Catholic Eugenics?

[ribozyme]

Sounds like a good plot line for an SF novel. In fact it may have already been done. The highest paid jobs in this future society would be the McJobs! Or alternatively, the all powerful government would draft people to pick up the trash and serve the hamburgers!

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I am content with that in a future society. If those who have the McJobs are the wealthest citizens, then I do not care. So be it!

It sounds absurd in this society though, but it would work there perfectly.

I am not interested in money though.

 

[JimG]

I am content with that in a future society. If those who have the McJobs are the wealthest citizens, then I do not care. So be it!

There would of course, be inequality, and you had previously said that you didn’t like inequality.

Come to think of it, I am sure that this novel or novelet has been written. I recall reading a story of a future society in which the highest paid jobs were the sanitation workers, who made sure that the sewers were kept functioning. The society being highly complex, they did not actually come into contact with any sewage. They only handled the controls for the system. They were the highest paid citizens, BUT while they were wealthy, they were also the untouchables, the lowest in the caste system. They could literally not be touched by anyone else.

 

[Leeta]

Academic is obviously not Catholic.
Children are gifts from God. We don’t select them like a dress or a tie. We belive in the good old way of conceiving children therough an act of live open to new life which precludes any sort of selction by us of what kind of child we may have.
Environmental causes play a egually determinative role in the child’s development as genetics. That is why the Church’s teaching on marriage is so benficial to everyone.

 

[cor]

I haven’t read the book, but I am generally very skeptical of anyone claiming “The Church” promotes anything. It is usually an effort to link the beliefs of some individual Catholics as indication that “The Church” advocates same position.

claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1101/article_detail.asp

This is what I found in a review, not sure how it can be taken as an “enthusiastic embrace”:
"Preaching Eugenics includes a chapter on the Catholic Church’s opposition to sterilization. American Catholic officials such as Msgr. John A. Ryan vociferously opposed eugenic sterilization, and Rome officially condemned the practice in the 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii. Interestingly, the Church’s position against sterilization relied upon more secular reasoning than did the practice’s many religious supporters. In Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI drew on natural-rights philosophy to link the right of bodily integrity with the limits of state power: “Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects, therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason.” "

In Casti Connubii, I believe as you seem to have wrote, it was a specific means of eugenics that was disapproved, not the whole idea of eugenics altogether. A means of eugenics that might be consistent with Catholicism would be for example the State encouraging couples with high IQs to have lots and lots of children.

 

[ribozyme]

In Casti Connubii, I believe as you seem to have wrote, it was a specific means of eugenics that was disapproved, not the whole idea of eugenics altogether. A means of eugenics that might be consistent with Catholicism would be for example the State encouraging couples with high IQs to have lots and lots of children.

Too slow to work… embryo selection is the preferred route. I think the money would be best spent to help those who are not endowed with such intellectual prowess. I place my hope in humanity’s salvation on embryo selection.

I find compulsory embryo selection the most palatable application of embryo selection; it does not discriminate against the poor or favor the rich. Eugenics, in my view, is a means that can eliminate social inequality and initiate a classless egalitarian society.

The cited book is *Eugenics: A Reassessment *

Lynn cites the narrow heritability of intelligence (i.e. accountable to the effects of additive genes) is .71, while broad heritability is .09 (accountable to dominant and recessive genes). (Lynn 2001: 156). Thus the extent that intelligence is determined by genetics is ~ .8

The formula Lynn (158) cites to estimate the average IQ of a population under various selection programs is:

x1 = x - mh^2 + m

x1 = mean of the 1st generation; x = mean of parents; h^2 = narrow heritability (Lynn uses h^2 = .71)

Actually, the formula is x1 = (x - m)h^2 + m (Lynn did not write the formula correctly).

Now, let’s apply this formula to explore the efficacy of various eugenics programs. If we sterilize all mentally retarded (2 standard deviations below the mean), this raises the average IQ of the population to about 101. The next generation’s IQ would be raised to 100.71. A more stringent program allowing only the top quartile to reproduce (minimum IQ ~ 110; average IQ of top quartile ~ 118) yields an average IQ of the next generation of ~ 112.8. For a hypothetical scenario of using artificial insemination, let’s suppose sperm from a donor has an IQ of 145 (3 standard deviations above the mean) and the person being inseminated by this sperm has an IQ of 100. Applying the formula yields a average IQ of the progeny to be about 116).

Now let’s evaluate the negative facets of these three scenarios: The first does not offer significant gains in the short term; the second scenario is impractical as it involves mass sterilizations (but it has decent gains); the third scenario has notable gains but by tautological definition an IQ of 145 is quite rare thus cannot be used on a population. It is clear that embryo selection is the preferred route for a eugenics program as it can be utilized by most parents, provides significant gains (about one standard deviation per generation) and does not depend on significant contributions from the genetically elite.

 

[JimG]

I find compulsory embryo selection the most palatable application of embryo selection; it does not discriminate against the poor or favor the rich. Eugenics, in my view, is a means that can eliminate social inequality and initiate a classless egalitarian society.

It would not discriminate against the poor or the favor the rich? So, it would not try to eliminate the poor? I thought that was the whole point. Elimination is discriminatory.

Wow, a classless, egalitarian, society. Marx and Engels had the same idea, and lots of people died as a result. So did Fidel Castro; of course, he ended up in a one person class of his own. None of the proletariat qualify to be dictator for life.

I recommend laying off the eugenics books for the summer and reading Animal Farm and 1984.

 

[cor]

Not sure where to put this, but since it deals the eugenics, seems like a good place.

I just stumbled across a book call Preaching Eugenics. I haven’t read the book, but it appears to indicate that the Catholic church once “enthusiastically embraced” eugenics.

