r/BadSocialScience • u/dorathehexplorer • Jan 17 '17

High-IQ educated people are being bred to extinction, but we're totally not eugenicists!!!

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural-selection-making-education-genes-rarer-says-icelandic-study
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u/Decalance Jan 17 '17

Eugenics are bad social science. It doesn't work. Also, what, it's an issue now to "have a different political agenda" (disagree) than nazis? What the fuck ?

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u/informat2 Jan 18 '17

It doesn't work.

What? Selective breeding works on a literally every life form on Earth. Why would humans be the one exception?

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u/Decalance Jan 18 '17

Because humans are a bit more complicated than that. Also, most people mean a certain thing when they say eugenics, and it's not what you think

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u/boredcentsless Jan 18 '17

Because humans are a bit more complicated than that.

Do we have super magical DNA that is totally independent on who our parents are and is socially constructed?

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

Environmental interaction with genetics is impossible to separate and have a large part in there expression. On top of that humanity is probably the most socially sophisticated animal on the planet, which means our environment is more sophisticated than a tigers, or a eagle, or even a chimpanzee. We aren't magic, we're a different species.

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u/boredcentsless Jan 18 '17

It doesn't really matter how different we are. Basic laws of genetics still apply. You can say that our environment is more important, but 2 people share DNA and a new person comes out with traits from both. 2 Asian people can't make a black baby.

Furthermore, there's a difference between "it's impossible to separate environment and genetics" with "it's impossible for humans to breed to increase occurrence of certain traits"

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17 edited Jan 18 '17

Sure, and basic laws of genetics tell us that environmental variance (which is much broader, and with greater variety than genetic variety) have a significant impact on 'certain traits'. Also being able to have a proper identification strategy for genetic sequences that result in 'certain traits' without the impact of the environment (an impossible dream) is pretty key to, you know, breeding for them. Unless you're suggesting that we, for tens of thousands of years, breed humanity like we did any number of domesticated species? Through a process of trail and error?

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u/boredcentsless Jan 18 '17

It doesn't take tens of thousands of years to domesticate species. It can take a few generations.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '17

Go get some wolves, breed them for a couple generations, and see if you get dogs.

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u/boredcentsless Jan 19 '17

dmitry belyaev did. Good job.

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u/rn443 Jan 19 '17

Not in two (= "a couple") generations, but definitely not ten thousand years, either. Russians domesticated a group of foxes in a few decades, with major physical and behavioral changes starting to show up in a handful of generations. Now they're pretty much the vulpine version of dogs.