User:Bug2266/Dysgenics

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dysgenics (also called cacogenics)[1] is the belief that peoples' genes get worse over the course of generations.[2]

The term "dysgenic" is the opposite of "eugenic", which believes that natural selection will get rid of bad or inferior genes.[3] David Star Jordan invented the term in 1915 after World War I Jordan believed that a society's best men would die in war, leaving the disabled at home.[4]

In human genetics, a dysgenic effect is because of the ability for worse genes to exist without natural selection taking them out. This is due to lowered infant mortality since the Industrial Revolution. Richard Lynn writes in Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations that worse health, worse intelligence, and less diligence causes dysgenics.

Genetic disorders[change | change source]

Rui Nunes believed that dysgenics basically allows disabilities to spread genetically, and that either way genes could be selected positively or negatively. Positive dysgenics mean that more people will have worse genetics. Negative dysgenics mean that less genes that cause disabilities will be spread.[5]

Better medicine and more progressive beliefs may cause increased amounts of genetic disorders. Learning what genetic risks one may have and checking fetuses for potential disorders might help stop this.[6][7]

Fertility and intelligence[change | change source]

Richard Lynn argued that natural selection didn't allow for better genes to spread after the Industrial Revolution.[8] Woodley believed that this potential decline in human intelligence is due to unequal fertility and intelligence in humans.[9]

Some approve[10][11][12][13] of Lynn's work and others do not.[14][15][16]

Selective fertility[change | change source]

Lynn and Harvey[17] suggested that designer babies might reverse the effects of dysgenics in the future. This might be something only rich countries could do at first, but if it's not allowed in those countries, it might be spread to poorer ones.[18] The Chinese one-child policy is an example of how people having children could be controlled by government.[19]

Geoffrey Miller claims that the one-child policy was created to stop China's growing population and to stop bad genes from spreading.[20]

In fiction[change | change source]

Cyril M Kornbluth's book The Marching Morons is a book where a man goes to the future accidentally and learns that dysgenics has made the entire population stupid. Mike Judge's movie, Idiocracy, has the same story, only the main character is put to sleep by the military for 500 years accidentally. In The Marching Morons, society was kept alive by a small group of dedicated geniuses, while in Idiocracy, all the smart people stopped having kids, leaving only stupid people to have kids.[21]

See also[change | change source]

References[change | change source]

  1. ↑ "cacogenics". Freedictionary.com. Retrieved 2008-06-29. Cacogenics, the study of the operation of factors that cause degeneration in offspring, especially as applied to factors unique to separate races. Also called dysgenics.
  2. ↑ "Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and hundreds more". www.bartleby.com. Archived from the original on 2009-03-18.
  3. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary
  4. ↑ Jordan, David Starr (2003). War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations (Reprint ed.). Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 978-1-4102-0900-9.
  5. ↑ Nunes, Rui (March 2006). "Deafness, genetics and dysgenics". Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 9 (1): 25–31. doi:10.1007/s11019-005-2852-9. PMID 16645795.
  6. ↑ Holloway, S. M.; Smith, C. (1975). "Effects of various medical and social pracitices on the frequency of genetic disorders". American Journal of Human Genetics. 27 (5): 614–627. PMC 1762830. PMID 1163536.
  7. ↑ Matsunaga, E. (1983). "Perspectives in mutation epidemiology: 5. Modern medical practice versus environmental mutagens: Their possible dysgenic impact". Mutation Research/Reviews in Genetic Toxicology. 114 (3): 449–457. doi:10.1016/0165-1110(83)90040-4.
  8. ↑ Lynn, R. (2008). "Dysgenic fertility for criminal behaviour". Journal of Biosocial Science. 27 (4). doi:10.1017/S0021932000023014.
  9. ↑ Woodley, Michael A. (2015). "How fragile is our intellect? Estimating losses in general intelligence due to both selection and mutation accumulation". Personality and Individual Differences. 75: 80–84. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.047.
  10. ↑ Hamilton, W. D. (2000). "A review of Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations". Annals of Human Genetics. 64 (4): 363–374. doi:10.1046/j.1469-1809.2000.6440363.x.[permanent dead link]
  11. ↑ Loehlin JC (1999). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, reviewed by John C. Loehlin". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 561: 216–217. JSTOR 1049316.
  12. ↑ Vining DR (1998). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, reviewed by Daniel R. Vining, Jr". Population Studies. 52 (1): 120–121. doi:10.1080/0032472031000150216. JSTOR 2584772.
  13. ↑ "Dysgenics: Genetic deterioration in modern populations: by Richard Lynn. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, 238 pp. $59.95". Journal of Social and Evolutionary Systems. 21 (3): 343–345. 1998. doi:10.1016/S1061-7361(98)80008-8. This could be one of the most important books written in the last fifty years.
  14. ↑ Rosenthal S. "Academic Nazism". Department of Sociology, Hampton University. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  15. ↑ Leon K (February 1995). "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life". Scientific American. 272. Archived from the original on 2007-10-22. Lynn's distortions and misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism, combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity.
  16. ↑ Berhanu G. "Black Intellectual Genocide: An Essay Review of IQ of Wealth of Nations" (PDF). Gotberg University, Sweden. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-07-20. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  17. ↑ Lynn, Richard; Harveyb, John (2008). "The decline of the world's IQ". Intelligence. 36 (2): 112–120. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.03.004.
  18. ↑ Lynn, R.; Harvey, J. (2008). "The decline of the world's IQ". Intelligence. 36 (2): 112–120. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.03.004.
  19. ↑ Lynn, R.; Harvey, J. (2008). "The decline of the world's IQ". Intelligence. 36 (2): 112–120. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.03.004.
  20. ↑ Edge, Chinese Eugenics, http://edge.org/response-detail/23838/
  21. ↑ Mitchell, Dan (2006-09-09). "Shying away from Degeneracy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-29.

More reading[change | change source]

Non-Wikipedia links[change | change source]


[[Category:Evolutionary biology]] [[Category:Eugenics]]

Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Bug2266/Dysgenics&oldid=6859245"