A 'scale' means compared to others in the same category. Somebody who's coughing up blood is relatively less healthy than somebody who can wield a pickaxe all day without getting winded. College test scores rank the intellectual attainment of students relative to the course of studies. Olympic events compare the athletic ability of competitors relative to the sport.
Not precisely. A healthy Chinese-African couple has a reasonable chance of producing healthy (and quite beautiful, imso) offspring, who will go on to contribute sound DNA to the species at large, whereas a hemopheliac couple, whether of similar or different ethnicity, have little or no chance of making an impression on the human genome.Health and athletic prowess are just as relative as race when it concerns 'human evolution'.
The Shadow option: make em duke it out till the fittest survive. OK.My argument is that the fight to overcome problems makes humanity stronger.
So, you're against all medical intervention and social services?
The concept may be universal; the specifics of what 'optimum' entails is not.[Alias -- There is no absolute or universally accepted goal. ]
The applicability of the moral question "what is 'good'?" is evidence that the concept 'optimum' is applicable.
You mean with the nature we're rapidly extinguishing, or with a putative 'human nature'?As a specie, and even as 'part of Nature', there is logically a similar 'optimal' state. For longer term survival, it may be important that the human is able to achieve synchrony with the optimum state of Nature.
I'm sure morality is busy doing just that. Meanwhile, millions of people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and Huntington's are languishing in long-term care facilities, a heavy burden on their communities.Morality would enable humans to achieve such a state, by addressing the simple question "what is 'good'?".
Prior to what event? Using which philosophy?[Alias -- What is the "fundamental level" of the issue?]
Fundamental level would be "a priori" or "before value". One can address it using philosophy.
What's all this palaver to do with fixing defective genes?
That's what I said. Individual good is easy to catalogue. Collective good is difficult. Comprehensive good is impossible."What may I hope?" is a question that is posed in light of "what is 'good'?" relative to the individual.
Profound implications, maybe; practical effect on the genome, no.[Alias -- What 'method'? I merely said the people who can do it are too few to matter. ]
Method such as the choice for 'embryo selection' for eugenics motives. Like a butterfly effect, a practice or idea can have profound implications.
Would making medical and technological innovation qualify?My footnote provides an explanation. It is evidence that it is required to put striving to 'good' practice, i.e. to 'fight'. (I do not mean something physical, it could be with the mind / intelligently).
How about control of one's own reproductive function - is that 'a win'?
That one doesn't end. So we'll never know the answer.The validity of the argument may come down to the debate determinism vs free will.
Cows? What were they originally meant to be - in Nature, or by nature?Evidence my be cows that have been driven to extinction due to how humans have applied eugenics.
Excellent! Also: Of course. We bred dairy and beef cattle to produce food for us. Once we don't need that cruel, wasteful and polluting food-source, we can safely allow the artificial sub-species to lapse. It would be nice to think their wild cousins are still grazing the prairies and mashes of the Earth, but... No; we've taken over their habitats.The way we breed cows is setting them up for extinction
https://qz.com/1649587/the-way-we-breed ... xtinction/