2bighorn: Miko, Mengele (and some modern-day eugenics) would be proud of you... Eugenics is a state policy of trying to improve the population's genepool. As a libertarian I am flatly opposed any state actions besides ensuring people's safety and security of property.
If you think that considering intelligence of a prospective mate due to desire to have smarter children or subcidising an intelligent couple (as long as it is voluntary) is equivalent to torturing innocent people, your thinking is really screwed up.
Or do you think I am dangerous for just believing the clear statistics gathered by hundreds of studies that intelligence is inheritable? How fascist of you...
Anyway, Eugenics is not a german invention but as american as apple pie. Tens of thousands of people were involuntarily sterilised in US in 1920 and later and from US the practice spread to scandinavian countries and other.
Tuomio: For example make certain joints or bones more stronger, maybe make muscles grow faster with little exercise etc. That is a facinating idea. In modern times when food is not scarce, there is no survival penalty for carrying extra muscle mass - or less fat - even if it is unused and requires some increase in caloric intake.
Sure, we can all face a famine where people without energy reserves would starve first. But instead of carrying extra 20 pounds of fat with weak muscles, one can use the extra muscle mass to carry around 30 pounds of nutritious food in a backpack. Unlike body fat, it can be dropped escaping up a tree or offered to someone - sparing him the need to eat you.
ravells: First I've heard of it. I've always understood (albeit it was some years ago when i discussed this with some psychologist friends) the results were inconclusive because there were so many other variables That theme is so non-politically correct that I myself stumbled onto it few years ago while doing research on the origin and operation of various evils of modern times. It was just one more book that had place reserved next to "The Prince", "Mein Kamph", "Das Kapital" and "The General Theory" on my "bad guys" bookshelf.
The infamous "Bell Curve" by Herrnstein and Murray is a must read for either suppoorter or opponent of "nature vs. nurture" argument. It has a good general overview of the fundamentals and discusses several studies including massive NLSY, but being a social text, it mostly uses as a given the underlying science covered in more detail in books like Jencen's
"The g Factor" - which is a real explanation of why and how the intelligence is inherited. The underlying biology, the tests that do not involve concious decision making - and thus are not subject to culturl bias, the explanation of math involved, etc.
Lynn's "Eugenics: A Reassessment (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)" and "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" cover a lot of material and contain a comprehensive bibliographies.
Lynn is a proponent of state-conducted Eugenics which is anathema to all freedom-minded people but the validity of his science is not affected by his atrocious political views.
With those few names you can discover a whole lot of stuff on the net published as articles, interviews and excrepts, since the books are quite expensive except "The Bell Curve" which is a bestseller and should sell for about $12.
Of course one you check the industry journals of evolutionary psycholohy and biology and genetics, etc., the picture there is diametrally opposite to the one painted by the mass media. Few scientists wish to ruin their careers coming publicly as Murray (Herrnstein was dying anyway) and Jensen, but in trade journals that no outsiders read, they are quite explicit.
miko
