Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1707 sci.med:8268
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!mmm
From: mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,sci.med
Subject: Re: Neoteny and Human Genetic Engineering
Message-ID: <13307@cup.portal.com>
Date: 8 Jan 89 05:18:47 GMT
References: <17917@dhw68k.cts.com> <189@microsoft.UUCP> <2923@silver.bacs.indiana.edu>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 51

Lucius Chiaraviglio says the creation of a slave race --  hmm, need to find
a new term for that;  how about "animal friends" -- would be an abomination.
Who is to say my abomination is less than your abomination?  How is it worse
to make use of a biological robot than an electromechanical robot?  Don't we
already have slave ... uh, animal friends in the form of dogs and cats?
Is Teddy Ruxpin a mockery and an abomination?  Why wouldn't a suitably 
engineered biological Teddy Ruxpin, a living, breathing Teddy Ruxpin be
equally morally acceptable?

Wouldn't it have been great to grow up with a real Winnie-the-Pooh, rather
than just read about it?  What's wrong with ... oh, excuse me, Chimpman
would like to say something:

help      get me out of here

Ha ha.  Very funny, Chimpman.  Now, get back to work.  Remember to wipe those
glasses again after they're dry.

Both Gordon Letwin and Lucius remark on the topic of IQ tests.  I would like
to point out that the meaning of intelligence is highly controversial.  The
IQ testing movement has its roots in the eugenics movement of the early 20th
century.  Here are some quotes from one of the earliest promoters of IQ tests:

"Every time a "B" man employs himself doing "C" work society is losing.
Every time a "C" man attempts to do "B" work he fails, and again society
loses.

"The study of feeble-mindedness has confirmed our belief that intelligence
is a matter of brain cells and neuron patterns, and still more definitely,
it is a question of the development of the larger association areas of the 
brain, the functionality of which develops relatively late, and hence this
development is particularly liable to arrest;  moreover when such arrest has
taken place, there is no evidence that it ever starts up again.

"Much money has been wasted and is continually being wasted by would-be 
philanthropists who give liberally for alleviating conditions that are to
them intolerable.  They admit the money is being wasted.  They do not understand
that it is being wasted because the people who receive it, have not sufficient 
intelligence to appreciate it and to use it wisely.  Moreover, it is a positive
fact that many of these people are better contented in their present surrounding
s than in any that the philanthropists can provide for them.  They are like
Huckleberry Finn who was most unhappy when dressed up and living in a 
comfortable room at Aunt Polly's and having good food and everything that
Aunt Polly thought ought to make him happy.  He stood it for a few days
and then he ran away and went back in his hogshead with his old rags on,
and getting his food wherever he could pick it up.
    Aunt Polly's efforts were wasted because she did not appreciate the mental
level of Huckleberry Finn.

[Above quotes taken from HUMAN EFFICIENCY AND LEVELS OF INTELLIGENCE by
Henry Herbert Goddard (Princeton University Press, 1920).]