardware?

Lumenos

Seriously I would expect most people on this site to be aware of the contents of "The Selfish Gene" even if they haven't read it. Check it out, it's an important book, possibly more than anything else Dawkins has written.

Why can't you just tell me what the book says, as it relates to this topic?

I don't believe anyone understands human behavior enough to prove genetic determinism.

RTFM - seriously.

In the meantime - from Wikipedia

“”The Selfish Gene is a book on evolution by Richard Dawkins, published in 1976. It builds upon the principal theory of George C. Williams's first book Adaptation and Natural Selection. Dawkins coined the term "selfish gene" as a way of expressing the gene-centred view of evolution as opposed to the views focused on the organism and the group. From the gene-centred view follows that the more two individuals are genetically related, the more sense (at the level of the genes) it makes for them to behave selflessly with one another. Therefore the concept is especially good at explaining many forms of altruism, regardless of a common misuse of the term along the lines of a selfishness gene. An organism is expected to evolve to maximize its inclusive fitness — the number of copies of its genes passed on globally (rather than by a particular individual). As a result, populations will tend towards an evolutionarily stable strategy. The book also coins the term meme for a unit of human cultural evolution analogous to the gene, suggesting that such "selfish" replication may also model human culture, in a different sense. Memetics has become the subject of many studies since the publication of the book.

Note that this implies that evolution favours the survival of the gene rather than the individual. In most cases this comes down to the same thing but bees which die to protect the hive are a classic example of when it's not.

At the risk of oversimplification in evolutionary terms my "job" is to be a vehicle for the survival and propagation of the various genes that I am made up of. My evolutionary "fitness" is determined by the number of genetic offspring I produce. Note that it's the number, not the quality, whatever that might mean. As such I am programmed to prefer my offspring over those of others. This is not wholly determined - adopted children are loved as much as natural offspring - but it is summed up in the old phrase "blood is thicker than water" or, as SJC's son said - "Kids that you are related to are cuter".

This is why eugenics is counter to genetic evolution. I would gladly give my life for my children - my genetic offspring - and would make sacrifices for my tribe - my close genetic cousins. However expecting me to give up genetic survival for the sake of... of what? Some vague concept in the "improvement" of humanity? This is doubly true when, as you point out, strict genetic determinism is highly doubtful - now you're asking me to give up genetic survival for some vague "improvement" in humanity using a method that may not work very well. Nah, that breaks the program.

Your book review, didn't elaborate much on the simple concept of genetic determinism, so I'm replying to your later comments.

"At the risk of oversimplification in evolutionary terms my "job" is to be a vehicle for the survival and propagation of the various genes that I am made up of."

That's a fine analogy. But unlike the mouse you "know" who your "boss" is. Can you disagree with your "boss"? Do you have any preference for subjective things like happiness, liberty, awareness? Isn't your conscious mind and it's needs, more of a certainty than unimaginably complex theories of how the body works?

"My evolutionary "fitness" is determined by the number of genetic offspring I produce. Note that it's the number, not the quality, whatever that might mean."

Quality means their genes can last longer (since that is aaaaall you care about). Otherwise why aren't you hunting night and day for pregnatable females to shag?

""Kids that you are related to are cuter"."

You'll just grab at anything that appears to support your philosophy. Look and you will see counter-examples.

"As such I am programmed to prefer my offspring over those of others."

Obviously, we are not all that way. How do you explain me? I prefer my "memetic" offspring who I have chosen, not an ancestral heirloom.

"This is why eugenics is counter to genetic evolution. I would gladly give my life for my children - my genetic offspring - and would make sacrifices for my tribe - my close genetic cousins. However expecting me to give up genetic survival for the sake of... of what? Some vague concept in the "improvement" of humanity?"

Let's take the extreme example of genetic engineering. Do you like absolutely everything about your genes? Say you had omniscient knowledge of your genome and your wife's genome, and you could combine germ cells, select every gene, and control the entire process. Would you change nothing?

"You'll just grab at anything that appears to support your philosophy. Look and you will see counter-examples."

Where to start?

