Tag Archives: eugenics

Who Thinks Your Thoughts, Weird Kangaroo?

Who are you, really? Neuroscientists tell us our gut microbiome consists of 100 trillion organism with different DNA from what we inherited from our parents, and that those microbes are connected to our brains via the vagus nerve. Thus those … Continue reading

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Breeding for Intelligence? A Google Employee Asks the Question to Researcher Stephen Hsu of the Beijing Genomics Institute

In the below Google Tech Talk, Stephen Hsu talks to Google employees about the search for the genes behind intelligence (and seeks to recruit them into an ongoing study being conducted at the Beijing Genomics Institute). I shit you not. … Continue reading

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What’s Coming (A Prediction)

A century from now, were you and I to see it, I think we would exclaim, like Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “O brave new world that has such men in it!” And I worry that those men will not be religious … Continue reading

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George Church’s Brave New World (and Ours)

Harvard molecular geneticist George Church’s interview with Der Spiegel is a must-read. Highlights: ON NEANDERTHAL CLONING SPIEGEL: Will you witness the birth of a Neanderthal baby in your lifetime? Church: That depends on a hell of a lot of things, but … Continue reading

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Michio Kaku On Emerging Technologies Worth Worrying About

I’m surprised Michio Kaku doesn’t address eugenic technologies. These are certainly coming in the near future—a eugenics race among the nations. But the technologies he does mention are also terrifying.

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Eugenics Revival Watch: What’s Richard Dawkins’s Position on Eugenics?

He wants an open discussion concerning the subject. Below is the full text of what he wrote as a contribution to the book, What is Your Dangerous Idea? (Simon & Schuster 2006). Richard Dawkins’s statement also appeared in the The Herald of Scotland in November … Continue reading

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The United States vs. China: Who Will Win the 21st Century’s Outer and Inner Space Races?

The writing is on the wall, Nebuchadnezzar. This little tidbit was in the Washington Times late last year: The median age of NASA’s manned space engineers is now over 55. Over a quarter are past retirement age. Meanwhile, China’s average … Continue reading

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Eugenics Revival Watch: Scientific American editor, Mariette DiChristina, calls eugenic goals expressed in 1911 “lofty aspirations”

Curiously, the editor at the Scientific American website (Mariette DiChristina) recently approved the posting, with only minimal comment, of an editorial written in its pages 100 years ago, in 1911, advocating eugenics. Here are three quotes from the editorial: It is not … Continue reading

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What is Humanism, and Where is 21st Century Atheism Taking Us, Really?

Just as Unitarianism is the featherbed for catching the falling Christian (Erasmus Darwin), humanism is the featherbed for catching the falling atheist. What humanism functions to conceal for the squeamish atheist and agnostic (and I am one of those squeamish agnostics) is … Continue reading

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Charles Darwin and the Looming 21st Century Eugenics Debate

By Victorian standards, and even by our own, Charles Darwin was a sensitive and liberal person—someone who clearly loved animals and human beings, and opposed slavery. And, like a theologian justifying God’s ways to man, I think that Darwin did … Continue reading

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Charles Darwin and Politics: Very Gradual Change We Can Believe In?

I saw the above image at Andrew Sullivan’s blog today. Clever. And it’s working on a number of levels: as an ironic poke at creationists, of course. And as a substitute of one cultural star (Obama) for another cultural star (Darwin). But it can … Continue reading

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Did Ben Stein, in His Film “Expelled”, Exaggerate the Link Between Darwin and Hitler?

I would say that Ben Stein exaggerated, but not by a lot. There is a hidden gnosis  unveiled by the mechanism of evolution that constitutes a temptation to the human species. Once we have a mechanism for the improvement of a species—once … Continue reading

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“Hitler’s Children”: Master Race Babies Have a Reunion

Darwinian eugenics is making a serious comeback. We better start thinking about it again—hard. Here’s a reminder of how all that went the first time around:  

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Today’s Orwellism: “Procreative Beneficience” (for Eugenics)

Julian Savulescu has a new term for eugenics: procreative beneficience. And according to Oxford Today: The University Magazine, eugenics—I mean procreative beneficience—may be making a comeback in academic circles: ‘There is a significant chance that my own children will live beyond … Continue reading

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Genetically Enhanced Humans?

According to Oxford Today: The University Magazine, they’re coming: ‘There is a significant chance that my own children will live beyond the age of 120’, says Julian Savulescu, Director of Oxford’s Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics. ‘Thereafter we could be … Continue reading

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Teenage Mutant Nietzsche Turtles

In our future, at least according to this video (see the 4:00 minute mark):

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What Questions Would You Ask Richard Dawkins?

Most (though not all) of the questions I’ve heard asked by interviewers of Richard Dawkins seem to me tedious and uninspired. Generally, the same basic questions are asked about his atheism and about evolution, and he rehearses back the same … Continue reading

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Eugenics is Fun! Genetic Tracking of Children in Chinese Summer Camps!

According to this rather sunny CNN report from China, the genetic tests applied to these summer camp toddlers “work even on newborns!” Gee. That means, of course, that the tests could also be applied to preborns, doesn’t it? Did you notice that the … Continue reading

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You Break It, You Own It: Whence the Future of Eugenics Research?

God’s a delusion (Dawkins). Religion poisons everything (Hitchens). So let’s have the end of faith (Harris)! Okay. You’ve got your wish. Let’s imagine that the New Atheists have won. The world is our big and collective secular oyster to do whatever we want … Continue reading

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Who Said This?

Was the following said by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Darwin, or Hitler: Power is in nature the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. Answer: Ralph Waldo Emerson in “Self Reliance” … Continue reading

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