APES,
Don't forget the reading on Malthus and the chapters in the book....the questions are secondary at this moment to those readings. I know you all have very strong opinions.... So, lets get something going here about the question of " selective breeding to eliminate people of conscience". You all had very interesting comments on your quizzes....now bounce them off each other. My comment is this: Are we striving for a perfect human? and how can we ever eliminate something by selective breeding for a trait that isn't a breedable trait?
You can't, in all sense of the word, "eliminate" people with conscience but, you can severely reduce their numbers so they become similar to an economically depleted resource, they are still here but in such a low amount its not even worth counting. You are correct in saying that having a conscience is not a genetic trait that can be passed from generation to generation. But, by eliminating people of conscience then you are depriving the social environment of individuals with that characteristic and it falls into the nature vs. nuture conflict. A conscience is not necessarily born into an individuals innate nature and is for the most part learned by nuture of the conscience individuals. If those individuals are eliminated then there is no one to teach children morals or to have a conscience and therefore individuals of conscience are "economically depleted." Yes, some children will develop a conscience on their own but they will be few and far between, which makes them easy targets to be "eliminated."
ReplyDeleteIf you try to stop people from breeding who have some type of disability not many people would be able to have children, also some of the most important contributers to the science field had a learning disability. You can not determine a persons capability by the accomplishments of their parents.
ReplyDeleteOf course we are striving for a perfect human being! What else are we going to do with all the science and technology that we have now? Will we be able to completely breed out traits that aren't even breedable? Well duh, NO! If they aren't breedable why are they even in question? We need to look at the genetics here. Genetics is the answer, genetics is what we need to answer to when we talk about breeding. Now, if its in the DNA of an individual, then possibly we could sometime in the distant future breed out a certain trait, but if its something that doesn't have a particular DNA sequence on a gene, then forget about it. It aint going to happen.
ReplyDeleteNice picture by the way Mrs. B!
ReplyDeleteHonestly i think in todays society everyone is so focused on getting the perfect everything, including what everyone wants the perfect body. Well, isn't it our flaws they reason why slim fast and diet pills are on the market? Isn't that why they put out commercials to make us want to buy wrinkle cream and stretch mark remover, to make us feel bad about ourselves so we go buy it? If we were to make a perfect human would our economy suffer? There is acutally a movie called gattaca that deals with engineering the perfect human race, im sure you've all watched it in biology. In that movie natural born people were shunned from society and could not move up in society and be successful just because they werent genetically perfect.
ReplyDeleteSarah has a good point. Our whole economy would take a dramatic hit if there was no cancer,arthritis,asthma,etc. A Perfect breed of human would cripple health care. On the other hand perfect,smarter and stronger people would eliminate much welfare and medicaid and other state programs. But our whole society is striving for perfection in an imperfect world. People with nice homes need better kitchens or bigger add-ons, people with decent cars need faster or what seems to be popular model, and like Sarah also mentioned healthy people need to punish themselves for six pack abs. We will always be in a rat race for perfection and who's to say when they make us perfect and it becomes an epidemic there won't be drastic extremes to then eliminate the perfect beings that will topple over us imperfect beings. Will it bring war or genocide.
ReplyDeleteI agree with jake. And the idea of trying to breed out people with disabilities or any other abnormality is horrible. They are the very ones that I believe have the purest hearts and ideas. Also our flaws are the very things that make us who we are and build our character if treated in the correct way. Every one has something to offer society even if in the smallest way. If we go about trying to make everything perfect it will only lead to more and more problems. Therefore why not enjoy the short time we have here and try to make a difference in peoples lives. Not that we should not be researching and developing technology for improvement. But ultimately I dont think anyone has the right to decide who should stay and who should go.
ReplyDeleteyeah i dont think there is a way to eliminate certain traits and morals in people by selevtive breeding. you can eliminate the physical ones you dont like but not the nonphyscial.