• There is a yawning abyss of difference between a "philosophy" and a gut reaction.
• It is a very good thing that infants are cute, since that provides motivation for the laborious endeavor of keeping their little butts dry and clean, to say nothing of the hours spent marching up and down with a colicky kid on one's shoulder, screaming its lungs out right in one's ear. I can testify that it takes an awful lot of cuteness to make up for that, when the time could have been far better spent catching up on sleep.
• I am not sure I even have a philosophy. To the extent that I might have the approaches to one, they could be summed up by the clever sayings on the back of the little tags once attached to Salada tea bags. My friend Paul claimed that those tags all said the same thing: "Don't be a dickhead."
• There are always counter-examples. Something about them defining the parameters or boundaries of any rule... oh, right; that is what's meant by "proving the rule," putting it to the test.
• More significant than the counter-examples are the central examples, the ones which define the prototype of a coherent cluster of ideas.
• Philosophy has taken great strides since Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Many of those steps had to do with demolishing the false dichotomies at the root of classical logic.
• Have a nice day.

Just to be clear I guess you are arguing that "Kids that you are related to are cuter" is a universal trait of humans?

"More significant than the counter-examples are the central examples, the ones which define the prototype of a coherent cluster of ideas."

Have you pretty much shown us the unquestionable evidence that you have discovered a "central example"?

"It is a very good thing that infants are cute, since that provides motivation for the laborious endeavor of"...

When I said "philosophy" I basically meant "speculation" and "hypothesizing"; wild, creative, "fascinating" hypothesizing, that would make Kent Hovind proud to be a scientist. Dream on, ReasonDiva.

"There are always counter-examples. Something about them defining the parameters or boundaries of any rule... oh, right; that is what's meant by "proving the rule," putting it to the test."

And you've clearly provided proved the "rule" in this case, Teach.

I guess you are arguing that "Kids that you are related to are cuter" is a universal trait of humans?

Guess again.

Looking for unquestionable evidence or any kind of teaching in this corner of the web is liable to be frustrating and fruitless. Using your own made-up definitions of words such as "philosophy" is guaranteed to make discussion useless.

I was replying to Jack who reproduced your quote (thus the ""quadruple"" quotation marks). Here is the fuller quote:

"As such I am programmed to prefer my offspring over those of others. This is not wholly determined - adopted children are loved as much as natural offspring - but it is summed up in the old phrase "blood is thicker than water" or, as SJC's son said - "Kids that you are related to are cuter". "

Note the topic of this thread. Perhaps I don't understand either one of you.

"Looking for unquestionable evidence or any kind of teaching in this corner of the web is liable to be frustrating and fruitless."

Not really looking for it, just arguing that any evidence doesn't seem to be there. You agree?

"Using your own made-up definitions of words such as "philosophy" is guaranteed to make discussion useless."

This is a close one, "An academic discipline that seeks truth through reasoning rather than empiricism" [1] but I would say "speculation" rather than "reasoning". Or "doctrine: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school"[2] Being that I consider myself a (bad) philosopher, I like to poke fun at people who think they practice "science" because they ramble in "scientificish" jargon, as in erroneously using some observation of the natural world or a "scientific study" to support their philosophy (usually naturalism which isn't such a bad religion, but genetic determinism is off the deep end, IMO).

I never understood why you chose the subject that you did. However you start off by disputing that I am a machine built to propagate my genes. As this is pretty much the main thrust of "The Selfish Gene", a book I urge you once again to read as it really is an important one, I, and others, referred to it. No one said that were genetically determined, genetically predisposed certainly, but not genetically determined.

There is no avoiding that the source of this squabble debate is a thread you started on eugenics and the post that you refer to was my attempt to point out that I am genetically predisposed to prefer my genetic offspring to those of others. As such, for all those whose genes are considered "unworthy" eugenics goes against their genetic programming.

Should this matter? Yes, it should. You are depriving those you deem "unworthy" - and who are you to decide anyway - of the most natural of processes, one that everyone is preprogrammed to perform, even those who, for some reason or another, choose not to follow that program.

I think that reading (and hopefully understanding) The Selfish Gene should be a prerequisite to taking part in this discussion. Failure to do may give people the impression that you don't know what you're talking about.

Actually Bob, I get the "impression" that people don't know what they are talking about when they can't debate it in fewer words than a book, particularly a book they haven't written.

Oh look...

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene-centered_view_of_evolution

...you had meme-twins! How cute!

Why don't we start here since this is the most important of theses, of the most important of all books, in the most authoritative of all wikis. Let's see, should I start with the section "Wha?!?" or the section "Attempt of explanation"?

Thank you for clarifying that. Or something.

You call this a debate? So far all I see is ignorant verbal wanking on your part, and good-faith attempts to explain things on the part of others. It is obvious that you are unaware of the extent of your ignorance, and are expecting others to spoon-feed you stuff you can easily grasp. News flash: teaching is hard work, something people get paid to do. You seem to think Bob will gladly do it for free in your case, in return for your insinuation that he doesn't know what he is talking about.

