Court bans man with low IQ from having sex

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Penguin

I am aware what you wrote, the thing is that you bring in morale in terms of judgement dressed as biologic facts. When one makes a decision what genetic defects are ok and what not, one makes a judgement call = morale.

I did not judge anything. But certain diseases are genetically caused, and can be given on to the offspring of an according ill parent. To say that does not judge that defect as okay or unacceptable - it just says that certain genetic defects are not object of relativisation, but are defects, and just this: defects. There is no known benefit in hemophilia - different to sichel cell anaemia that seems to aid the body in the curing of Malaria and thus can be argued to be of benefit for the body - at the price of other disadvantages, of course.

If I would have said that African negroes are black-skinned, would you also accuse me of a moral judgement, and racism, becasue I say they are black-skinned...? Hardly.

The mechanism you refer to is survival of the best adapted. Otherwise the human species wouldn't have survived this long: we have no biological features that are outstanding, the only thing we are good at is adaption.

That is wrong. Our hands, our brain sturcture, our erected walking, the construction of our voice apparatu, the weight relation between "Unterhautfettgewebe" and muscle mass, our preferred mating psoiton and the accoprding psoition of our internal sexual organs, our sweat glands in the body skin, and the tear glands in our eyes as well as our way of reacting to pain and emtoion with tears - all these are outstanding biological charcteristics that separate us from any other species, may it be chimps or gorillas, may it be whales or dolphins.

Here you also bring in the aspect of weakening the gene pool, weakening = judgement.

No. Reporting on the physical disadvanatge (vulnerability by genetic defects limiting sensory or body functions and making the organism prone to diseases or environmental factors that another subject of said species with normal operational parameters ) is no judging. It is accepting reality. A bleeder has a handicap that is dangerous for him, giving him just a vulnerability,k but no advanatge to comensate it with. A person with a neurlogical deisease making it unable for this person to move the right leg, is just this: a person with the inability to move the right leg. Moral criterions and judgments have nothign to do with it.

What makes the human genom weaker, especially when regarding the fact that most of us are not fighting anymore in a hostile environment all day long?

Everything that produces more individuals designed by the human genome that cannot survive without medical treatement, for the need of medical treatement is not part of the evolutionary deswign study of the sampe called homo sapiens. That a person with diabetes needs to inject insuline in order to live, securtes his life, yes. But it is not the biological norm nor has it any advantage to be like that nor does it represent any kind od adaption to the envrionment. Diabetes it is a malfunction, caused both by nutritional and egnetical variables.

The overpopulation issue has many aspects:
With so many people on Earth like never before, genetic deficites are better absorved than in a tribe with 20 people.

Hardly. We have more people in Europe than ever before, but we also have a bigger share of the population needing glasses. There also is a bigger share of the population that are bleeders. That is becasue more of them survive olong enough to reproduce. In earlier times they cut themselves by accident and died long before they became fertile. I even once read a theory that before the 17th century the overall percentage of bleeder amongst the population was falling, becasue most of them did not survive their first quarter of statistical life expectancy.

The young population becomes smaller only in 1st world countries, in a global scale we never had this many young ones before. So what do do? infinite growth can't be the sollution, somewhere there must be a point when we have many old ones.
You refer later to Diamond, I would like to draw your attention to "Guns, Germs and Steel" ("Arm und Reich" in german), especially the things about pack immunity, he writes about it regarding domestic animals as well as regarding humans. The fact that we live so crowded together today, makes the human species in fact more immune to diseases. Even without modern medicine, an outbreak of the plague would certainly be outstanding in terms of losses, but nowhere as devestating in terms of percentages of the population which are affected as it was in medieval tuimes.
I'm not promoting overpopulation by this, btw, just bringing in some aspects.[/quote]
I know Jarred Diamonds books, I have extensively recommended both books in earlier threats. I even summarised the basic structure of "Collapse" in a separate threat some time ago. There I also recommended some more books on these issues.

