Suppose we made a policy all children will be provided the necessities of life (food, medicine, shelter, whatever). This would be selecting for those who have the most children regardless of their ability to provide for them. So I mean in a sense this would be “evolution doing its job”, insofar that it was maximizing reproductive success given the situation.
But I think most would consider it dysgenic, because “has children beyond their personal means to provide” would seem to be an undesirable trait to most. To some extent we can control the environment within which “evolution does its job”, so what kind of evolution will the environment we’ve created lead to? A kind we want? Or a kind we don’t want? So the label of dysgenic or eugenic is just passing a value judgment on the results of evolution given the environment parameters we control.
I would think most evolutionary changes would not be value-neutral, so every change to the environment that affects evolution could be considered either eugenic or dysgenic. I guess you might disagree here if you consider all or most things to be value-neutral, but I think most would disagree
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Notes -
Suppose we made a policy all children will be provided the necessities of life (food, medicine, shelter, whatever). This would be selecting for those who have the most children regardless of their ability to provide for them. So I mean in a sense this would be “evolution doing its job”, insofar that it was maximizing reproductive success given the situation.
But I think most would consider it dysgenic, because “has children beyond their personal means to provide” would seem to be an undesirable trait to most. To some extent we can control the environment within which “evolution does its job”, so what kind of evolution will the environment we’ve created lead to? A kind we want? Or a kind we don’t want? So the label of dysgenic or eugenic is just passing a value judgment on the results of evolution given the environment parameters we control.
I would think most evolutionary changes would not be value-neutral, so every change to the environment that affects evolution could be considered either eugenic or dysgenic. I guess you might disagree here if you consider all or most things to be value-neutral, but I think most would disagree
Two simple questions;
Who do you think you are to impose value judgments on evolution?
What values do you seek to impose?
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