Comment on This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born

• Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics. And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.

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  • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics.

    I’m sorry but that sentence doesn’t parse for me.

    And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.

    It’s not an English but Greek word and yes it exists in German. Nazis (unsurprisingly) weren’t big on loan words but it doesn’t end there: The non-racially charged German word would be Erbgesundheitslehre, erm, “erf health lore”. Just as neutral as a term as “genome health theory” would be. But that’s not what the Nazis used, they specifically used a term that included “race”.

    One factor that comes to mind which would make me, if I were a geneticist, argue in favour of the term would be people using the term “eugenics” to smear things like screening and IFV to get rid of Hutchinson’s. Sure the field has plenty of ethical question marks but much of it is perfectly kosher, yet there’s people who are opposed on principle. Re-claiming, even appropriating the term then gets you out of the defensive.

    But, as said: I don’t have a skin in the game. As said, there’s arguments for and against.

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    • Maggoty@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      You really should read your own sources.

      …or in Germany [2] mostly synonymous with racial hygiene…

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      • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Eugenik (von altgriechisch εὖ eu „gut“ und γένος génos „Geschlecht, Familie“) oder Eugenetik, deutsch auch Erbgesundheitslehre, in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (da auch Erbpflege genannt) bzw. in Deutschland[2] meist gleichbedeutend mit Rassenhygiene (vgl. Nationalsozialistische Rassenhygiene), bezeichnet die Anwendung theoretischer Konzepte bzw. der Erkenntnisse der Humangenetik auf die Bevölkerungs- und Gesundheitspolitik bzw. den Gen-Pool einer Population mit dem Ziel, den Anteil positiv bewerteter Erbanlagen zu vergrößern (positive Eugenik) und den negativ bewerteter Erbanlagen zu verringern (negative Eugenik).

        Eugenik (from old Greek “good” and “dynasty, family”) or Eugenetik, German also “erf health lore”, in the time of national socialism (there also called erf maintenance) respectively in Germany mostly synonymous with racial hygiene (cf. national socialist racial hygiene), denotes the application of theoretical concepts respectively insights of human genetics on population and health politics respectively to the gene-pool of a population with the goal of increasing the share of positively evaluated hereditary dispositions (positive Eugenics) and to decrease [the share] of negatively evaluated hereditary dispositions (negative Eugenics).

        (my apologies for the quite literal translation I can’t be arsed but an AI will do much, much worse on that kind of dense language).

        Note the completely neutral actual definition, nothing about race after “denotes”. If you scroll past all the racist history to the section 'modern form of eugenics" you see a brief section about abortion, of pre-implantation diagnostics being considered (by some at least) to be eugenics, then next short section on trans- and post-humanist ethics also containing eugenics as a major theme.

        I’m not deep into that area either but I don’t think racial themes are common among transhumanists.

        I don’t have access to the book wikipedia cites, but, well:

        Die Begriffe Eugenik und Rassenhygiene werden in Deutschland stets synonym verwendet. Einen feinen Unterschied gibt es jedoch: Eugenik hat immer etwas mit Erbgesundheit zu tun

        The terms eugenics and racial hygiene are always used synonymously in Germany. A subtle distinction exists, though: Eugenics always has something to do with hereditary health.

        So not only does wikipedia misquote the source, the source shouldn’t be bloody cited in the first place because it contradicts itself within the span of two sentences: If there’s a distinction, they aren’t synonymous.

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        Are we actually arguing about the use of the word in Germany, though. All, literally all I actually said about my opinion on the issue is, I quote:

        If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim the word, or even appropriate it as the case may be, I’m not going to call them racists over it. That needs to be judged by the practices.

        That’s all. Literally all. That’s my opinion on the matter. If you want to criticise something, criticise that, don’t go off on tangents.

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