China has been running the world’s largest and most successful eugenics program for more than thirty years, driving China’s ever-faster rise as the global superpower. I worry that this poses some existential threat to Western civilization. Yet the most likely result is that America and Europe linger around a few hundred more years as also-rans on the world-historical stage, nursing our anti-hereditarian political correctness to the bitter end.
Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller shares some thoughts on “Chinese Eugenics” in a response to Edge’s 2013 question, “What should we be worried about?” [Edge]
Near the end Miller concludes,
There is unusually close cooperation in China between government, academia, medicine, education, media, parents, and consumerism in promoting a utopian Han ethno-state. Given what I understand of evolutionary behavior genetics, I expect—and hope—that they will succeed. The welfare and happiness of the world’s most populous country depends upon it.
My real worry is the Western response. The most likely response, given Euro-American ideological biases, would be a bioethical panic that leads to criticism of Chinese population policy with the same self-righteous hypocrisy that we have shown in criticizing various Chinese socio-cultural policies. But the global stakes are too high for us to act that stupidly and short-sightedly. A more mature response would be based on mutual civilizational respect, asking—what can we learn from what the Chinese are doing, how can we help them, and how can they help us to keep up as they create their brave new world?
Given the platform, evolutionary psychologists never fail to don the academic fedora.
Jerks.
Source: edge.org
…he thinks a woman’s desire to flash is rational while a man’s is instinctual because the desire is rooted in different parts of their brains. But what is the evidence for this? What “research has unveiled” this understanding?
Ogas’s list of evidence includes the writing of an 18th century intellectual, Girls Gone Wild, the behavior of wild bonobos, and ChatRoulette.
Evolved for Exhibitionism? [Columbia Journalism Review]
No comment.
Source: cjr.org
That is a remarkable and possibly misogynistic hypothesis,” said the Biologist. “I am most curious to know how it was tested.
Source: denimandtweed.com
