It may, in fact, be the case that Americans are a bunch of morans.

It may be the case that this survey has issues and is fundamentally flawed or even purposefully skewed to show one individual's beliefs about Amer'cans. But one need only google 'creationism' to find out that the US is heading toward religious fundamentalism scarily fast.

pantsonfireliarliar

WordVsVoid

Treacher Collins is also primarily aesthetic in nature, being 'born without a face', as you ever so politely put it. While there are some medical procedures required for normal capabilities in the more severe cases of the syndrome, even those remain fairly simple medically.

Ignoring, for now, the difficulty of preventing nearly 1 in 5,000 individuals from breeding for an entire generation (and, thus, passing on the trait to a new generation without some questionably ethical measures), creating an assessment of 'stronger' ignores everything but the most obvious and immediately known symptoms of the condition. Genetics just isn't that easy; you're not getting the option of carefully plucking out individual traits.

You're selecting nearly all of a half-chromosome. There's a lot of other 'stuff' that could be on that. You might end up easily, and accidentally, removing a series of traits that resulted in above-average mental or physical attributes. Hell, TCS is said to correlate with high willpower, although that's fairly subjective target, but not an unimportant one.

gattsuru

How is it that America is a democracy, and all the Americans I know are bright, decent people, yet their government caters to the most ignorant, venal, greedy, fanatical and flat-out stupid pack of fundamentalist jack-offs this side of the Taliban?

Counterglow

A. a population would not - or should not - take such action were it not considered immoral?

B. any society that took such action would not be genetically (if not morally) stronger (insofar as stronger is a meaningful term(and I think it is))?

I know that desirable traits change, but I think I can confidently say that being born without a face is - and always will be - a flaw. Well, I suppose we could one day evolve into beings of light or something. But until we all go non-corporeal, I'm sticking to my pro-face guns.

Jeez, I really didn't mean for this to be debate on the merits of eugenics. It's fun, nevertheless.

gybryant

pharago

mikecoscia

Dietram Scheufele's also known for his significantly anti-religious and anti-conservative biases. That one of his writings about the 'dangerous spiral of silence' has been provided in several different journals and cited hundreds of times should document exactly how well-grounded his mindset is.

Oh, and as for eugenics, it doesn't make the species as a whole stronger, it just results in a lesser percentage of the populace having traits that were deemed 'flawed'. There's a significant difference; there are a lot of attributes that people fifty years ago considered crippling flaws that today are considered strengths, and even attributes today that are considered flaws by the general population yet have significant advantages in many situations (Asperger's would be the first to come to mind).

For other interesting examples of technological or scientific innovation used for purely negative purposes. The likely cause of the minimal amount of released heat in cold 'fusion' observations have lead to a massive amount of pathological science, but very little in the way of utility.

gattsuru

Moff

MasterOfPastures

gybryant

There was a moral idea that didn't last very lon, even though the first propagators of anesthetics, like Sam Colt and Horace Wells, were little better than dope peddlers themselves.

codydog

Ed Grabianowski

As soon as nanotech, or stem cell research, or anything else provides some direct (life-extending, for example) benefit to those sour old bible-thumpers in Congress, they'll be all over it like flies on shit.

Hypocrisy is often our nation's saving grace, oddly enough.
-Kle.

Klebert L. Hall

You know, to mock it. Yeah.

gybryant

TheElectricMonk

This is, of course, just a bit of information that I was able to find in a quick Google search and I may have misinterpreted the hell out of it. It may, in fact, be the case that Americans are a bunch of morons. But I would just urge the reader to not be a moron themselves by swallowing whole whatever dross turns up on a hipster sci-fi blog. Do some research.

Start by Googling "confirmation bias".

gybryant

theOmegaMan

gybryant

Thirty years from now, America will be wondering why a single foreign soldier could wipe out an entire platoon of Marines. And I shall point to this.

Mister Adequate

ceriphim

bryantpaul

SuperUnison

Guizzy

Can people seriously think this? As they drive their cars (not made by nature) use plastics for practically everything, enjoy air-conditioning, aspirin, MUSIC, COMPUTERS?

ARRRRGGGG!!!!

farcast

The_Real_Quiet_Desperation

92BuickLeSabre

bryantpaul

Mecharine

BloggyMcBlogBlog

Plague