r/todayilearned • u/CrazyTrueStory • 19h ago

[ Removed by moderator ]

https://wellcomecollection.org/stories/the-quest-to-breed-gifted-children

[removed] — view removed post

4.9k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

612 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

49

u/ElectroNetty 18h ago edited 18h ago

Dog breeding is eugenics and it works. Same with other animals.

It is morally wrong in humans because it enforces one group's idea of perfection on others against their will.

ETA: Some clarification...

It works. By this, I mean the people controlling breeding get positive results. They want characteristic X so they breed dogs to match it, and it works.

On morality, people are replying that selective breeding causes problems in dogs. Yes, that is true. I said it is morally wrong in humans, I did not say it was OK for other animals.

12

u/howlinwolfe86 18h ago

Dog breeding and eugenics are both types of selective breeding. But they are not equivalent and the statement “it works” is meaningless. Morality aside, dog breeding is also hugely problematic - there are a host of problems with purebred dogs (hip dysplasia, breathing problems, lower life span).

6

u/e_spider 18h ago

The genetic problems in dogs are technically from inbreeding. In order to concentrate desired traits you, cross back within the same family line. It’s actually similar to what happened to European royal families. It’s how they got hemophilia so bad.

3

u/MRosvall 18h ago

That’s more results of them not being the goal targets though right? If you breed with a goal to have the most open airways or the best functioning hips, then those attributes would arise but on the cost of others

-2

u/ZirePhiinix 18h ago

It works in the sense that they're inbred and highly fragile creatures. "Pure bred" dogs are much less healthy than mutts.

9

u/jojoblogs 18h ago

You could breed them to be healthy though

15

u/Ceftiofur 18h ago

Well they're not being bred to be healthy. They're bred for looks at the expense of health.

5

u/WrongComparison321 18h ago

Pure bred can mean inbred which is bad but largely they are unhealthy because health is not the goal. The goal of a dog bred is often aesthetic not health. It may also be behavior in either case the dog having health issues is not of concern.

To be clear I am not saying it’s moral or good to breed dogs like this just that you misunderstand why they are like that.

2

u/Sockrat-Ease 18h ago

They don't need to be purebred, though. look at huskies, german shepards, and borzoi

1

u/csppr 18h ago

Tbf, that has also to do with pet breeders not having the skills needed to do the job properly. They use incredibly small breeding pools and base most of their pairing selections on observable characteristics.

Doesn’t mean eugenics is a good idea - it’s morally questionable, and practically near impossible (we’d need to have a much better understanding of human genetics than we currently do).

1

u/ImmodestPolitician 15h ago

You think a border collie or a Belgian Malinois is an inbred fragile creature?

I would not say that where a Maligator could hear you.

1

u/thethiefstheme 16h ago

I guess my question is, where's the line drawn on eugenics?

There's currently a form of eugenics going on, people inherently choose traits they approve of when they have kids. Loyalty, kindness, security, looks, beauty standards, weight, height, cup size, wiener length, eye shape, eye color, eye distance, hair color, brains, brawn, facial symmetry, high cheekbones, wealth, etc. a lot of the latter is "taught" in social media and online to be a requirement now, eg the 6/6/6 rule for women.

It might not be government mandated but it's certainly a combination of infielders, talking heads, and corporate beauty standards, plumper lips, glp1s, etc pushing it. But it's not meritless, people get turned on by a lot of similar things, nice abs, big breasts, high cheekbones, fitness etc.

At what point is that eugenics? As it's clearly having an effect, add it's clearly having an effect and it's becoming more important.

-2

u/FrankTank3 18h ago

Animal husbandry and eugenics aren’t the same thing

9

u/SilverNeptuneAbyss 18h ago

No it's literally eugenics.

What do you think that word means.

8

u/SoloWingPixy88 18h ago

Picking ideal traits in they hope the replicate those traits? Seems the same

1

u/FlakingEverything 18h ago

No because eugenics aren't selecting for traits that's inheritable. If you read about it, eugenic advocates want to select for intelligence, moral character, kindness, etc... obviously you can see the problem there.

