Jump to content

Dysgenics: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Millstoner (talk | contribs)
148 edits
m tense
Millstoner (talk | contribs)
148 edits
→‎Chronology: rewrote paragraph using source
Line 10: Line 10:
The word "dysgenic" was first used, as an adjective, about 1915, by [[David Starr Jordan]], describing the "dysgenic effect" of [[World War I]].<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref> Jordan believed that healthy men were as likely to die in [[modern warfare]] as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.<ref name="Jordan">{{cite book| last = Jordan| first = David Starr| title = War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations| publisher = University Press of the Pacific| date= 2003 (Reprint)| location = Honolulu, Hawaii| isbn = 1-4102-0900-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=McNish I|title=David Starr Jordan on the Dysgenic effects of dysfunctional culture|journal= Mankind Quarterly|date = Fall 2002|volume=43|issue=1|pages=81–98}}</ref>
The word "dysgenic" was first used, as an adjective, about 1915, by [[David Starr Jordan]], describing the "dysgenic effect" of [[World War I]].<ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref> Jordan believed that healthy men were as likely to die in [[modern warfare]] as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.<ref name="Jordan">{{cite book| last = Jordan| first = David Starr| title = War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations| publisher = University Press of the Pacific| date= 2003 (Reprint)| location = Honolulu, Hawaii| isbn = 1-4102-0900-8}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|author=McNish I|title=David Starr Jordan on the Dysgenic effects of dysfunctional culture|journal= Mankind Quarterly|date = Fall 2002|volume=43|issue=1|pages=81–98}}</ref>


⚫
In the 1965 article ''Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning'', S. C. Gilfillan hypothesized that lead poisoning of the [[upper class]] was responsible for the [[decline of the Roman Empire]]. Lead poisoning of women and children produced "sterility, miscarriage, stillbirth, heavy child mortality and permanent mental impairment in the children."<ref>{{cite journal| author = Gilfillan SC| title = Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning| journal = The Mankind Quarterly| volume = 5| issue = 3| pages = 131–148| date= January–March 1965| id = ISSN 0025-2344}} </ref> Beginning in the second or first century B.C., the upper class died out rapidly with the population of each generation being a quarter the size of the previous generation, primarily because they were rearing few children. The elite had [[Decline_of_the_Roman_Empire#Role_of_lead_poisoning|more lead in their diet]] than others because differences in plumbing usage and cooking utensils. In 1985, the Gillfallen paper was refuted by Needleman and Needleman. They found that "the lead employed in the main water-supply system was almost certainly harmless". Calcium deposits from hard water prevented contact with the lead. Where the water was soft (rare in the most populated areas), continuous flow of water caused dissolved lead concentration to be small. They agree that lead poisoning from cooking utensils was potentially hazardous. However, measurements of lead from bones of Romans and other peoples provide no evidence that the fertility of the Roman elite was adversely affected.<ref name="Needleman">{{cite journal| author = Needleman L, Needleman D| title = Lead Poisoning and the Decline of the Roman Aristocracy| journal = Classical Views| volume = 4| issue = 1| pages = 63–94| date= 1985| id = ISSN 0012-9356}}</ref>
Colum Gillfallen in ''Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning'' (1965) argued that lead used by Romans in plumbing and cooking utensils poisoned the water and food of the Roman elite. He concluded, "It follows ... that whatever qualities enabled Roman individuals to make money, or to marry or mate with money, were rigorously bred out of the race and culture by lead and other forces" and caused the [[decline of the Roman Empire]].<ref>{{cite journal| author = Gillfallen SC| title = Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning| journal = The Mankind Quarterly| volume = 5| issue = 3| pages = 131–148| date= January–March 1965| id = ISSN 0025-2344}} </ref>
⚫
In 1985, the Gillfallen paper was refuted by Needleman and Needleman. They found that "the lead employed in the main water-supply system was almost certainly harmless". Calcium deposits from hard water prevented contact with the lead. Where the water was soft (rare in the most populated areas), continuous flow of water caused dissolved lead concentration to be small. They agree that lead poisoning from cooking utensils was potentially hazardous. However, measurements of lead from bones of Romans and other peoples provide no evidence that the fertility of the Roman elite was adversely affected.<ref name="Needleman">{{cite journal| author = Needleman L, Needleman D| title = Lead Poisoning and the Decline of the Roman Aristocracy| journal = Classical Views| volume = 4| issue = 1| pages = 63–94| date= 1985| id = ISSN 0012-9356}}</ref>