ReplyDeletebefore i read anything, if we were to breed for traits, why dont we just aim to make people who are more highly influenced by propoganda. we can have em do whatever we want. = D mwwwwwwwaaaahhhaaaahaha ha
ReplyDeleteselective breeding is the most disgusting thing ive ever heard. Sounds like nazi crap. Olivias right, everybody has a right to live, not just one type of people. And if we take this breeding thing far enough wouldnt that just make us organic robots, preprogrammed and designed to have all the qualities the creator wanted. Not to mention the diversity side of it. Whos to say the perfect man wont come across a disease that wouldnt bother Average Joe, there goes the human race. Honestly, i believe nobodys perfect, and i dont think anyone will ever be.
ReplyDeleteselective breeding sounds like we're just setting ourselves up to get hit hard by somthing big. Its like wearing nothing but a bullet proof cup, and telling somebody to shoot at you. Yea the ugly parts taken care of, but the big stuffs a moving/sitting duck, depending on how stupid you are.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Megan..I don't think you can elminate peoples morals unless you brain wash them..but you can eliminate the physical ones..but nobody would be unique!
ReplyDeleteWow Logan I can see that you are very passionate about this. But everything you said is completly true. Wouldn't this make the gene pool more shallow? I don't know, maybe not.
ReplyDeleteI agree with matt, no matter how hard some government can try, you cannot eliminate "people of conscience." I once read a book called Ugly where kids were called "ugly" when they were little. When they got to a certain age they had and operation that made them these beautiful individuals. This one girl ran away from that community and lived with other "ugly" people, or as we know it "people with conscience". There is always going to be that individual who is “weird” or “crazy” in a society. Also I think (my favorite excuse) the law of entropy will also keep the world from having the Perfect Person Population.
ReplyDeleteeveryone seems to be agreeing. WE NEVER AGREE! so let's aruge...
ReplyDeletesay, if we could breed OUT, in essance, select against, oh, say.. a disease? would we?
don't we already?
i know the conscience thing is mostly environmental and nuture, but everyone is jumping on the nazi bandwagon. Hilter discriminated by race and religion, not environment.
well now.....this is more like it!! what a great bunch of great apes!!
ReplyDeletei know that i always go other ways from everybody else and thats just how i am. I dont think it is possible because there is no such thing as a perfect person. also it doesnt matter what any body says people are not going to do what they tell them and people are always going to have different things to say or do or a conscience about it
ReplyDeletealso everyonbe i told the lady we would have a crowd and she said that was fine but she said have your speakers. Also we may need the equipment for the video and it is at 7 on mar 5 at the city hall. also i told her it would be about a 5-7 min thing and she said it would be fine
ReplyDeleteBut even if you try to take out a disease it will mutate there is not might. Diseases adapt to survive just like people and if we take that gene out of people we will also lose the hope for the cure by studying people who have it.
ReplyDeleteSara says:
ReplyDeleteSo what happens when two normal people have a child with a disability? Does the child get killed? If it does that's absolutely TERRIBLE which makes selective breeding nearly impossible because is there any way to tell if that's going to happen? Plus, without diseases and things like that the population would be even higher and I'm not saying disease is a good thing, but trying to eliminate is completely seems stupid and impossible.
Whenever traits are to be "weeded" out it is purely an opinion of what traits are benficial to humans and which traits are not. In order for selective breeding to work every human would have to have the same views on virtually everything, which would defeat the point of being a human and having the opportunity to be a unique individual.
ReplyDeleteAlong with what Sara said if a couple that isn't supposed to have kids decide to any way do they abort the baby? There is a big debate over abortion now isn't selective breeding just as bad in a way?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ariel on what she said about disease and mutation in her response to Ashton. I mean is it really truly possible to elimate all of the world's disease? Nature seems to have a way of balancing itself out most of the time, and we forget sometimes that it is ALWAYS changing.
