This one seems to have some anti-psychiatry agenda, and the narrator sounds like someone you'd use for a movie preview, but some of the commentary and clips from history are worth seeing.

James Watson is a eugenicist. His views are discussed in an article by Ralph Brave.

Let's consider a few excerpts:

But what exactly are Watson's eugenics intentions? How would he design better human beings? The germ-line intervention that he and other advocates most often mention is improvements to the immune system. There is a gene, for example, which provides absolute resistance to the AIDS virus. If it were possible to safely implant such a gene into an embryo, who would object? Or a gene that similarly protected someone against SARS or an even more deadly emerging infectious disease?

Such germ-line alterations are viewed cynically by Watson, though, as a means to other ends: the wedge that will open the door to further engineering. "I think that the acceptance of genetic enhancement," he writes in his new book, "will most likely come through efforts to prevent disease."

My, it looks like we have another "wedge." As scientists advance technology with things such as human cloning and embryonic stem cells, are they opening the door to a new world of neo-eugenics? Many think so. Brave talks about the Trojan horse strategy some more:

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Something one of our critics said in a post to the Sam Harris vs. Andrew Sullivan, Part II thread is worth exploring for what it tells us about believers-in scientism, and how science so easily takes the place in their minds/lives of that ever so 'irrational' God they claim so stridently doesn't exist.

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If you thought the critics hated this, wait until they see this!

(HT: Wittingshire)

James Robert Brown writes, in American Scientist:

Darwinism, many people believe, will undermine religion, thus undermining morality. The first inference is reasonable, but the second is not. There's no need to worry about the loss of morality. (For a detailed discussion of why that is, talk to your friendly neighborhood philosopher or read the first chapter of Peter Singer's Practical Ethics.)

Let's look at a small excerpt from the book on morality that Brown recommends:

When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed. The loss of happy life for the first infant is outweighed by the gain of a happier life for the second.

Therefore, if killing the hemophiliac infant has no adverse effects on the others, it would, according to the total view, be right to kill him. The main point is clear: killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.

So, to convince his readers that Darwinism does not lead to a loss of morality, Brown asks them to read from a book that advocates killing disabled infants. If he would step out of his ivory tower, Brown would realize just how revolting most people find such a suggestion.

I'm an evolutionist, mind you, and I agree with Brown that evolutionary biology, properly understood, is no threat to morality. But Brown would do us all a big favor if he would just sit down and be very quiet for a long time.

AP and CNN are reporting today that the "New Eugenics" is already being deployed, per those Designer Babies that 'New Eugenicists' tell us will inevitably become the wave of the future. You know, those Barbie-girls and Ken-boys that activists for human rights are concerned will exacerbate prejudices and discrimination against less-than perfect human beings…

Creating made-to-order babies with genetic defects would seem to be an ethical minefield, but to some parents with disabilities — say, deafness or dwarfism — it just means making babies like them.

And a recent survey of U.S. clinics that offer embryo screening suggests it's already happening.

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Over at Positive Liberty, Jason Kuznicki responds to a commenter's claim that eugenics programs are the way of the future, letting countries like China surpass "eugenically-challenged nations". As Kuznicki points out, central planning has never made any country wealthier, and there's no reason the results of government-controlled reproduction should be any different:

It seems plain to me, at least, that if a central planning agency cannot plan an economy, still less can it plan the genetic makeup of the human species. Like an economy, a genome is a spontaneous order, which has the function of aggregating millions of frankly obscure and hard-to-quantify facts of reality. Before both the market and the genome, we must display a profound humility.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine released a preliminary study yesterday (October 31), tracking cerebral blood flow and activity in the brains of five individuals experiencing glossolalia, a.k.a. "Speaking in Tongues." The report can be accessed through ScienceDaily at:

Language Center Not Under Control (shortened title).

Newberg went on to explain, "These findings could be interpreted as the subject's sense of self being taken over by something else. We, scientifically, assume it's being taken over by another part of the brain, but we couldn't see, in this imaging study, where this took place. We believe this is the first scientific imaging study evaluating changes in cerebral activity — looking at what actually happens to the brain — when someone is speaking in tongues. This study also showed a number of other changes in the brain, including those areas involved in emotions and establishing our sense of self."

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