Some things cannot be conveyed in a few pithy sentences, more so if the reader has not taken the trouble to come up to speed with what's previously been laid out. Suggesting that you read "The Selfish Gene" is actually a way of saving you time, the time you might otherwise have to spend sifting through Dawkins's sources.

"As such I am programmed to prefer my offspring over those of others."

Obviously, we are not all that way. How do you explain me? I prefer my "memetic" offspring who I have chosen, not an ancestral heirloom.

"This is why eugenics is counter to genetic evolution. I would gladly give my life for my children - my genetic offspring - and would make sacrifices for my tribe - my close genetic cousins. However expecting me to give up genetic survival for the sake of... of what? Some vague concept in the "improvement" of humanity?"

Let's take the extreme example of genetic engineering. Do you like absolutely everything about your genes? Say you had omniscient knowledge of your genome and your wife's genome, and you could combine germ cells, > select every gene, and control the entire process. Would you change nothing?

I prefer to make changes and choices in the world which actually confronts me. I do not think you appreciate the magnitude of a genome, nor the complexities of its expression.

Say you had omiscient knowledge of every grain of sand on your own private beach, and could select the size and shape of each one so that spectacular castles would spontaneously form from the typical range of wave action. Would you do so?

Yes. (I asked you (or Jack) first, though.)

It would seem that your point is back to, "you can't get any closer to intended results from selective breeding". I'm probably missing something again.

I would rather have cute babies form, because they are safer than meth.

No sane human would refuse safe genetic engineering for themselves or their unborn children, which shows that the "I want my genes to spread" argument against eugenics is nonsense.

"No sane human would refuse safe genetic engineering for themselves or their unborn children" begs the question, "is genetic engineering safe?"

We, as a species, do not yet have enough data for an informed opinion about that.

"I want my genes to spread." is not an "argument against eugenics" but rather a set of primordial urges built into biology. Going against those urges will take some serious police power of the state. Centrally planned bureaucratic control of human breeding? Who wishes for that again? Who thinks they can gather the authority to make it stick?

Of course genetic engineering is safe. It's just a matter of finding a safe way to do it.

Sex is an urge and the society expects us to control it, for males having children is rather irrelevant.

The Chinese do, and they manage it with heavy fines.

Genetic engineering is safe? There is no possible way we can know that. One more time, I do not think you appreciate the magnitude of a genome, nor the complexities of its expression. Throw in environmental/ecological interactions, and analysis is even less tractable. Taking risky, quite possibly far-reaching, steps based on unreliable projections is foolishness, to put it politely.

Unintended consequences can be a bitch.

"Males having children is rather irrelevant" ?? Bull. Not socially, not emotionally, and in most modern societies not financially.

Sex is one urge. Procreation is another, related but different.

Are you suggesting that we, wherever "we" are, should willingly adopt the Chinese model? Are you aware of the human suffering, the opportunities for authoritarian abuse there?

Central planning and micromanagement have a bad name, and for good reason. Tell us about the farming you've done, the livestock you keep, the children you have raised... I'll save myself some typing, and say "I didn't think so" right here.

Genetic engineering is safe. We can fall back to cloning.

"Bull." So do adopting parents get treated differently? No.

People in developed nations have far less children. Having children is attractive, but there is no "urge" beyond cultural. Humans don't even understand the mechanism to make children out of the box.

I am not suggesting that we adopt Chinese socialism, just pointing out that smacking a big fine on people who do criminal things does discourage them a lot. It is called enforcement.

If it's bad it's micromanagement, if it's good it's regulation.

Your saying so does not make genetic engineering safe. "We can always just fall back to cloning" is nothing but baseless hand-waving.

What type of regime will it be that criminalizes having babies?

Your saying so does not make genetic engineering safe. "We can always just fall back to cloning" is nothing but baseless hand-waving. What it does is it displays you are in denial. It is not at all an unreasonable assumption that there can be safe genetic engineering besides eugenics.

A regime that practices democracy, bringing many advantages.

Modified genes have already escaped into the wild, with effects that will not be known for a while. Even if you limit the discussion to engineering the human genome, there is still a risk of undesirable side effects. Assume it could be made safe; safe for what proportion of the population? How soon? At what cost?

I think you meant a regime that proclaims democracy. Plenty of examples of how that can go. Advantages to a small circle of friends, perhaps. Perhaps you believe you will be one of the select few?

Details aren't really significant. This exercise was designed to show that genetic engineering is desirable. If it becomes safe and available to a couple they will gladly use it. This will not leave their urges untreated and turn them into anarchists. In the light that eugenics is low-tech genetic engineering, why should a poorer couple reject eugenics?

