Perhaps you haven't noticed, but this nation is plagued by out-of-wedlock births, and especially out-of-wedlock teen parent births. Urging reproductive licensing, or whatever it is you're talking about, Joy, will almost always be frustrated by two teenagers in the back seat of a car, multiplied by the number of small towns and the number of kids and the number of full moons, and a bunch of other variables that we haven't realized or just can never know.

Eugenics is hard work. Opportunistic sex, especially between married-to-each-other adults, is not, and is more fun. No one has figured a solid way to overcome the dual pull of love and lust. Either of those forces is more powerful than any drive for eugenics. It's probably better for our species in the long run, too. No eugenicist has broken the magic code our Jacobson's organs use to pick mates. It's almost as if there were an intelligent design working there — but most ID people prefer to attribute lust to a lack of such design. That's one more reason evolution theory works a lot better in God's creation than intelligent design, as an explanation for what goes on.

Eugenicists sought/seek to "intelligently design" this sexual selection process. We have the technology, we have the authoritarian states (in key regions), we have the propaganda machines - we can do it if we want to.

Heck, if I were into such things, I can well imagine how I'd control the population. I'd genetically engineer a "Terminator Technology" [a bit different from that jointly owned by Monsanto and the USDA] aimed at humans. Right into their staple crops - wheat, corn, rice. Make those 'successful' enough to pay the fertility clinic for reproductive "priveleges" [technology] pay for it. An assurance of a designed output to the designed impetus. I could reduce this planet's human overburden by half in two 35-year breeding cycles by attrition alone.

So it kind of mystifies me why "They" [were there a 'they'] would want to take it public. Pride?

Eugenics as to breeding future generations isn't much of a threat so long as sex remains so much fun.

Your partners don't practice birth control? Wow. How many children, by how many women, have you sired (and are supporting) so far? How many without the support clause?

Sorry, ed. I'm not very impressed.

In some cultures men are told to marry women with broad hips — it helps in child birth. In other cultures women select the men based on their ability to accumulate goods. Both of these practices are, technically, eugenics. Is there coming a time that people will not make such decisions? Unlikely.

Eugenics as to breeding future generations isn't much of a threat so long as sex remains so much fun.

"Is there an ideological link here, and if so, does that make the 'new eugenics' yet another manifestation of philosophical materialism in the Darwinian "orthodox" position?"

Rather than address the question asked, you instead inserted "rubbish."

Answer #1: "Some ID proponents also assert that HIV isn't the cause of AIDS (a position that nearly led to disaster some years ago when an African health ministry bought into it)"

Far as I've been able to tell, the AIDS problem in Africa is demographically related to a couple of factors that have nothing in particular to do with the virus that causes it, but with how one gets it [sociological - sexual behavior issue] and how it's managed once you do get it [economic issue]. It's been a "disaster" for awhile now.

Answer #2: "As 1 is true, and they are also linked to ID, I conclude that ID ideological position is HIV denial (which is absurd, but let's follow the argument through)."

You're correct, it is an absurd argument. You have not demonstrated #1 true (or even what the question is that it supposedly answers), and you have not adequately justified a blanket extrapolation from #1 to #2.

Answer #3: "I assert methodological naturalism is a superior ideal because it doesn't fit with the perceived strawman I constructed above."

Well, it's your strawman. I should note, however, that I have said exactly zip about "methodological naturalism" in this thread.

Finally, you claim my questions are "as much rubbish" as your rubbish response. Then you claim to have a point, but I sure don't see one. Please address my points and questions, or keep your rubbish off my thread.

Thanks.

Here is what I could do, but won't do because unlike you, I recognise I would be making a ridiculous strawman.

1) Some ID proponents also assert that HIV isn't the cause of AIDS (a position that nearly led to disaster some years ago when an African health ministry bought into it)

2) As 1 is true, and they are also linked to ID, I conclude that ID ideological position is HIV denial (which is absurd, but lets follow the argument through).

3) I assert methological naturalism as a superior ideal because it doesn't fit with the percieved strawman I constructed above.

Obviously, what you've written is filled with just as much rubbish as what I've written above. Then again, maybe you do think that HIV doesn't cause AIDS. Then all you've done perhaps is prove my point, which just makes me very very very sad.

edarrell: Eugenics, racism and genocide existed long before Darwin pointed out it was stupid. Christianity's stand against genocide in the modern world might be a lot more effective if a small handful of Christians would stop claiming, falsely, that racial war is endemic in the science. It's not.

"Eugenics" did not exist before Darwin's cousin Francis Galton coined the word and applied it to the selective breeding [positive] and prevention of breeding [negative] of rival classes of human beings based on his belief that human society had rendered natural selection impotent to nonexistent in culling the herd. According to his interpretation of Charlie's theory of evolution, in which humanity should 'naturally' have tended to improve its physical/mental condition instead of diluting it to mean.

Genocide, on the other, hand, has existed for as long as humans gathered into tribal groups perceived 'threat' from other groups. Its effectiveness has seldom been total [Neandertal may be a notable exception], but that's not from lack of trying. It has always been about 'classes'.

Obviously the 'new eugenics' is not endemic in science, though its primary spokespersons claim a 'scientific' mandate. This time it's embraced genetics/genomics, as indicated in the story to which I linked, written by a medical doctor, about the current fashion of blaming genes for all that ails us. This is also why the mid-title of my blog post is "Genetic Determinism." Any social policy that relates to population control needs 'scientific' mandate these days. Needed it back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries too, but then it was "Natural Selection," and Mendelian "Trait Charts" gathered into geneologies at Cold Spring Harbor.

Interestingly though, some of the same scientists are involved in countering the 'new eugenics' [see above link to ALL] as are involved in challenging neodarwinism from within the ranks. Is there an ideological link here, and if so, does that make the 'new eugenics' yet another manifestation of philosophical materialism in the Darwinian "orthodox" position?

You didn't answer my blog's specific questions. They still stand unaddressed - 'new eugenics' is supported politically by both 'right' and 'left'. Which is the more insidious approach ['science' versus regular ol' elitist self-interest], and why? Or are they right?

Eugenics, racism and genocide existed long before Darwin pointed out it was stupid. Christianity's stand against genocide in the modern world might be a lot more effective if a small handful of Christians would stop claiming, falsely, that racial war is endemic in the science. It's not.