Race: the Scotsman and the Yenta

[nuenke]

Now we have these 10 million Finns and they have, like us all, some fatal recessives floating around, and when we see two of them on a collision course we can do something about it. Maybe in 100 or 1000 years we get rid of most bad recessives----I don't know. But it is not a big problem for our Finns because the harmful genes are so dilute.

It seems to me that with genetic testing, any recessive genetic diseases can be filtered out of the population using pre-implantation genetic testing. As to inbreeding or outbreeding, both can have negative and positive effects. Inbreeding can concentrate some high quality genes. Any recessives that show up, since it is an inbred group, are filtered out by failure to breed. The village idiot got two bad recessives, does not breed, and they are set aside. There is such a thing as mutation loading in a species that does not inbreed. So either can have benefits or deleterious effects.

So it seems that as far as genetic disease is concerned, we are well into solving that problem with increased testing. Once past that, and we can identify genes for height, intelligence, aggressiveness, and intelligence, the game changes quickly. Those with the will, the resources, and the knowledge will use genetic engineering to improve their lineage, not just make it different. The result will be an evolutionary arms race between new species - it will not be peaceful. But in the end, the winner may be better off in terms of rationality, behavioral control, etc. Humans have not reached the level of rationality found in flatworms. As we progressed, we adopted false beliefs. Humans are the only species I am aware of to accomplish this - gain in intelligence and irrational beliefs.

It seems therefore that the next cycle of evolution for humans will throw us back to lower but more rational animals (the primitive brain) or we will evolve to be able to question the false beliefs that we hold. Several recent books discuss these issues including "What is Thought", "Why We Lie", "The Robot's Rebellion", "Being No One", etc.