What kind of benefits you think an Eugenics Party could deal out? Remember, Japanese pornography is not based on reality.

"No one said that we're genetically determined, genetically predisposed certainly, but not genetically determined."

Perhaps I must apologize for misinterpreting you all along. Let me backup. You described yourself as a "machine built to propagate my genes". Are you a multifunction machine or is that your only essential function?

In evolutionary terms that is my only function. I'm not sure there's any purpose outside of this either.

In the vernacular, that is usually stated as, "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."

Assuming the egg lacks consciousness, it doesn't really care if it makes a chicken. The consciousness is the only thing that gives the egg a subjective purpose (even if there is no free will). (Of course, eggs have a purpose for humans, but in this case we are talking about human chickens.) It seems that you are applying a sort of teleological metaphor to evolutionary "functions".

Where do you get the idea that "way of making" implies consciousness or intent?

When you get past over-thinking, past using words to mire yourself in map/territory confusion, past the whole notion of "cause," be it teleological or effective, then you may get somewhere worthwhile.

Until then, I suspect you may be stuck with making up excuses and reasons you are right.

Well what does it mean? Eggs result in chickens, which result in eggs. We all know that already. I thought, we used to say it the other way around because the chicken seems more human than the egg. And humans do some things intentionally. It seemed you were trying to dispel a myth of free will. But I the more difficult myth that "we" are discussing here (perhaps only me and myself) is that of environment having no influence on a person's intentions, and also that the only essential function of genes is to replicate themselves.

• It means that it is very useful to question the basis of your thought. Examine your assumptions, and when you have found your answer, keep on examining, since it is just about certain that, whatever you may think, you have not found the answer.
• The simple words "way of making" carry a lot of closely related meanings, like a lot of other short common English words. Reading the works of Lakoff, Johnson, Rosch, and others, regarding cognitive linguistics and embodied cognition, will get you a deeper understanding of the particulars of how that works, how the various meanings hang together in a natural way, than I can pass along in a few lines.
• Chickens are animals, with likes, dislikes, and the ability to move around, even to fly for short distances. While I do not see them as anything close to human, they do have a few motivations that we might be able to relate to, and even make use of.
• Trying to split environment from heredity can take one along a path of disconnection from sensible reality. "Sensible" is another one of those words that most people think they understand. Fine, as long as you include things like "palpable," "tangible," "audible," and "visible" in the mix.
• Taking the view that a gene's only "aim" (or essential function) is to replicate itself as widely as possible can lead to some interesting hypotheses, some of them counter-intuitive.
• To be continued. I have more reading to do; give me, myself and Amazon a week or two...

Are there other "terms" in which you have other "functions" (or any "purposes")?

Or try it this way; why should anyone care about their evolutionary function? For example, you seem to be using it as a basis for ethical values. Isn't that committing the is-ought fallacy?

(BTW I should probably mention at some point, that I'm perplexed by questions of free will and the mind-body problem. I'm reacting with questions/statements that hopefully sound good, going from point A to point B, but I may be missing something.)

Why should anyone care about their evolutionary function - well, if you believe, as I do, that the root of ethics is evolutionary then the two are closely linked.

The metaphysics of morality get well complicated and its hard to find logical reasons why eugenics is a "bad thing". However my point is that it is against the evolutionarily predisposed will of the people. It can be sold when it is generally agreed that those who are to be deprived of "breeding rights" are those who have no voice anyway but if you're suggesting, as Lumenarse is, that we should use eugenics to breed a master-race - remember that this is where we came in - then the dispossessed will be the bulk of the population.

So, whether eugenics is right or wrong I am saying that at the level Lumenarse suggested it would be against the will of the population and unsellable. You would have to enforce it.

And, now that we're talking about right/wrong and good/bad why should intelligence be the selection criteria. It is just as valid to say that only Olympic athletes should be allowed to breed. Maybe we should be even more exclusive - only those who show top athletic skills and have an IQ > 140 and or, just as validly, only those who have an income in the top 1% - they're proven winners.

Isn't it odd how those who suggest eugenics are always in the "approved group".

You are not making sense. Evolutionarily the women should be in favor eugenics, as it turns out they are not. Men should be against women's rights, they are not. Evolutionarily there should be no vegans. What people want to do has little to do with evolution, it's about their culture facing the environment. You are believing silly things.

Intelligence should be a selection criteria because it's a positive attribute. Obviously it shouldn't be the only one and we should be careful about measuring it.

