Why is Eugenics seen as an illegitimate and unfactual science or policy?

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We’re being explained about chromosomes and gametes and shit, and the recent video we watched mention Chromosomes cross-exchange in the gametes in the first or second cycle. The idea I understood was “genes are swapped between them, so they won’t end up really anything like the parents” which confused me more because that is pretty much how genetics work. I am like my mother physically, and my dad in the metabolistic and internal systems. So I asked my science teacher if the cross-exchange was why eugenics is seen as illegitimate, and she said something along the lines of “no, eugenics is about making a pure race, but often there is more genetic variation intra-race than inter-race.”

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I don’t understand this? Does she think race is a continental thing? Because a northern euro is far different than a south Euro in genetics, to the point I would call different races entirely. And there is far more difference between race in the phenotype viewpoint.

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tl;dr learning about chromosomes, mitosis and meiosis, and sexual reproduction, and I am confused about the cross-exchange and what my science teacher is saying. What is the scientific flaw about eugenics? Not its practical flaw in which I could name many, what is it’s scientific flaw?

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18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

In addition to biology, there are also ethical reasons for why eugenics is bad. In order for eugenics to work, one must decide which genes and genelines are good and should be further spread and which ones should be cut.

The problem is, who do you trust to ethically make a decision about this? Who would you personally trust to decide whether your own genes are worth allowing to live on? Then if you can think of some entity you’d trust with this decision, do you think everyone else would also trust that same entity?

So even if there in theory is a positive gain that could theoretically be achieved via eugenics, the execution of an ethical eugenics program is essentially impossible. Hence why it’s essentially blanket banned, as most of the people willing to enact an eugenics policy are only supportive of it of their own genes are on the list of those to be preserved and the genes of people they don’t like are cut. So, essentially, it usually just boils down to just racism.

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