ReplyDeleteLike I've been saying all along, KARMA KARMA KARMA KARMA!!!! Like Anna pointed out Nature always seems to have a way to balance itself out, so whether we realize it or not no disease is ever going to be eradicated. DNA is mutating everyday. There's no way to calculate how many possible changes could occur on a single strand of DNA in a particular person, or animal, or bacterium, there's just no way. We have to look at it this way: Yes we are looking for the perfect race, and yes we do use selective breeding just about everyday, but no we CANNOT use selective breeding to breed out unbreedable characteristics. Here's the difference between traits and characteristics as I see it: Traits are something that you are born with such as hair color or eye color. Characteristics are something that you grow into, such as somber personalities, happy personalities, frugal with money, etc...If you are trying to breed out a person of conscience, no one should be able to live. Everyone's definition of what is right and what is wrong and how they follow it is always different. THERE IS NO UNIVERSAL PERSON OF CONSCIENCE!!!! There is no way to breed out a person of conscience because then there would be nobody left!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know exactly where to put this question but does anyone know what to do with the cling wrap in the particulate lab? And where to put it?
ReplyDeletei don't think that there is any true way that selective breeding could work. it all goes back to the whole coercion ordeal, forcing people to do and act a certain way is almost impossible when you're talking every single individual. it could work to an extent, but not 100%. also, who would want to eliminate people of conscious? they keep our world in check :]
ReplyDeletebilly i used like what you cover up food with..haha i didn't know either
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anna Nature has a way to balancing out everything!
ReplyDeleteHas any one seen the movie "I Am Legend"? It is a scary thought to think that we can make those kind of mistakes by taking something we think is bad away from mankind and have to totally change. Desiring the very best isn't always the best. Take it from someone who knows selective bleeding can put a desire in the hearts of man that can destroy them. Nature ~ God ~ does balance out life. We don't always like the balances but we must fact them and move forward. I have a hard time with selective breeding it makes me ask the question of who do we think we are and how far are we willing to go.
ReplyDeleteopps "have it to totally change"
ReplyDeletesorry it's late . . ."face them and move forward"
ReplyDeletecling wrap is what the aprticles are supposed to stick to. This is a new lab...if it doesn't work, we will do the old one. This seemed easier for you all....try it and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are talking about a group as a whole you maybe able to change an average of their views but as individuals you can't change thier standards. A lot of people have extremely strong views towards certain situations and no matter what tests were tired some of those morals would stand out.
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother was watching regis and kelly and i walked by and glanced at it. Regis looked at the headline of the paper for that day and it said "Design Your own Baby." Apparently geneticists are now allowing people to design their baby by picking the eye color, hair color, and even skin color! This is exactly what went on in gattaca and it is most def. selective breeding. Regis said that it is causing an uproar, as it should, but still...the fact that this is even being offered is ridiculous and horrible. People should not try to play god and i think that this completely ruins the miracle and specialness of birth and reproduction.
ReplyDeleteselective breeding...Its kinda like GATTACA. Who is to say someone is less perfect than another person? Is that really our place? I think we should stop judging other people and focus on more important issues such as a cure for cancer.
ReplyDeleteummm...sorry guys, but that comment was from Mollie, not jimmy.
ReplyDeletei completely agree with anna. it seems like nature has been doing its on thing without humans for a long long timeee. Doesn't nature have its own version of selective breeding in darwins "natural selection" idea?
ReplyDelete-"Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable traits become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes"
i think natures got it all under control guys (:
selective breeding is rediculus you cant breed people for there traits because if they did i know half of us would not be here now and just because you dont have the perfect traits dont mean you cannot have any kids
ReplyDeletewell i know most of us say that selective breeding as in picking what your child is gonna be like is horrible but im pretty sure that in the future it will be happening. People are already paying tons of money to get nose jobs and boob implants to fix their appearances to strive to be perfect or fit in. so i know people will want to fix other things that may be challenging for their babies before they are even born. I think alot of people, if offered the option, would change some dna in order to fix physical deformaties or deadly diseases etc. in their children
ReplyDeletelawson says: even though it would make the world "better" place it would never happen on a large scale because there would be too much controversy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone. I don't think there such thing as perfect, and i dont think we would want perfect. everyone learns from there flaws and mistakes. I disagree with selective breeding because everything happens for a reason we shouldn't change that natural things of the world. And the comment about breeding out things such as disease. our population is growing so mucht that i believe we need things such as disease to control the population, although it would be nice to breed it out.
ReplyDelete