E não esqueçamos o Ota Benga...

[zumbi filosófico]

SOME REFLECTIONS ON EUGENICSAND RELIGION.* By THE RIGwri REV. E. W. BARNES, SeD., Hon. D.D., F.R.S., Bishop of Birmingham.

[...]

Christianity seeks to create the Kingdom of God, the community of the elect. It tries to make wlhat we may call a spiritually-eugenic society. It recognisesthat by no means all human beings are fit for this society. 'Many are called but few are chosein,' is a saying of its Founder, the truth of which continuous experience has verified. But, also, Christianity affirms the rights and value of the individual simply as a human being. And, together with this affirmation, the belief has been strong that all men are potentially sons of God, so made that, if they will, they can enter the Kingdom. 'No man is so vile, so degraded,' says theProtestant evangelist, 'thatwe can pronounce a priori that his con- version is hopeless.' 'Througlh the sacraments there is salvation forall,' says the Catholic. Yet an evangelical movement always ends by creating a spiritual aristocracy. [...]

The facts are well known: yet belief in the possibility of the salva-tion of all men, of bringing all into the Kingdom, persists. Suchbelief in the inherent value of the individual hasgreat ethical import- ance. It is doubtful whether you will do unto others as you wouldthat they should do unto you, if you think that they are not funda- mentally of potentially equal value with yourself. The great bond ofsocial unity is that we regard our fellow-citizens as sharing with our- selves the full heritage of humanity.

Now eugenists have made it clear that mental defectives not onlylack some of the most valuable qualities of our human heritage, but also that they often transmit such lack to their off-spring. Yet adoubt remains as to whether there is no latent power of recovery. Thequestion is asked: Among the children of parents both mentally defec- tive is it not possible that normal human beings, or even genius, may be found? Until a negative answer can be given to this question Christian sentiment will be slow in giving approval to sterilisation proposals-. The Christian community, though very conservative, isby no means devoid of common sense. If you could demonstrate thatthe feeble-minded were not only in themselves a social burden but also that there was nothing latent in them of value to the race you would rapidly win Christian sympathy and support. I doubt if you will everbe able to do this. But, if you shew, as it can be shewn, that thefeeble-minded normally have so many defective descendants thattheirfecundity is a barrier to theextension of spiritual perception, you willgradually get Christians to approve action by which such fecundity is checked.

There seems to be no evidence which would warrant the beliefthatfrom bad stocks good can never be created. My friend ProfessorMacBride argues, from Tornier's work on the production of gold-fish, that mutations to be observed in domestic animals and plants resultfrom germ-weakening under artificial conditions. He consequently rejects the idea that such mutations can play a decisive part in the pro- cess of evolution. But does not the same line of argument suggest that mental deficiency may be due to germ-weakening under artificial con-ditions ? I understand that if gold-fish were allowed to breed freelyunder natural conditions they would revert to the small grey carp fromwhich they were derived. Domestic animals, when they run wild,tend to revert to natural types. Our sense of values is determined byhuman fancy and human appetite: and we therefore term such reversion a degeneration to the original type. But from thepoint of view of Nature the reversion is surely a reversal of the artificial disorder which man has produced. Has man not produced conditions which make for similar disorder in his own race? The industrial revolution has withinhalf a dozengenerations removed the greater part of our people fromthe healthy influence of unspoiled nature. Slum life, drugs, artificialpleasures and excitements may surely produce germ-weakening. Butis it not possible that the simple life, to use a convenient phrase, would be sufficient to breed, even from the feeble-minded, a mentally healthy stock? I put the question diffidently inthe search for information.

