1. How high an individual can jump is easily defined and verifed. IQ can be highly subjective. Certainly one cannot measure the IQ of Hottentots using Stanford-Binet. And IQ does not measure success in one’s life or environment.

2. Eugenics in it’s classically defined sense had no basis in science or fact. The very basis of natural selection is random behavior. No one can predict the end result of attempting to control disease by selective breeding. According to those who promoted eugenics the Jews were “feeble-minded”. Jews, however while comprising only one quarter of one percent of the world’s population have acquired almost 50% of all Nobel prizes in certain areas. Have you heard of Teller, Oppenheimer, Feynman, Meitner or Einstein? Seems that when the US needed the world’s greatest minds to accomplish the impossible they looked to the feeble minded! Oh well, everyone knows that the Nobel Prize is nothing but a popularity contest!

3. What Crichton attempted to convey by referencing eugenics was that just because well known and well respected people or institutions embrace & promote a cause or philosophy it is still BS, if it has no basis in fact or science. Much like someone who tries to surmise what someone might mean without actually reading the material.

4. There is and has never been any demonstrated use of the “science” of eugenics to improve the human race. But, the science of evolution has demonstrated incontrovertibly that random combinations of genes will, when allowed to take their natural course, strengthen and improve organisms.

5. Crichton’s evidence cannot be torn apart because he does not present evidence. First of all, his book is a novel and by definition it is fiction. Secondly, the sources he references are all listed in his bibliography. They are all from respected researchers and scientific sources. But, mainly he contends that there is no credible scientific evidence to draw any credible conclusion either way. He basically, supports the notion we should not go off half-cocked on the basis of fear.

Does anyone believe that the best meteorologists or climatologists in the world can provide the temperature at a given locale within a few degrees, even 30 days from now? But, we take for granted that some computer simulation can predict the average temperature 100 years from now within a few degrees? Witness the spectacular failure of researchers to predict the 2006 hurricane season.

How arrogant we are of our technological superiority and command of our world!

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156832&cid=13147335

You’ll be surprised at the number of scientific studies being suppressed.

Whether or not you believe that IQ is relevant is another matter

@Pramod: I guess it’s more “more smoke than fire” and “there’s something underneath the smoke” than “all smoke no fire”, according to Crichton.

@Gavri: I have no idea what Crichton is actually thinking about, so I can’t say anything about that

A lot of diseases are hereditary. By restricting people afflicted with those diseases from reproducing (maybe by killing them or making it a crime for them to reproduce), the prevelance of those diseases can be minimized.

That is a fact. It isn’t junk science.

Practising eugenics of course is evil because it eliminates human rights based on genertic defects.

Now how is a comparision of eugenics to “global warming” of any relevance at all?

Maybe what Crichton means is this:

Global Warming is real. But asking Big Business to stop what they’re doing is “evil” because Capitalism rocks and we don’t want to persecute the “Persecuted Minority” anymore.

Maybe that was what in his sub-conscious and it slipped out