This sounds quite interesting, I have Collapse on my night table, didn't made it yet to read more than the chapter about the settlers in Greenland - but I hope that I'll have more time in the next weeks to read it.

A brilliant lecture. It should become mandatory reading in higher school classes, and for all political and economical leaders. I found it much more interesting and relevant than Guns, Germs and Steel, but both beloing together, in a way.

the war which set the European people most back, in terms of population (growth) was the 30 Years' War - even then there was a slight pop growth. The reason for it rooted certainly not in demographic pressure...

That was just one war - how amyn others have there been? I just remind of the "Völkerweanderung" of the Vandales which brought them into conflict with Rome, and the Mayans and Aztecs waging war in order to rpdeuce the numbers of victims they needed to appease their deities during sacrificing rituals when their supply basis became thing due to the population having become to big and the cities too huge.

lol, where did I imply that I have these hippie thoughts about the morally higher natives?

When you generalised, at least gave a general statement, that all cultures before us, implying also the primitive ones, always take care for their elder.

Thanks, I am sober now! I'm sure you mean a rational mind, so no offence taken. I have no sentimentality for old times, I was pointing towards the fact that we have evolved and live in a society and not in the jungle anymore. (I'm not sure about the last sentence, now that I read it)

That does not matter. We still dpeend on physical bodies, and we still suffer from these hulls becoming dysfunctional. And when we increase the number of causes for erratic indiovidual designs ands allow these samples to reproduce, then we also increase the number of dysfuctional genes in the gene pool. The numbers have their own logic to follow, self-reproducing growth rates of variables in any given populations often are not linear, but logarithmical (?word?). That'S what I pointed out. If for example we have bleeders reproducing just for long enoiugh, at one far away time in the future bleeder-genes then will be present in the majority of the population, like in case of global skin colour every scientist anbd every mathematican show you that if all people reproduce with all people despite national and cultural borders and over different continents, a mixture of colour genes will take place that ultimately must lead to to a light brownish skin colpur becoming the dominant ferature in all mankind. Like today the lack of dense body furs also has become a dominant feature.

btw: I won't be able to answer you untill Sunday, so don't think that I back off from the discussion when I don't answer eventually...

No worry, I am at the point where I just can start to repeat what I said. All I wanted was to reject claims that my posting propagated eugenics or supremacist race ntheories or naything like that. I just referred to an implict problem to which medicine or ethics or philosphy or politics or society so far have not found an answer to.

[MaddogK]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

No, that's not exactly true. Natural selection rewards overall fitness to survive. That is, the most adept in their environment are the ones that pass on their genes to the next generation. All, even those least able to thrive are physically capable of reproduction, especially in the male sex, where the physical difficulties of gestation are not endured.

You totally left out the part about competing for the available mates in order to reproduce. Natural selection left unhampered by civilization would've eliminated the least able to thrive in favor of their competition, those fit to survive.

You simply can't have natural selection in a society that medically can save almost anyone with any malady (at any cost), because they will eventually add to the gene pool.

...of course they now have artificial means for those who fail to 'naturally' mate.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

You totally left out the part about competing for the available mates in order to reproduce. Natural selection left unhampered by civilization would've eliminated the least able to thrive in favor of their competition, those fit to survive.

You simply can't have natural selection in a society that medically can save almost anyone with any malady (at any cost), because they will eventually add to the gene pool.

...of course they now have artificial means for those who fail to 'naturally' mate.

I was saving that for the inevitable counterpoint. I never show my entire hand.

You're right; this man would have no chance at survival, let alone reproduction, in a 'natural' environment. My point would have been that it is only civilization that saves him. As such, what is civil is not always the best for the species. It is why so many questions are raised of reproduction by the mentally disabled. Of course, I have no intention of saying yay or nay to that issue, as I have no real answers to give.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

No, that's not exactly true. Natural selection rewards overall fitness to survive. That is, the most adept in their environment are the ones that pass on their genes to the next generation. All, even those least able to thrive are physically capable of reproduction, epecially in the male sex, where the physical difficulties of gestation are not endured.