Isn't it odd how those opposing eugenics always have an inferiority complex.

We both feel that the other is failing to make sense and, as such, this conversation is increasingly pointless. I have simply no idea where you have picked up the idea that I have an inferiority complex.

My opposition to eugenics is quite straightforward - it comes down to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -

“”(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Proponents of eugenics wish to do away with that right on the basis that selective breeding produces "better" human beings. That very concept chills me to the bone.

They do not. You can still have a family, but the father won't be the biological father. Your criticism is invalid.

Thinking that getting somebody pregnant is a big deal and therefore doing that would make the person a bit more "equal" to others seems like inferiority complex to me.

Thinking that getting somebody pregnant is a big deal and therefore doing that would make the person a bit more "equal" to others seems like inferiority complex to me.

No, that just says you have never experienced holding your new born child in your arms. Getting someone pregnant isn't a big deal - it's the big deal, it's the biggest deal of all, it's what it's all about. Nothing else comes close - my first gig in front of a 10,000+ audience was a high I'll never forget but not even in the same ball park as holding my son in my arms. I have a massive superiority complex over you in that I do understand these fundamentals because I have experienced them whereas you, quite patently, have not.

Have you ever tried just holding babies that just came out of your wife in your arms? I heard it's better if the baby is not related.

Yes.

You were misinformed.

Misinformed indeed. I have held numerous babies, mostly other people's, of course. I still remember the occasion when I experienced an overwhelming undeniable involuntary wave of affection for my son, who was two or three days old at the time, the little pink frog.

We are often unaware of our built-in capabilities until they are called upon. This is why I have little patience for verbal speculation without observation or experience to back it up. Based in the head rather than the core, that kind of speculation seems to be happening here, big-time.

Ahhh we must drink the Kool-Aid to understand true love...<cough> Hovind <cough>

Lumenos, you seem to be a senseless douche.

To sum up your main "arguments" here, read my (friend's) book and you don't know what love is. <cough> Hovind <cough>

You make excellent pun on birth control, which, as far as I can tell, is the real evil y'all are dismissing. Are your genes just as satisfied with an aborted fetus? So shouldn't you be opposed to abortion (as with all other birth control)? (Keep in mind that unlike the BON I have said nothing to support forced eugenics, which is an entirely different issue IMO.)

There is a difference between offering a courtier's reply and pointing an uninformed interlocutor such as yourself at something that might help. Your writings carry the marks of someone who lives in your head, without much connection to earthbound reality, and who thinks you can deduce all worthwhile knowledge using the bits of verbal language you already know. Experience is one cure for all that.

I don't care whether you know what love is or not.

Your continued shifting focus, RTFP failure (one small example) and refusal to familiarize yourself with accurate vocabulary remind me of <insert snarky description of playing chess with a pigeon>. Views can change, and birdbrains can become human. You might get better.

If someone is against abortion or birth control, then they shouldn't do it. Nobody's business but theirs.

In other words, offering the coutier's reply is different when you are right instead of wrong. Allow me to demonstrate: My experience suggests to me that my sole intention is not merely to replicate genes. I don't doubt this plays a large role in your life and that of many/most people. Do your purport to understand my conscious/subconscious motivations better than I do? Supposing you do not, we have different programming. The question is, whose inclinations are better? My inclinations are to better our lives, your's are to propagate your genes (supposedly).

But my "coutier's reply" isn't a great argument because you have "science" (ie "Dawkins") to tell you that I don't know my true purpose.

"Your continued [...] RTFP failure (one small example)"

I believe in all likelihood I misread and there was not some COINTELPRO joker desperately trying to make us believe that we are each other's enemy. (You once lectured the class on the quality of eduction one may receive on an Internet forum. I do make many mistakes and I often acknowledge them.) However, none of my arguments in this thread or the "pro-choice eugenics" forum, were based on that premise and therefore this is yet another ad hominem remark.

Did I read another post wrong? Is there a post where someone has explained how Dawkins has verified that we are gene propagation machines? Was there even evidence Dawkins would agree with that assessment? Or is the only "argument" here to RTFB and HAFB (have a fucking baby)?

That phobe/phile hiccup was too easy, sorry. You did own up to it.

Not going to comb through the thread for other examples, but another example leaps to mind: taking "way of making another egg" and bringing consciousness and intent or teleology into it was at the very least an extrapolation, a non sequitur.

I offer the thought that our consciousness, subconsciousness and other brainal functions are a product of much more low-level body chemistry. That chemistry is not simple. It may not even be strictly deterministic, but still it has profound effects which many people do not even notice.