[[William Shockley]] used the term with his controversial advocacy of [[eugenics]] from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. Shockley argued that "the future of the population was threatened because people with low IQs [[Fertility and intelligence|had more children than those with high IQs]]."<ref name="PBS">{{cite web| title = William Shockley 1910–1989| work = A Science Odyssey People and Discoveries| publisher = PBS online| date= 1998| url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/btshoc.html| accessdate = 2006-11-13}} </ref><ref name = "Shockley">[[William Shockley]], [[Roger Pearson]]: ''Shockley on Eugenics and Race: The Application of Science to the Solution of Human Problems'' [[Scott-Townsend Publishers]], ISBN 978-1878465030</ref>
[[William Shockley]] used the term with his controversial advocacy of [[eugenics]] from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. Shockley argued that "the future of the population was threatened because people with low IQs [[Fertility and intelligence|had more children than those with high IQs]]."<ref name="PBS">{{cite web| title = William Shockley 1910–1989| work = A Science Odyssey People and Discoveries| publisher = PBS online| date= 1998| url = http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/btshoc.html| accessdate = 2006-11-13}} </ref><ref name = "Shockley">[[William Shockley]], [[Roger Pearson]]: ''Shockley on Eugenics and Race: The Application of Science to the Solution of Human Problems'' [[Scott-Townsend Publishers]], ISBN 978-1878465030</ref>

Revision as of 01:58, 25 May 2010

Dysgenics (also known as cacogenics) is the study of factors producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or species.[1][2] Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse[3] and the fruit fly.[4][5][6]

Advocates of eugenics have sought to counter what they regard as dysgenic dynamics within the human gene pool. Specifically, in regard to the continuation of congenital disorders and factors impacting overall societal intelligence relating to the heritability of IQ.

Processes tending to promote the survival of or reproduction by the weak or diseased, especially at the expense of the strong or healthy, could be described as being dysgenic.[1]

Chronology

The word "dysgenic" was first used, as an adjective, about 1915, by David Starr Jordan, describing the "dysgenic effect" of World War I.[7] Jordan believed that healthy men were as likely to die in modern warfare as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.[8][9]

In the 1965 article Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning, S. C. Gilfillan hypothesized that lead poisoning of the upper class was responsible for the decline of the Roman Empire. Lead poisoning of women and children produced "sterility, miscarriage, stillbirth, heavy child mortality and permanent mental impairment in the children."[10] Beginning in the second or first century B.C., the upper class died out rapidly with the population of each generation being a quarter the size of the previous generation, primarily because they were rearing few children. The elite had more lead in their diet than others because differences in plumbing usage and cooking utensils. In 1985, the Gillfallen paper was refuted by Needleman and Needleman. They found that "the lead employed in the main water-supply system was almost certainly harmless". Calcium deposits from hard water prevented contact with the lead. Where the water was soft (rare in the most populated areas), continuous flow of water caused dissolved lead concentration to be small. They agree that lead poisoning from cooking utensils was potentially hazardous. However, measurements of lead from bones of Romans and other peoples provide no evidence that the fertility of the Roman elite was adversely affected.[11]

William Shockley used the term with his controversial advocacy of eugenics from the mid-1960s through the 1980s. Shockley argued that "the future of the population was threatened because people with low IQs had more children than those with high IQs."[12][13]

Dysgenics: Genetic deterioration in modern populations is the title of a 1996 book by the psychologist Richard Lynn, in which he argues that intelligence in Western nations has been decreasing due to dysgenics and that China may overtake the West due to continued deterioration of intelligence in the Western nations, especially the USA. The book received several favorable reviews.[14][15] Richard Lynn (along with Daniel R. Vining and William Shockley) is a major recipient of grants from the Pioneer Fund, characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC),[16][17] a civil rights advocacy organization. However, science writer Morton Hunt, who had received Pioneer funding for his book, has stated: "One could spend hundreds of pages on the pros and cons of the case of the Pioneer Fund, but what matters to me—and should matter to my readers—is that I have been totally free to research and write as I chose."[18]