Fitness in evolutionary biology is reproductive fitness. "Survival" is meaningless evolutionarily if you do not reproduce to pass on anything.

So while some non-reproductive trait might increase the number of offspring you produce (or sire), the fact that more offspring is created is what matters and is "fitness" in population genetics.

You can be a novel "superman" and it makes no difference if you do not pass the genes on.

More genes passed on is more "fit."

Natural selection "rewards" nothing at all. It just is.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by tater

Fitness in evolutionary biology is reproductive fitness. "Survival" is meaningless evolutionarily if you do not reproduce to pass on anything.

So while some non-reproductive trait might increase the number of offspring you produce (or sire), the fact that more offspring is created is what matters and is "fitness" in population genetics.

You can be a novel "superman" and it makes no difference if you do not pass the genes on.

More genes passed on is more "fit."

Natural selection "rewards" nothing at all. It just is.

But now we go in circles. Reproduction is meaningless if the organism does not survive to maturation, let alone successfully find a mate. A 'novel superman' will likely survive to pass on his genetic material.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

But now we go in circles. Reproduction is meaningless if the organism does not survive to maturation, let alone successfully find a mate. A 'novel superman' will likely survive to pass on his genetic material.

Evolutionarily all that matters as "fitness" is passing on the genes. What the traits are otherwise doesn't matter.

Yes, it's semantic, just like the scientific definition of "theory" is semantically different than the plain english version—but the difference matters.

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

Half of the posters didn't even read the whole article.

Ok - ya got me. I didnt read the whole thing initially. Have completed it, and have absolutely no qualms with the decision of the court.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by tater

Evolutionarily all that matters as "fitness" is passing on the genes. What the traits are otherwise doesn't matter.

Yes, it's semantic, just like the scientific definition of "theory" is semantically different than the plain english version—but the difference matters.

Yes, but what you ignore is what has been stated. Those with the traits that enable survival will live long enough to reproduce. That, by definition, is natural selection.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dicti...al%20selection

[tater]

A dictionary is not where you look for a definition for scientific jargon.

Have you taken evolutionary biology?

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by tater

A dictionary is not where you look for a definition for scientific jargon.

Have you taken evolutionary biology?

A dictionary is where you look up the definition of things.

I'll be generous enough to ignore your insult.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

A dictionary is where you look up the definition of things.

I'll be generous enough to ignore your insult.

I know, but this is a scientific definition. It's dictionary definitions that have creationists describe evolution as "just a theory."

It wasn't meant as an insult, it was a serious question. Someone who has not taken quantum physics, for example, can be excused not knowing that jargon, either. Your area of study is music, right? (sorry if I misremembered). I'd butcher any use of music theory jargon, for example, even though I love music.

Again, no insult even hinted at.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by tater

I know, but this is a scientific definition. It's dictionary definitions that have creationists describe evolution as "just a theory."

It wasn't meant as an insult, it was a serious question. Someone who has not taken quantum physics, for example, can be excused not knowing that jargon, either. Your area of study is music, right? (sorry if I misremembered). I'd butcher any use of music theory jargon, for example, even though I love music.

Again, no insult even hinted at.

Ah, so I am disqualified from the discussion based upon my occupation. Very well, you may have it as you like it. If I were a smaller man, I'd ask what it is that you do, and then use it against you in a similar manner. Fortunately for you, I am that that type of person.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

Ok - ya got me. I didnt read the whole thing initially. Have completed it, and have absolutely no qualms with the decision of the court.

What? Why?

[MaddogK]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Ah, so I am disqualified from the discussion based upon my occupation. Very well, you may have it as you like it. If I were a smaller man, I'd ask what it is that you do, and then use it against you in a similar manner. Fortunately for you, I am that that type of person.

Not DQ'd, just ignorant.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

Not DQ'd, just ignorant.

Also classy.