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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
 Posted - 11/23/2005 : 22:53:27 [Permalink]
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quote:
Is not our lifespan dependent upon our intelligence?
Only partly. There are many species on the planet that have lifespans significantly longer than humans. Some tortise species can live hundreds of years, some bacteria can live thousands.
quote:
Reproductive success is about having more kids (who go on to have kids themselves) than competing species.
Sure. But it is all about living long enough to do it. Once you reproduce and pass on your genes to the next generation, you are a success. But yes, if you are capable of continued reproduction throughout a very long (comparatively) lifespan then that could also be an advantage.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 11/24/2005 : 00:09:48 [Permalink]
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Personally I don't think that it would be ethical to forcibly sterilize them, even at the cost of losing what we currently think of as humanity.
From an evolutionary perspective, we would be inferior to these "offspring" of humanity. If we were to attempt sterilization, or other breeding control programs, we'd be engaging in eugenics merely to maintain the status quo.
If we felt eugenics was justified in this scenario, perhaps we could more profitably alter our own genotype to gift ourselves with the advantages of the mutants but retain our relatively high intelligence.
Consider the following scenario: There is a mutation that increases a persons IQ by %50. The gene is recesive however, and left to itself it will be diluted out of the human population altogether. In this case, would those with the mutation be justified in sterilizing, or otherwise controlling the breeding of, the rest of humanity? |
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