In a 1998 publication, Robert Klark Graham argued that genocide and class warfare, in cases ranging from the French Revolution to the present, have had a dysgenic effect through the killing of the more intelligent by the less intelligent, and "might well incline humanity toward a more primitive, more brutish level of evolutionary achievement."[19]

Intelligence and fertility

Main article: Fertility and intelligence
Further information: Heritability of IQ

Demographic studies have indicated that in humans, fertility and intelligence tend to be negatively correlated, that is to say, the more intelligent, as measured by IQ, exhibit a lower total fertility rate than the less intelligent. A few studies have theorized that these differing fertility rates may lead to a decrease in overall mean population IQ.[20][21][22]

Arguments against

A negative correlation between fertility and IQ has existed in many parts of the world at various times;[23] it has been argued that this was true of Ancient Rome.[11] While it may seem obvious that differential fertility would result in a progressive change of IQ, Preston and Campbell argue that it is a fallacy that applies only to closed subpopulations. As long as the children's IQ can be more or less than that of their parents, an equilibrium is established. Subsequently, the mean IQ will not change in the absence of a change of the differential fertility. The steady-state IQ distribution will be lower for negative differential fertility and for positive, but these differences are small. For the extreme and unrealistic assumption of endogamous mating in IQ subgroups, a differential fertility change of 2.5/1.5 to 1.5/2.5 (high IQ/low IQ) causes a maximum shift of four IQ points. For random mating, the shift is less than one IQ point.[24]

James S. Coleman, however, contends that Preston and Campbell's model depends on assumptions which are unlikely to be true, and argues that their dismissal of the "common belief" in the case of IQ is unfounded.[25][26]

Flynn effect

Main article: Flynn effect

The increase of IQ scores since their development provides evidence against dysgenic decreases of IQ; this general increasing trend is known as the Flynn effect. Geneticist Steve Connor wrote that Lynn, writing in Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, "misunderstood modern ideas of genetics." "A flaw in his argument of genetic deterioration in intelligence," Jones said in his refutation of the existence of a dysgenic trend, which "was the widely accepted fact that intelligence as measured by IQ tests has actually increased over the past 50 years."[27]

If the genes causing IQ have been shifting, IQ throughout the population should be reasonably expected to shift in the same direction, yet the reverse has occurred. However, genotypic IQ may decrease even while phenotypic IQ rises throughout the population due to environmental effects such as better nutrition and education.[28] The Flynn effect has increased IQ scores as much as 15 points throughout the First World, but some researchers have argued that this trend may now be reversing.[29][30]

In fiction

Cyril M. Kornbluth's 1951 short story The Marching Morons is an example of dysgenic fiction, describing a man who accidentally ends up in the distant future to find out that dysgenics has resulted in mass stupidity. Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy has the same premise, with the main character the subject of a military hibernation experiment that goes awry, taking him 500 years into the future. While in the Kornbluth short story civilization is kept afloat by a small group of dedicated geniuses, their function has been replaced by automated systems in Idiocracy.[31][32]

See also

Related:

Notes

  1. ^ http://www.bartleby.com/61/60/D0446000.html
  2. ^ http://medical.merriam-webster.com/medical/dysgenics
  3. ^ Tanabe T, Beam KG, Powell JA, Numa S (1988). "Restoration of excitation-contraction coupling and slow calcium current in dysgenic muscle by dihydropyridine receptor complementary DNA". Nature. 336 (6195): 134–9. doi:10.1038/336134a0. PMID 2903448. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ^ Kidwell MG (1983). "Evolution of hybrid dysgenesis determinants in Drosophila melanogaster". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 80 (6): 1655–9. doi:10.1073/pnas.80.6.1655. PMC 393661. PMID 6300863. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Almeida LM, Carareto CMA (June 2002). "Gonadal hybrid dysgenesis in Drosophila Sturtevanti (Diptera, Drosophilidae)". Iheringia, Sér. Zool. 92 (2). doi:10.1590/S0073-47212002000200007.
  6. ^ "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.
  7. ^ Oxford English Dictionary
  8. ^ Jordan, David Starr (2003 (Reprint)). War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations. Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific. ISBN 1-4102-0900-8. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ McNish I (Fall 2002). "David Starr Jordan on the Dysgenic effects of dysfunctional culture". Mankind Quarterly. 43 (1): 81–98.
  10. ^ Gilfillan SC (January–March 1965). "Roman Culture and Dysgenic Lead Poisoning". The Mankind Quarterly. 5 (3): 131–148. ISSN 0025-2344.
  11. ^ a b Needleman L, Needleman D (1985). "Lead Poisoning and the Decline of the Roman Aristocracy". Classical Views. 4 (1): 63–94. ISSN 0012-9356.
  12. ^ "William Shockley 1910–1989". A Science Odyssey People and Discoveries. PBS online. 1998. Retrieved 2006-11-13.
  13. ^ William Shockley, Roger Pearson: Shockley on Eugenics and Race: The Application of Science to the Solution of Human Problems Scott-Townsend Publishers, ISBN 978-1878465030
  14. ^ Loehlin JC (1999). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, reviewed by John C. Loehlin" (fee required). Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
  15. ^ Vining DR (1998). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations, reviewed by Daniel R. Vining, Jr" (fee required). Population Studies.
  16. ^ "Race and 'Reason'; Academic ideas a pillar of racist thought". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  17. ^ "Into the Mainstream; An array of right-wing foundations and think tanks support efforts to make bigoted and discredited ideas respectable". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  18. ^ Hunt, Morton (1998). The New Know-Nothings: The Political Foes of the Scientific Study of Human Nature, Transaction Publishers: ISBN 0-7658-0497-2
  19. ^ Graham RK (Fall 1998). "Devolution by revolution: Selective genocide ensuing from the French and Russian revolutions". Mankind Quarterly. 39 (11): 71–93.
  20. ^ Kirk D (1969). "The biological effects of family planning. B. The genetic implications of family planning". J Med Educ. 44 (11): Suppl 2:80–3. PMID 5357924. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  21. ^ Vining, Daniel (1995). "On the possibility of the reemergence of a dysgenic trend with respect to intelligence in American fertility differentials: an update". Personality and Individual Differences. 19 (2): 259–263. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(95)00038-8.
  22. ^ Lynn R, Van Court M (2004). "New evidence of dysgenic fertility for intelligence in the United States". Intelligence. 32 (2): 193–201. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2003.09.002.
  23. ^ Literacy, Education and Fertility, Past and Present: A Critical Review, Harvey J. Graff
  24. ^ Preston SH, Campbell C (March 1993). "Differential Fertility and the Distribution of Traits: The Case of IQ" (fee required). The American Journal of Sociology. 98 (5). The University of Chicago Press: 997–1019. doi:10.1086/230135. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
  25. ^ Coleman JS (1993). "Comment on Preston and Campbell's 'Differential Fertility and the Distribution of Traits'" (fee required). The American Journal of Sociology. 98 (5): 1020–1032. doi:10.1086/230136.
  26. ^ Lam D (March 1993). "Comment on Preston and Campbell's "Differential Fertility and the Distribution of Traits"" (fee required). The American Journal of Sociology. 98 (5). The University of Chicago Press: 1033–1039. doi:10.1086/230137. Retrieved 2008-04-22.
  27. ^ Connor, Steve (December 22, 1996). "Stalking the Wild Taboo; Professor predicts genetic decline and fall of man". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2008-04-15.
  28. ^ Retherford RD, Sewell WH (1988). "Intelligence and family size reconsidered" (PDF). Soc Biol. 35 (1–2): 1–40. PMID 3217809.
  29. ^ Teasdale T, Owen DR (2008). "Secular declines in cognitive test scores: A reversal of the Flynn Effect". Intelligence. 36 (2): 121. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.01.007.
  30. ^ Lynn R, Harvey J (2008). "The decline of the world's IQ". Intelligence. 36 (2): 112. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.03.004.
  31. ^ Mitchell, Dan (2006-09-09). "Shying away from Degeneracy". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
  32. ^ Sailer S (2006-10-06). "The Morons Shall Inherit the Earth". The American Conservative. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dysgenics&oldid=364038016"