Anybody know anything about the supposed truth of this statement? Perhaps some off-kilter priest or bishop spoke of it, but certainly it was never an official teaching.

I’ve been doing some research into this and I invite you to read this Catholic Encyclopedia article as a starting point:

“The Church and Eugenics”
newadvent.org/cathen/16038b.htm

It seems to support moderate eugenic measures. It’s from 1913 IIRC.

 

[ribozyme]

I’ve been doing some research into this and I invite you to read this Catholic Encyclopedia article as a starting point:

“The Church and Eugenics”
newadvent.org/cathen/16038b.htm

It seems to support moderate eugenic measures. It’s from 1913 IIRC.

I doubt they support eugenics now. But let’s substitute the term “eugenics” for “increasing the intelligence of a population”. Doesn’t that make it euphonious?

Eugenics in its current incarnation will be vociferously opposed by the church because it invokes methods such as embryo selection. Indeed, if one has a better method for increasing intelligence by one standard deviation per generation, I would like to hear it.

But, I do think that eugenics should be pursued because the ideal state of human existence is assimilating complex information so he can learn about others and himself. Our own intellectual limitations prevents us from doing this unhindered, and I, of course, am no exception. I don’t understand articles in the arXiv about grand unification theories or the mathematics behind them. I would want to know how the universe works too.

 

[Larry1700]

I doubt they support eugenics now. But let’s substitute the term “eugenics” for “increasing the intelligence of a population”. Doesn’t that make it euphonious?

Eugenics in its current incarnation will be vociferously opposed by the church because it invokes methods such as embryo selection. Indeed, if one has a better method for increasing intelligence by one standard deviation per generation, I would like to hear it.

Yes, I think if you substitute the term “eugenics” with the phrase “increasing the intelligence of a population,” and substitute the phrase “embryo selection” with the phrase “better education,” the Church would accept it as more “euphonious.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on this thread, ribozyme. Have you tried reading something else we suggested (the Gospels, Aquinas’ “Summa Theologica,” etc.)?

 

[Contarini]

Not sure where to put this, but since it deals the eugenics, seems like a good place.

I just stumbled across a book call Preaching Eugenics. I haven’t read the book, but it appears to indicate that the Catholic church once “enthusiastically embraced” eugenics.

Anybody know anything about the supposed truth of this statement? Perhaps some off-kilter priest or bishop spoke of it, but certainly it was never an official teaching.

The wording is confusing. It says "Protestant, Catholic and Jewish leaders confronted and in many cases enthusiastically embraced. . . " From that sentence it’s quite possible that Catholics were more into confronting than embracing. . . . and in fact I believe that was true. Philip Jenkins’ blurb cited on that same website indicates that some Catholics did embrace eugenics, and that doesn’t surprise me. But as you note, that doesn’t mean it was the official teaching.
Edwin

 

[Greg27]

I think Eugenics raises some interesting ethical and theological questions but also poses, like much advanced technology, some very dark possibilities in the wrong hands.

In the 20th and 21st centuries we’ve seen amazing progress in the sciences which study nature at the levels of the gene, the atom, and the molecule. This has also given humankind enormous power to manipulate nature at various levels. This has brought countless benefits which have made our lives much better, but has also led to some developments which are deeply anti-human and anti-life (such as weapons of mass destruction and widespread abortion).

Catholic theologians and philosophical ethicists will enthusiastically back any medical advance which would ease human misery and suffering and cure disease, unless that advance involves harming human life somewhere else (i.e. involuntary organ donation or destroying stem cell embryoes). The same I think will be the case when in the later 21st century, advances in biotechnology and genetic engineering, as well as the possibilities of nanotechnology, would come to the fore.

The danger with tampering with human genes for producing a certain ‘type’ of ideal human is that the ‘type’ of ideal human will mirror an un-Christian concept of what man’s nature is, and will also include a dark view of what human nature is in the eye of the beholder. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, certain groups of human beings were deemed ‘burdens’ on society because of their racial heritage, parent’s background, poverty, or other circumstances. Many of these judgements were based not on sound science but on pseudoscience and ugly prejudices. While the darkest culmination of this was in Nazi Germany, the same occured in other parts of the world, including the U.S.

In the 21st century, science and technology are far more advanced and powerful, which gives those with the means (financial and otherwise) more power to alter human nature. Human nature, as Christianity has understood it, has a physical-biological nature, but also has a spiritual nature which in out terms would could say, has the ability to partake in the transcendant reality which underlies all existence. Christians call this reality ‘God.’ In Christian understanding, anyone baptised, even those who society rejects, have the capacity to take part in this reality at an intimate level. In Secular Humanistic ideaology, particularly that of ‘transhumanism’, this reality does not exist and the only way for humans to transcend their own condition and nature is by artifically altering our own nature; physical, biological and mental, so eventually we have ‘perfection’ in so far as it is possible for a creature. But this goes against Christian understanding, which believes perfection is only completely possible with God’s grace; human nature is fully realised only in God’s light, both in this life and the life beyond death.

Altering human nature then fundamentally at any level solely for the purpose of ‘deifying’ ourselves (as was the case in 19th and early 20th century atheistic ideaologies such as secular utopianism, Spencerism, Social Darwinism and Marxism) without God goes against Christian understanding and would be judged to be morally wrong with certainty by the future Magesterium and Popes and Doctors of the Church in the coming decades and centuries. Yet, any alteration which simply aims at helping humans live better and more healthy lives; i.e. technology which gives and allows life to flourish, so long as social justice is not destroyed, will be seen as a great good. Catholic ‘eugenics’ then should be seen in this light, though a better term might be Catholic bioethics.

 

[ribozyme]

The Bell Curve extolls the “virtues” of social Darwinism.