Not enormously relevant but interesting, there is a video of some molecular simulations of DNA activity, and protein synthesis.

Apology accepted. I might have some other things to apologize for. I don't like making people feel bad, especially me. Anyway, getting back to business...

Your next example is not quite as apparent as the first. I thought the whole "eggs way of reproducing itself" was a counter-intuitive scoff at teleology.

Chemistry that is possibly not deterministic? You mean "random" or some sort of supernatural"/"metaphysical"?

I wouldn't argue that chemistry/people isn't deterministic, but here we are talking about whether neuro-memetic chemistry is like unto software, while genetic chemistry is like unto hardware. Jack's statement in the OP suggests not only that hardware determines behaviour, but that its sole "function" is to reproduce hardware. My computer could be said to be using humans to reproduce and evolve itself, if you squint and consider the possibility.

That analogy between people and computing machinery is too flawed to be very useful. Biology does not offer a bright line between hardware and software, begging the question of whether organisms have either such thing to begin with.

WTF is "neuro-memetic chemistry?"

No need to squint to take the view that computers (and networks of them) are using humans to accomplish their development and reproduction. More reality and less science fiction about it all the time.

I'm talking about the effect of environment on the brain. How, for example, through one's environment one may come to believe that we are gene-propagation machines and go on to use this as a basis for an ethical principle that would forbid us from promoting voluntary eugenics on the grounds that it restricts the normal/natural functions of the body and mind.

Not sure how that qualifies as "chemistry."

I'm of the opinion that what enters the brain, via the senses, causes physical changes in the brain. For example, memories and perceptions. Memories would seem to be stored in electro-chemical form.

"If someone is against abortion or birth control, then they shouldn't do it. Nobody's business but theirs."

And what does that have to do with the price of fish?

Sir, do you or do you not have an argument against "pro-choice eugenics", which does not equally condemn (pro-choice) contraception? (Please inform me if I have used meaningless and inaccurate vocabulary again.)

WTF is "pro-choice eugenics," and who made up that term?

Procreation is something that happens in populations. Applying a uniform set of criteria to that is a forlorn hope, even in the most effective authoritarian regimes. Love is well-known to to laugh at locksmiths.

Individual reproductive choices are exactly that: individual. The reasons for them are manifold, and subject to neither fiat nor facile analysis.

You are certainly free to make up your own language, and in that effort you have my sympathy and applause. Just don't expect to hold very many fruitful discussions with it outside whatever circle of adherents it may gather.

"Pro-choice eugenics" is a "politically correct" term for "private voluntary eugenics", here I have authoritative source so you will know this is a real term made up by experts and consensus or something.

If I call it "private voluntary eugenics" then will you stop using the straw man of "mandatory eugenics" as if you are arguing against something I have typed? (I think if you abort someone for being gay, that is rather mandatory, but just to be "concise".)

Any form of eugenics faces the slippery slope towards social mandate. Have you sampled European attitudes regarding nuclear family size lately? Getting the state involved is a scarier prospect, largely because of the opportunities it offers for bureaucratic incompetence.

Most people on this planet have no idea that there is such a thing as private voluntary eugenics. Even such a benign (in my view, at least) thing as planning family size may be a statistical outlier. Can you point at anything that credibly shows statistically significant effects of "voluntary eugenics," preferably on a global scale?

"Even such a benign (in my view, at least) thing as planning family size may be a statistical outlier."

Outlier: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample

No comprende, Senior.

Are statistically significant effects necessary to show that voluntary eugenics is a legitimate or useful term. Or are statistically significant effects necessary to show that voluntary eugenics could have a beneficial effect (worldwide)? If the latter, I think there are benefits for those who practice it, and that is enough. The usual way is just for people to consider genetics when they make a baby or adopt a child.

"Getting the state involved is a scarier prospect, largely because of the opportunities it offers for bureaucratic incompetence. '

How about just deleting the bullshit statement from the RW article, which implies selective breeding does nothing? I don't recall saying anything about involving the state. I would think more people would support state involvement when there is significant risk of a genetic physical disease, at least.

Desculpe-me, senhor.

Looking at a global sample, I suspect that the number of carefully planned babies is far far far (...) far smaller than the number of kids that just happened. It is rightly more about populations than individuals.

Like it or not, "eugenics" carries historical baggage that "selective breeding" does not connote. Not many people complain about breeding different strains of non-human animals, which is why restaurants can get away with advertising anus burgers. Well, actually, the sign said "Angus" before the smartass dishwasher changed it.

