Anti-Religion Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics Says Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad”
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112103.html What a BIG surprise !Anti-Religion Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics
by Deputy Dog 18 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
-
-
nicolaou
Did Dawkins actually say that genocide may not be so bad? I doubt it.
DD, put your anger and emotion to one side for a moment. What are you actually objecting to?
-
Deputy Dog
nic
DD, put your anger and emotion to one side for a moment.
What makes you think I'm angry? I'm just posting a news story that I find interesting.
What are you actually objecting to?
If you think eugenics is a good thing, maybe you could tell us who you would like to do away with.
-
nicolaou
I'm almost ignorant on the subject of eugenics and am certainly not able to post any meaningful comment on it. It was your exclamatory use of bold text that made me think you were angry, I guess that's just a limitiation of discussion boards.
Sorry if I misunderstood you.
-
Satanus
Maybe some genetic manipulation... There has been info coming up, showing how dna controls things like monogamy/polygamy in voles, for instance. The time may come, when parents will be able to have some characteristics of their offsprings adjusted. Brave new world, here we come. There will be a lot of opposition, for sure. There will be those (christians) who think that it should be left up to their god (random chance of evolution). Evolutionists may well wish to take the riegns (sp) into their own hands and direct it to more useful porpoises, after all, god's ways (being higher, but totally undetectable, and nonexistent) have brought us to where we are today. Can intelligent, rational humans do worse?
S
-
Leolaia
I cannot read his original letter since the original is no longer posted on the website, but I am pretty sure that this is a gross distortion of what he wrote:
Says Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad”
I gather from the description of his letter in the article itself that he was writing generally about eugenics and not giving a positive moral judgment on the specific "genocidal project" pursued by the Nazis. Having said that, I have to really disagree with the arguments that are represented in the article. People are not dogs, people are not puppies. Puppies do not have the same rights as people. Breeding can be controlled in puppies in ways that cannot be done with humans, unless certain inalienable rights are transgressed, since it would always be possible for Ms. Perfect to sleep with Mr. Ill-fitted on the side. However, I don't know without reading the letter whether he has addressed these basic issues. One could simply argue for the formation of an insular social group that will -- cruel as it is -- banish those who don't meet the standard (without involving such ugly things as sterilization), or is he only talking about good-old-fashioned mate selection that is more sensitive to genetic criteria?
-
kid-A
Well of course we should believe anything posted on a pro-life, christian fundamentalist website!!!! LMAO!!
I guess you are filling the void left over by your xtian fundy-in-arms, "shining one" with this anti-science, christian-fundy TRIPE. Anybody with a functioning
cortex can read Dawkins words and realize he is NOT advocating "eugenics" in the sense you are trying to claim.
Get a life, god-boy.
-
Gerard
The list of pros vs. cons is infinite and both sides are right: There could be both great health advantages and horrible uses.
One evident advantage would be to prevent development many types of cancer, some forms of obesity, heart diseases, etc. and therefore prolonging the lifespan and achievements of most people. An obvious disadvantage is to push the limits of performance on another human, be it strength, speed or attack skills.
Eugenics is not bad, it is the use you give to it. Like a knife that can be used to prepare a vegetable soup or decapitate someone; The ultimate use and benefit of genetic enhancement (eugenics) lies on the morals of the people or government implementing the programs and of course, on the informed and free aproval of the parents.
But despite its health advantages, humanity is simply not ready to refrain itself from abuse of this science. The technique and technology are not quite ready yet but it will be in a few decades and it will be used in the future, so now it is the best time for governments & human right groups to bring it to the forefront for discussion of advantages, implications and ethical limitations. A mayor problem is who will enforce or police the appropriate and noble use of this technology? Have a look at nuclear weapon proliferation and there is your answer.
-
Scully
Here is the original article, which Leolaia noted is no longer available via the link provided:
Source URL: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/nov/06112103.html
LifeSiteNews.com Tuesday November 21, 2006Anti-Religion Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics Says Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad”
By Hilary White
LONDON, November 21, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A leading international anti-religion crusader and supporter of Darwinian theory, Dr. Richard Dawkins, has said that the pseudo-science of eugenics that drove the Nazi regime’s genocidal project “may not be bad.”