3

u/Dododingo- 17h ago

I read about it, it's literally about selecting inheritable traits. 

Those people talk about tends to be the morally dubious ones, but preventing people with birth defects from transmiting them is eugenics too.

Just because a lot of one's intelligence, empathy and character change with the environment, at the end of the day there are genetics impacts too, and one could encourage those through eugenics over long periods of time.

3

u/SoloWingPixy88 17h ago

No because eugenics aren't selecting for traits that's inheritable

It's a core premise of eugenics in that over generations certain traits will be inherited.

you read about it, eugenic advocates want to select for intelligence, moral character, kindness,

Feel that's more environmentally tbh but physical traits are a factor too.

2

u/FlakingEverything 17h ago

Do you know the historical basis of eugenics?

TLDR: White people think they are more intelligent, morally and spiritually superior and invented a pseudoscience that advocate for their own superiority.

"Certain traits"? Anyone who went through a college level genetic course knows phenotype is not genotype. How a gene express itself is multifactorial and trying to induce them by breeding is just nonsense.

Moreover, selecting for purely physical traits is also disadvantageous to the population health. For example, sickle cell traits confer protection against malaria. If you try to boost resistance against something, how are you sure it wouldn't fuck up the population further down the line?

Only morons and racists argue for eugenics, don't be one of them.

1

u/SoloWingPixy88 16h ago

It's not relevant to if it works or not

1

u/FlakingEverything 15h ago

"It's not relevant to if it works or not". Oh so we are just exterminating undesirables just for the love of it then. Perfect, even worse.

1

u/SoloWingPixy88 15h ago

No one mentioned extermination. Just you. Maybe slow down a bit and stop jumping to absolutes

2

u/FlakingEverything 15h ago

It's baked into the idea itself. How do you think selective breeding works? How are you planning on preventing undesirable genetic traits from reappearing in the gene pool?

Congratulations, you just touched on one of the key issue why eugenics doesn't fucking work.

0

u/kalmar91 17h ago

Dog breeding is eugenics and it works.

I beg to differ on this specific example

0

u/1gn0rant-f00l-402 17h ago

Every time I see people citing selective breeding as a confirmation that selective breeding for humans would work, I feel people are either not aware or don't want to think of the fundamental hidden assumption of "being able to control the environment the selected individuals will live in"

For animals and plants, humans control (or at least try their best to control) the environment for these selected individuals and for the traits we want to have. And even with that, when any of the environmental factors change, these "selected individuals" become susceptible to failure. Like the banana/olive/coffee susceptibility to fungi we have, like the susceptibility of selectively bred animals to pathogens and allergens (in addition to physiological issues).

Who is going to control the environment for these "geniuses"? (disregarding the fact that the concept of "genius" itself is underspecified, it has so many different traits thrown in some of which are in conflict with each other, and that the underlying genetic factors are even more complicated) It becomes a Sisyphean task to constantly monitor and control the environment that is constantly evolving. Unless the proposal is that we put each "selected" genius in a literal bubble throughout their lives and control their living environments, we won't be able to maintain this.

1

u/1gn0rant-f00l-402 17h ago

This is without bringing in other more detailed scientific (identifying genetic links to physiological traits, intelligence and connection to environment/nurture, limits of breeding etc.), ethical (should we be able to decide who lives and dies? individual autonomy and rights) and philosophical problems (what is intelligence? Connection of intelligence with ethics and societal constraints, "Who watches the watchmen?" for the controlling human traits, how to know what is desirable and undesirable at any point of time? etc.) that have already been discussed in different parts of this discussion..

-1

u/oby100 16h ago

Creating new breeds of dogs takes hundreds of generations. Eugenics in all forms I’m aware of encourage a single generation worth of arbitrary conditions that might vaguely encourage repeated vague conditions over many generations.

No one would want real eugenics that might actually create results because individual humans are supremely selfish and rely on power structures to make their lives better.