The talk page of the article would be a better place to discuss propsed changes to it.

So? As you imply, selective breeding suggests animals, which isn't what we are talking about.

If you are trying to avoid an issue, it helps if you don't allow any word into you vocabulary, for the thing you don't wish to discuss. I feel I'm pulling teeth here.

The point about the RW article, is not what is in an article that isn't likely to influence anyone. The point is, that this is what I take issue with, and this is what you refuse to acknowledge.

A small percentage of the world invents, discovers, and creates the most significant contributions to science, technology, and culture. Even if only a few more intelligent people get the message, it could make a big difference, because their progeny have the greatest potential to change the world. This isn't only about improving the entire human genome, it is about improving the entire world's knowledge and culture.

When the brilliance of an Einstein is discovered, he should be encouraged to mate with many women who seem to have good genetics; all sorts of women of different ethnicities and characteristics. There were probably willing women, if Einstein were willing, and not burdened with counter-productive norms of monogamy, the purity of abstinence and virginity, the shame of open sexuality. "Open sexuality" includes polyamory or at least shamelessly donating seamen (to avoid risk of infection or to avoid having sex with someone he isn't attracted to). If he was mentally restrained, embarrassed, or otherwise discouraged from expressing or exploring his sexual urges, from a young age, this may have stunted his libido and willingness to spread his seed far and wide. Just a possibility and one we have yet to focus on, for all this nail chewing over mandatory eugenics.

We have a big problem when people like Einstien are too timid to get their freak on, while those who are dim and reckless are fucking like mad. We must find the lion in these sensitive intellectuals and glorify their natural (male) polyamory.

Similarly, those other myn [good natured gentlemen] who appreciate the privilege to raise the uber-children, should not be made to feel they are FAILING and INFERIOR, with terms like "cuckold", based on the presumption that they are supposed to be spreading their own genes. They are the ones the uber-children will bond with and learn from. They are their fathers/mothers in the emotional sense. They might have children with a "lower" tier of women, and they will be raised/educated partially by others... in villages... eco-villages with yeti tribesmen and facepaint dancing around the peace fire with all the Asians, Jews, blacks, Puerto Ricans, Caucasians, dwarfs, elves, leprechauns, etc. Instead of football, on the massive drive-in theater type movie screen it's Einstein live webcam, sweating hairy sexercise, terrifying the old gods, spewing holy profanities, grunting and shivering with his fertile concubine, furious lust fever, will he give her the seed or pull out and unload into the sperm injecting receptacles held by the meuwing masseuses, to impregnate themselves? Closeup on the taint area with microphone magnification, we hear each Earth shatteringly loud spasmolitic squirtful injection synchronized with the villagers pounding great rocks and logs on the ground, hooooowwwwling hoooooowwwling, screaming catharsis, over and over, the final climax and ... breathing... he raises his heavy face to the white sun and cries, "It is finished!"

Why should this lifestyle be presumed to be soooo weird and frightening? It is like the red scare or homophobia. Aaaauuugh those people are uneuropean/unamerican!!!! They threaten our way of life!!!! What if their ideas become popular and then we will all have to live as they do!!! WE MUST NEVAR APPROVE OF ANY NOTIONS OF BETTER GENES!!! Be proud of your eugenophobia!

Well, that certainly puts things in perspective. Going for the whole William S. Burroughs thing, I see. Keep pecking away at it; maybe your chops will one day equal his. Or not.

It is not really supposed to be choppy, as in a "put down". It is meant to be funny, novel, and break the polite chains of sexual phobias. The giant outdoor movie screen may be a bit inefficient use of resources unless we need a big building with no windows... nevermind. Sorry for the headaches, I'm not given much feedback on what is causing those. Could it be their brains are growing?

In this context, I used "chops" in teh sense of "skills." It really is a musical term of art, which may translate to other artistic endeavors. More or less.

The BON is not me BTW, even though they copied one of my posts. The BON is perhaps arguing for manditory eugenics, I am arguing for voluntary eugenics.

What occurred to me is that, most of your arguments are really opposed to birth control. Eugenics is just the reason in this case, but birth control is what is preventing humans from carrying out their only natural function (which they cannot oppose?).

Nice save on the philosophy thing. I believe you may find that actual philosophers are pretty good at keeping things coherent, getting their ideas to hang together well. That is why you lost me at "wild, creative, "fascinating" hypothesizing, that would make Kent Hovind proud to be a scientist." I like to think that a working philosopher could demolish Hovind's "science," rub the pieces into the dirt and sprinkle salt on them without breaking a sweat.

