Prenatal scanning to purify society?

[bogeyman]

I love Annie Lennox's voice, don't you?

Not 'doing a Threaded' here, but I did actually know Annie briefly back in the early 80s - a stunning woman with a razor sharp mind (and no, I never did, to my eternal chagrin). Dave S was a complete and utterly vain tosser however.

I think she's lost the plot now though - she was on the R4 Today show a couple of weeks ago pontificating about AIDS in Africa. She suggested that people make themselves more aware by using the web. She said 'everyone has a laptop these days' - I spat out my eggy soldier in fits of mirth.

[Dundeegeorge]

Oh brilliant

Yeah Eugenics is back!!!

I love Annie Lennox's voice, don't you?

[Troll]

Yeah Eugenics is back!!!

[wendigo100]

Interestingly, the offspring that have come forward are well up there on the IQ tests, and even more interestingly have "quality" careers as well, which is highly unusual for people with very hi IQs.

Is it? I didn't know that.

[TheMonkey]

Interestingly, the offspring that have come forward are well up there on the IQ tests, and even more interestingly have "quality" careers as well, which is highly unusual for people with very hi IQs.

Yeah tell me about it. I can't hold a job down

[threaded]

Sounds like a mighty fine plan to me. All the chavs will choose offspring that favour Burberry and gold chains, and the upper class will just continue shagging their sisters to 'keep it in the family'.

Watched an interesting program recently about some American chap who was worried about the declining state of US intelligence and set up a sperm bank where the donors were all geniuses, and the recipients all had to be pretty intelligent themselves. Now that was a good idea. Shame it all died when he did really.

Interestingly, the offspring that have come forward are well up there on the IQ tests, and even more interestingly have "quality" careers as well, which is highly unusual for people with very hi IQs.

[ladymuck]

Sounds like a mighty fine plan to me. All the chavs will choose offspring that favour Burberry and gold chains, and the upper class will just continue shagging their sisters to 'keep it in the family'.

Watched an interesting program recently about some American chap who was worried about the declining state of US intelligence and set up a sperm bank where the donors were all geniuses, and the recipients all had to be pretty intelligent themselves. Now that was a good idea. Shame it all died when he did really.

[Dundeegeorge]

FROM BBC NEWS

A man's sexual orientation may be determined by conditions in the womb, according to a study.
Previous research had revealed the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay, but the reason for this phenomenon was unknown.

But a Canadian study has shown that the effect is most likely down to biological rather than social factors.

The research is published in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Professor Anthony Bogaert from Brock University in Ontario, Canada, studied 944 heterosexual and homosexual men with either "biological" brothers, in this case those who share the same mother, or "non-biological" brothers, that is, adopted, step or half siblings.

These results support a prenatal origin to sexual orientation development in men

Professor Anthony Bogaert

He found the link between the number of older brothers and homosexuality only existed when the siblings shared the same mother.

The amount of time the individual spent being raised with older brothers did not affect their sexual orientation.

'Maternal memory'

Writing in the journal, Professor Bogaert said: "If rearing or social factors associated with older male siblings underlies the fraternal birth-order effect [the link between the number of older brothers and male homosexuality], then the number of non-biological older brothers should predict men's sexual orientation, but they do not.

"These results support a prenatal origin to sexual orientation development in men."

He suggests the effect is probably the result of a "maternal memory" in the womb for male births.

A woman's body may see a male foetus as "foreign", he says, prompting an immune reaction which may grow progressively stronger with each male child.

The antibodies created may have effect the developing male brain.

In an accompanying article, scientists from Michigan State University said: "These data strengthen the notion that the common denominator between biological brothers, the mother, provides a prenatal environment that fosters homosexuality in her younger sons."

"But the question of mechanism remains."

Andy Forrest, a spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall, said: "Increasingly, credible evidence appears to indicate that being gay is genetically determined rather than being a so-called lifestyle choice.
"It adds further weight to the argument that lesbian and gay people should be treated equally in society and not discriminated against for something that's just as inherent as skin colour."


Could you then in future choose the sexual orientation of your child, along with hair colour etc? And if you could, would biologically abnormal sexuality be cleansed from society. Who would choose a homosexual child?

(DG in 'cat, meet the pigeons' mode)