Dysgenics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Dysgenics (also known as cacogenics[1]) is the study of factors

producing the accumulation and perpetuation of defective or
disadvantageous genes and traits in offspring of a particular population or
species.[2][3]

The adjective "dysgenic" is the antonym of "eugenic". It was first used c.

1915 by David Starr Jordan, describing the supposed dysgenic effects of
World War I.[4] Jordan believed that healthy men were as likely to die in
modern warfare as anyone else, and that war killed only the physically
healthy men of the populace whilst preserving the disabled at home.[5]

Dysgenic mutations have been studied in animals such as the mouse[6]

and the fruit fly.[7][8]

In the context of human genetics, a dysgenic effect is the projected or

observed tendency of a reduction in selection pressures and decreased
infant mortality since the Industrial Revolution resulting in the increased
propagation of deleterious traits and genetic disorders. Richard Lynn in his
Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations (1996) identified
three main concerns: deterioration in health, in intelligence, and in
conscientiousness.

Contents
1 Genetic disorders
2 Fertility and intelligence
3 Selective fertility
4 In fiction
5 See also
6 Notes
7 Further reading
8 External links

Genetic disorders
Rui Nunes wrote that dysgenics is the selection of genetic traits that are
"commonly accepted as a disabling condition," and like eugenics,
dysgenics can be positively selected or negatively selected.[9] Nunes
defined positive dysgenics as a selection that increases the number of
individuals with dysgenic traits, while negative dysgenics is the discarding
of genetics that cause disability.[9]

Improved medical and social care may possibly lead to increased

incidence of genetic disorders. Practices such as genetic counselling and
prenatal screening may counteract this effect.[10][11]

Fertility and intelligence

Lynn argued that natural selection in pre-industrial societies favored traits
such as intelligence and character but no longer does so in modern
societies.[12] The hypothesized dysgenic decline in human intelligence is
traced to a change in the distribution in fertility and intelligence by
Woodley (2015).[12][13]

Lynn (1996) has received both favourable[14][15][16][17][clarification needed] and

unfavourable[18] reviews.[19][20][clarification needed]

Selective fertility
Lynn and Harvey (2008) suggest that designer babies may have an
important counter-acting effect in the future. Initially this may be limited
to wealthy couples, who may possibly travel abroad for the procedure if
prohibited in their own country, and then gradually spread to increasingly
larger groups. Alternatively, authoritarian states may decide to impose
measures such as a licensing requirement for having a child, which would
only be given to persons of a certain minimum intelligence [citation needed]. The
Chinese one-child policy was an example of how fertility can be regulated
by authoritarian means.[21] Geoffrey Miller claims the one-child policy was
implemented to reduce China's population explosion, and "to reduce
dysgenic fertility among rural peasants."[22] However, the one-child policy
has made longstanding exceptions for rural families so that those families
could have 2 children.

In fiction
Cyril M. Kornbluth's 1951 short story "The Marching Morons" is an example
of dysgenic fiction, describing a man who accidentally ends up in the
distant future and discovers that dysgenics has resulted in mass stupidity.
Mike Judge's 2006 film Idiocracy has the same premise, with the main
character the subject of a military hibernation experiment that goes awry,
taking him 500 years into the future. While in the Kornbluth short story,
civilization is kept afloat by a small group of dedicated geniuses, their
function has been replaced by automated systems in Idiocracy.[23]

See also
 Eugenics
Devolution (biology)
List of congenital disorders
List of biological development disorders
Notes
1.
"cacogenics". Freedictionary.com. Retrieved 2008-06-29. Cacogenics, the
study of the operation of factors that cause degeneration in offspring,
especially as applied to factors unique to separate races. Also called
dysgenics.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/60/D0446000.html

http://medical.merriam-webster.com/medical/dysgenics

Oxford English Dictionary

Jordan, David Starr (2003). War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the
Downfall of Nations (Reprint ed.). Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the
Pacific. ISBN 1-4102-0900-8.

Tanabe T, Beam KG, Powell JA, Numa S (November 1988). "Restoration of

excitation-contraction coupling and slow calcium current in dysgenic
muscle by dihydropyridine receptor complementary DNA". Nature. 336
(6195): 1349. doi:10.1038/336134a0. PMID 2903448.

Kidwell MG (March 1983). "Evolution of hybrid dysgenesis determinants in

Drosophila melanogaster". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 80 (6): 16559.
doi:10.1073/pnas.80.6.1655. PMC 393661. PMID 6300863.