Since the end of the second world war, the name of eugenics, the social philosophy that the human species or particular races ought to be improved by selective breeding or other forms of genetic manipulation, is one that conjures instant images of the Nazi death camps and “racial hygiene” programs.
In a letter to the editor of Scotland’s Sunday Herald, Dawkins argues that the time has come to lay this spectre to rest. Dawkins writes that though no one wants to be seen to be in agreement with Hitler on any particular, “if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?”
Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, but is best known as one of the world’s most outspoken current opponents of religious belief, giving lectures and interviews and writing articles in which “fundamentalist” Christianity is among his favourite targets.
“I wonder whether, some 60 years after Hitler’s death, we might at least venture to ask what the moral difference is between breeding for musical ability and forcing a child to take music lessons. Or why it is acceptable to train fast runners and high jumpers but not to breed them,” Dawkins wrote Sunday.
Dawkins' campaign against religion has led him to publish a book, “The God Delusion”, in September this year and he is one of the instigators of the notion, popular with journalists, that the Catholic Church’s opposition to artificial contraception will result in mass starvation.
Dawkins is also a leader of the movement to gain legal “human” rights for great apes, arguing that since there is no such thing as a soul, there is no moral difference between apes and humans.
The atheistic philosophy of utilitarianism, that led in the 1930’s to the Nazi eugenics program, is now a respectable stream of thought in much of the contemporary academic world.
Ardent advocates of eugenics and utilitarianism, including Darwinism, can be found today among Nobel Prize winners and many of the leading lights of academia who hold extreme atheistic opinions like those of Richard Dawkins. Such people argue that the genetic improvement of the human species grows logically from the desire to use genetic manipulation to eliminate diseases.
Dr. Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Ivy League Princeton University and is a leading advocate of utilitarian bioethics and a promoter of infanticide and euthanasia. Common to many utilitarians, Singer is also an ardent animal rights activist and is often called the “father” of the modern animal rights movement.
James Watson, the Nobel Prize winning discoverer of DNA and the first director of the Human Genome Project, promotes the idea of “improving” the human race by "inheritable genetic modification," most often referred to as "germline genetic engineering" at the embryonic stage. Such genetic re-engineering of the human race, once the stuff of science fiction, has become a legal reality in many countries that allow genetic screening in IVF facilities.
Watson, though not as outspokenly anti-religious as Dawkins, has ridiculed the notion of an overarching value to human beings. Speaking at a conference at UCLA in 1998, he said, “I think it's complete nonsense ... saying we're sacred and should not be changed…to say we've got a perfect genome and there's some sanctity? I'd like to know where that idea comes from because it's utter silliness”
“If we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we do it? What's wrong with it? Who is telling us not to [do] it?”
Many modern eugenics enthusiasts advocate sterilization, abortion and infanticide as well as genetic modification of people at the embryonic stage. Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist, John Sulston, who also worked on the Human Genome project implicitly advocated the extermination of the disabled when he said, “I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world.”
Professor Robert Edwards, the IVF pioneer who helped bring to birth Louise Brown, often called the “world’s first test-tube baby, outraged disabled rights groups when he said, “Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child which carries the heavy burden of genetic disease”.
Read Dawkins’ letter:
http://www.sundayherald.com/59116Read “The Inherent Racism of Population Control” by LifeSiteNews.com writer Paul Jalsevac:
http://www.lifesite.net/waronfamily/Population_Control/Inher...Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Canada’s National Broadcaster Promotes Anti-Religion Extremist
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/sep/06091807.htmlGerman Scientist Urges IVF Doctors to Re-Appraise Nazi Eugenics
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2004/jun/04062806.html(c) Copyright: LifeSiteNews.com is a production of Interim Publishing. Permission to republish is granted (with limitation*) but acknowledgement of source is *REQUIRED* (use LifeSiteNews.com).
NEWS TIPS to [email protected] or call 1-866-787-9947 or (416) 204-1687 ext. 444
Donate to LifeSiteNews.com at http://www.lifesite.net/contribute/ -
seattleniceguy
LOL.
Anti-Religion Extremist Dawkins Advocates Eugenics
That's the actual headline. Can anyone say slanted writing? Quit reading propaganda, man.
SNG