It is well known to all Social workers that the part ofour popula-tion which lacks ability, initiative, self-reliance and energy tends to,remain in the central areas of our great cities. The clergy who workn these areas find that any individuals who shew exceptional enter- prise soon move away.There is thus an automatic segregation of theunfit. But these unfit shew every possible degree of what I venture to,call germ-weakening. Mental deficiency is not a definite abnormality to be sharply distinguished from the normal.It is the extreme illus- tration of a graduated process. The average level of mental life of aslum area in which segregation has taken place is exceptional, much lower than that of thecommunity as a whole. Religious work in suchan area is practically hopeless. Even among the children the response is slight: among adults it is negligible. The few who "have thereligious sense" are those who sooner or later leave the area. Suchfacts, which are commonplaces to anyone engaged in religious adminis-tration, are worthy of the close attention of eugenists.I suggest to you that absence of any kind of religious interest is evi-dence of mental abnormality. Man is a religious animal, thoughhe is by no means always naturally Christian either in temper or thought. The saying 'the nearer the soil, the nearer to God' is if course an exaggera-tion. But those who are uprooted from the soil are a difficult religiousproblem. Some, as I have said, have no apparent capacity for religious response. Others, in more prosperous ranks ofsociety, often turn t& 'cranky' types of belief in whichthe student of comparative religion can recognise a close affinity to low-grade expressions of the religious sense which have previously arisen in human evolution. Those of us who are concerned to preserve the highest tvpe of religion, which is a harmony in which the elation of the mystic is fused with reason and ethical principle, are greatly troubled by the present religious chaos. It is almost a commonplacethat the religiousfancies that run riot to-daybear a singular likeness to those which were widespread in classical civilisation during the second century of our era.Have they beenproduced by similar social conditions? Are they the result of urbanlife ? Is it true that the development of the constituents of the chromo- somes in the germ-cells is injuriously affected by the way in which infants are reared in crowded areas, by life under artificial light, by alcohol, by conditions which militate against a natural and healthy sexual life? The problem is immensely important. Religious decay is not merely a sign of social ill-health: its consequence is likely to be increased social degeneration. That such decay exists is undoubted.

[...]

Darwin's philosohpy has been well summarized by ProfessorD' Arcy Thompson in the words: 'Fit and unfit arise alike but what isfit to survive does survive and what is unfit perishes.' Whatever bethe detailed mechanism of evolution, the broad principle thus enun- ciated admits of no dispute. It has destroyed the old narrow teleology. It has made us see that we mnust assign as much importance to the environment which God has created as to the capacity for variation which He has given to living organisms. But, if we take this widerstandpoint, there is nothing in this philosophy inconsistent with theChristian outlook. God s progressive action, His creative activity leading to spiritual understanding in man, remains.God, by allowing fit and unfit to arise alike and by using environment to destroy the unfit, has produced in humanity spiritual understanding. But He has also made man toa small yet increasing degree master of his own fate. We can do something, much more than we have yet done, to make human environment favourable to the survival of those qualitiesin humanity which we rightly value and of human beings in whom those qualities occur. But we must not create an environment in which the feeble-minded, the criminal, and the insane can multiply rapidly. Though such persons may have some descendants of social value, it is statistically demonstrable that the average of their descend- ants will be below the normal. When they breed freely they are an impediment to the creation of what the Christian terms the Kingdom of God on earth. The humane man, asa consequence of hisreligiousinstinct, desires a good environment for all who may be born into the world. He is learning that he cannot get his desire unless his socialorganisation is such that degenerates leave no offspring. When reli- gious people realise that, in thus preventing the survival of the socially unfit, they are working in accordance with the plan by which God hasbrought humanity so far on its road their objections to repressive action will vanish.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article ... 2-0020.pdf

[Fernando Silva]

The facts are well known: yet belief in the possibility of the salvation of all men, of bringing all into the Kingdom, persists.

Segundo os calvinistas e presbiterianos, é justamente o contrário: ninguém merece ser salvo, mas Deus, arbitrariamente, escolhe uns poucos e joga o resto no inferno. Antes mesmo de nascermos, nosso destino está definido.

But we must not create an environment in which the feeble-minded, the criminal, and the insane can multiply rapidly. Though such persons may have some descendants of social value, it is statistically demonstrable that the average of their descendants will be below the normal.

Sim e não. Parece racional impedir que criminosos e débeis mentais tenham filhos, mas a coisa não é tão simples.
O mesmo gene que faz de um homem um criminoso pode fazer de seu descendente um herói.
O mesmo gene que faz de alguém um debilóide pode dar aos descendentes alguma vantagem inesperada.
Há genes que causam doenças genéticas se vêm dos dois pais, mas protegem de outras doenças se vêm apenas de um deles - e é por isso que não foram eliminados pela seleção natural.

Não temos todas as informações, portanto não temos como fazer afirmações tão definitivas.