Almeida LM, Carareto CM (June 2002). "Gonadal hybrid dysgenesis in

Drosophila Sturtevanti (Diptera, Drosophilidae)". Iheringia, Sr. Zool. 92
(2). doi:10.1590/S0073-47212002000200007.

Nunes, Rui (March 2006). "Deafness, genetics and dysgenics". Medicine,

Health Care and Philosophy. 9 (1): 2531. doi:10.1007/s11019-005-2852-
9. Retrieved October 29, 2016.

Holloway, S. M.; Smith, C. (1975). "Effects of various medical and social

pracitices on the frequency of genetic disorders". American Journal of
Human Genetics. 27 (5): 614627. PMC 1762830. PMID 1163536.

Matsunaga, E. (1983). "Perspectives in mutation epidemiology: 5. Modern

medical practice versus environmental mutagens: Their possible dysgenic
impact". Mutation Research/Reviews in Genetic Toxicology. 114 (3): 449
457. doi:10.1016/0165-1110(83)90040-4.

Lynn, R. (2008). "Dysgenic fertility for criminal behaviour". Journal of

Biosocial Science. 27 (4). doi:10.1017/S0021932000023014.

Woodley, Michael A. (2015). "How fragile is our intellect? Estimating losses

in general intelligence due to both selection and mutation accumulation".
Personality and Individual Differences. 75: 8084.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.10.047.

Hamilton, W. D. (2000). "A review of Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in

Modern Populations". Annals of Human Genetics. 64 (4): 363374.
doi:10.1046/j.1469-1809.2000.6440363.x. Retrieved 2008-05-11.

Loehlin JC (1999). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern

Populations, reviewed by John C. Loehlin". Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science. 561: 216217. JSTOR 1049316
via JSTOR. (registration required (help)).

Vining DR (1998). "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern

Populations, reviewed by Daniel R. Vining, Jr". Population Studies. 52:
120121. doi:10.1080/0032472031000150216. JSTOR 2584772 via
JSTOR. (registration required (help)).

"Dysgenics: Genetic deterioration in modern populations: by Richard

Lynn. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, 238 pp. $59.95.". Journal of Social and
Evolutionary Systems. 21 (3): 343345. 1998. doi:10.1016/S1061-
7361(98)80008-8. This could be one of the most important books written
in the last fifty years.

Leon K (February 1995). "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure
in American Life". Scientific American. 272. Lynn's distortions and
misrepresentations of the data constitute a truly venomous racism,
combined with scandalous disregard for scientific objectivity.

Rosenthal S. "Academic Nazism". Department of Sociology, Hampton

University. Retrieved 2008-06-28.

Berhanu G. "Black Intellectual Genocide: An Essay Review of IQ of Wealth

of Nations" (PDF). Gotberg University, Sweden. Retrieved 2008-06-28.

Lynn, R.; Harvey, J. (2008). "The decline of the world's IQ". Intelligence. 36
(2): 112120. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2007.03.004.

Edge, Chinese Eugenics, http://edge.org/response-detail/23838/

1. Mitchell, Dan (2006-09-09). "Shying away from Degeneracy". The New

York Times. Retrieved 2008-06-29.
Further reading
Devlin, Bernie; Fienberg, Stephen E.; Resnick, Daniel P.; et al., eds.
(1997). Intelligence, Genes, and Success: Scientists Respond to the
 Bell Curve. New York (NY): Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-94986-4. Lay
summary (13 November 2010).
Neisser, Ulric, ed. (1998). The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and
Related Measures. APA Science Volume Series. Washington (DC):
American Psychological Association. ISBN 978-1-55798-503-3.
Conley, Dalton; Laidley, Thomas; Belsky, Daniel W.; Fletcher, Jason M.;
Boardman, Jason D.; Domingue, Benjamin W. (14 June 2016).
"Assortative mating and differential fertility by phenotype and
genotype across the 20th century". Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences. 113 (24): 66476652.
doi:10.1073/pnas.1523592113. PMC 4914190. PMID 27247411.
Beauchamp, Jonathan P. (11 July 2016). "Genetic evidence for natural
selection in humans in the contemporary United States".
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113: 201600398.
doi:10.1073/pnas.1600398113.
Barban et al. 2016, "Genome-wide analysis identifies 12 loci influencing
human reproductive behavior"
External links
Dysgenics online ebook.
Categories:
Eugenics
Evolutionary biology
Futurology

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