a new super race?

[rosieglo]

Re the article in the guardian about the baby that was successfully screened for the breast cancer gene and the controversy about 'designer babies' - what's the fuss? I'm thinking that breeding out illness and disabilty is a great thing. Improving intelligence also; hopefully the smarter the future generations are the more likely they will find ways to halt our destruction of the planet and stop fighting. What's wrong with wanting fitter, stronger, cleverer and healthier children? And I think it is so wrong for a deaf or blind parent to actively seek out a way to pass their disability on, I cannot begin to understand how they could want to deprive their child of the ability to hear music or see the world around them.
hmmn - for me it's a pretty straight forward matter.

I tell you this. Even if someone can earn nothing, they are still a precious, loved, valued person and I would want to show them nothing but respect and caring. The whole 'cost' thing reduces us to nothing more than disposable materials. It's horrible.

It means 'ask a grown up' preferably one who finished school since I don't have time to educate you.

What a bizarre comment! You've evidently run out of 'argument' if you're dropped to levying personal insults.

By the way, I never once mentioned the NHS. By 'the caring sector', I meant privately-run care homes/charitable trust care homes where (for example) ASD adults live.

By onager on Fri 23-Jan-09 16:22:01
It means 'ask a grown up' preferably one who finished school since I don't have time to educate you.

oh dear sounds like someone is throwing there toys out of the pram!!

It makes me so when people bring 'cost' into it. I was once asked by a counciller if ds got transport to school and when I said he did she said "oh but the cost".
Apparently it is ok to spend endless money on the low-lifes who make all our lives a misery, neglect their children, commit violent crimes and have no intention of ever helping anyone, yet it is too much trouble to help disabled people live their lives.
I for one know who I would rather have in society.

In the UK don't 90% of British parents in 2009 choose to abort (kill) down's children? So surely that means 90% of people are in favour of these things although not once loved children are here of course.

Xenia 90%?
so are you 100% that every "baby" had downs?

who or what are downs children? do they live on the downs?

Xenia, surely you can see the flaw in your reasoning there?

Over 90% of people with a positive Down's dx would choose to terminate.

That is not the same as over 90% of all people...

Obviously that's with a positive result for Down's for their child, not the parents with Down's... (distracted by small disabled children - plays havoc with typing!)

amber - I wasn't questioning your faith. You say you have it, and of course I believe you.

My questions were about how come you have these beliefs, given that you have (I presume) a literal & scientific rather than abstract & spiritual approach to things (as AS people do). I asked because I am genuinely intrigued.

Needless to say, I have no religion, don't believe in any God and never have. Even at age ~5, which is the earliest I remember of saying to people I don't think there is a God. I have heard similar stories from several AS friends.

Are your parents religious?

That statistic doesn't take into account how many people choose not to have the test in the first place, either.

Cote, if you are happy to start a thread on the religious beliefs (I suggest on the spirituality board, you might get a few more join in) I am sure both Amber and I will contribute. Despite having AS, I have a deep and personal faith, enhanced by a spiritual prayer life (I have been told my approach to spirituality is Ignatian). It simply isn't true that all Aspies are not spiritual. I have a huge interest in spirituality and have done studies into the Christian Mystics of the 14th century (my aspie obsession is all things to do with God, so you can imagine what my bookshelves are full of! ).

"People are often scared of disability, because it's something different.|

No.

"Different" is having green ears. "Disabled" is having no ears.

That is why I said before that I don't consider AS to be a disability (only a different wiring of the brain) and you might be interested to hear that I am not the only one, and that there are numerous papers out there which discuss exactly that.

This is what you are missing whenever you point out you don't cost the state anything, that you contribute so much in taxes, etc.

Mary - I created the thread. Please come.

"Evolution is chance variation and unintentional selection."

Sorry, but that is wrong.

Mutation is "chance variation" but that is a small part of the evolution of a species. And natural selection is rarely (if ever?) "unintentional".

Of course it is unintentional. Nature has no intentions. Mutations persist because of their beneficial effect for a species, but that is different from saying that they are intended. What on earth does it mean to say that nature intends?

Gene reproduction is that which is maximised by evolution, not that which is intended. Not all functional explanations are intentional explanations.

Let's use the word purposeful (as opposed to random), if you don't like "intentional" (as opposed to unintentional).

And mutation & natural selection are two different mechanisms. Yes, mutation is very unintentional. But natural selection is very much intentional purposeful.

No, not purposeful either. My point was that the processes of evolution are not subject to moral constraint because not produced by any 'deciding' force. There is no mind, no cosciousness, no conscious action. So nothing that can be judged like we ought to be judged when we engage in selection of humans.

Think of 20 different shaped buttons, and a structure that causes all the star-shaped buttons to fall to the left and all the other shaped buttons to fall to the right. There is no intention, purpose, decision in the structure.

Chance variation and natural selection conmbined equal evolution. The former is not a mechanism. It is random.

Of course there is no consciousness behind evolution (unless you believe in God and all that), but it is still very purposeful - kind of like automata. Those with certain traits survive, others die off without offspring.

I don't think we are disagreeing, really, but arguing on the semantics.

Yes, I just said that. What you call "chance variation" is called 'mutation' and it is indeed random.

Natural selection isn't, though.

It isn't random but it isn't intentional either. Blimey. Is that really hard to see?