It seems to me that Jack has a reasonable grasp of how genetics carries on in real life, one mating at a time. There is plenty of evidence around, so much in fact that it takes a lot of sifting to get at the bits relevant to any particular question. Reading Dawkins is probably as good a starting place as any for that.

As far as how central notions and counter-examples work, George Lakoff's "Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind" is a fantastic overview, if heavy going.

So the only philosophers are good philosophers, in your lexicon? Or is there some regulating body? See I think Hovind had the "science" to begin with, for the same reason he won't know when it's been "demolished". (Unless we are talking about taking away Hovind's book selling business, which I don't think any philosopher has yet achieved.) He doesn't think outside the paradigm/tradition and it always assures him he has the answer. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule.

Various 2 cents:

What's a meme anyway? Yes, "cultural information", I know, but what is it? I like to imagine it as a bunch of information and calculations solidified in someone's neurons. I mean, when someone has a stroke or brain damage, which causes him to lose a memory, pointing to the damaged area and saying this is where that meme/memory was, sounds pretty accurate. Neurons and the laws that govern them are not genes. They are large-r scale structures above the gene level and I think thats pretty important.

A trickier question is, what is conciousness? Is it a gene or a meme thing? Epilepsy, anesthesia, coma, sleep etc all show that conciousness and the feeling of I-am-ness, is tied to the activity of the brain, and in fact to specific kinds of it (aka not random or all at once). So what about everything else that makes you, "you". Memories, experiences etc. Take for example the knowledge of knowing how to build suspension bridges.

Imagine you take someone and put him in a box since birth with a food & shit tube. Sure enough, he would grow. And in doing so he would be a pure expression of his genetic information. But surely he wouldn't know how to build suspension bridges. That's because that information isn't included in the genes and has to come from the external universe (usually we call it education). More interestingly, that knowledge wasn't included in any other peoples genes either.

That knowledge (or bunch of information, which remember, it has a very physical presenses, I am not talking "energies" here) got created through the combination (can I use a sexy word like trans-computation? I just made it up) of a ton of other memes, running in brains, be it "engineering", "public need" or "the fact of gravity". The only thing genes did, was to make a structure complex enough (the brain), which had the potential to "run" them. Genes did not create the neurons and store information in their relationships betweem them however, just the neurons and some simplistic laws that govern them. Everything else has been caused by exo-genetic information from the external universe. There are some gene-included pre-programmed brain stuff, and those would be the things we call insticts.

'Tis my humble opinion then, that conciousness and self-awareness is a bit of a mistake. There is an entire ecosystem of memes, with their own evolution and such, which appeared once the "universe underneath", they run on, (brainz!) became complex enough to support them. Similar to the way genetic evolution had to wait for the "universe underneath" (chemistry) to become complex enough, for it to appear (aka, the death of the first generation stars so that heavy elements and planets can form). The whole thing reminds me of virtual machines running inside another computer but I digress.

Concidering how many things of the human experience then are "memes", I like to think that a more accurate description of humans would be gene-meme hybrids, as opposed to, say, bacteria, which are actual pure gene automatons. And if you will allow me the sci-fi plug, under that definition a strong A.I. would be a machine-meme hybrid, while a clock is a machine automaton.

The thing is then, that just as there is inter-genetic organism competition, there is, obviously, inter-memetic competition, and there can also be inter-gene-memetic competition, even in the same organism. Aka, when someone (who is childless, so no "he does it for his kids" cop out there), suicides, suicide bombs, or even "dies for glory".

Take for example a position like (yes, you knew I was going to plug in Transhumanism somewhere, soz), like ditching our bodies for immortality. How the hell can a position like this, ever benefit the genes? However, what it does, is pretty much spell the wishes of what I can only refer to as the (wait for it), Selfish Meme.

In regards to some things that have been mentioned so far, I would like to note that I do think that adoptive children / parent relationships can be Very strong. Exactly because even if they are adoptive, if they share your family experience and usually your knowledge, they become "memetic children" (memetic material being transferred from brain to brain literally through the air as the family interacts with each other) while on the other hand, if a secret genetic child of mine turned out of nowhere and was a fundamentalist conservative (aka zero shared experience and an enemy meme), it would leave me rather indifferent. And in fact in the scenario of the second one attacking the first (ie, for being a liberul), it would be the first one that would get my total support.

None of that is a proposition for eugenics or anything. I am rather laissez faire about these things. Just because I like fast cars, I don't see why this must automatically be an opinion that slow cars must be banned.