If we isolated a "racism gene"...

[El]

I wonder if it could be bred out of people.

You mean use eugenics to eliminate racism if we were able to?

(See the mindfuck yet?)

[Alex179]

I wonder if it could be bred out of people.

You mean use eugenics to eliminate racism if we were able to?

(See the mindfuck yet?)

That does not mean we should do it, I was wondering if it was even possible.   Humans aren't dogs.

[The_Chosen_One]

I wonder if it could be bred out of people.

You mean use eugenics to eliminate racism if we were able to?

(See the mindfuck yet?)

That does not mean we should do it, I was wondering if it was even possible.   Humans aren't dogs.

I beg to differ, Alex. You breed down through the generations long enough, you can get rid of the tendency and the behaviours. It's how civilised society works. But the big thing is, if we did wipe out the 'gene' (if it exists at all), wouldn't we then want to enlarge on that to wipe out something else? I mean, what if some boffin came up with a theory on a 'religious' gene? They've talked about a 'violence' gene for murderers, what about one that predisposes god?

Maybe things were simpler back in the pre-Cambrian days, where all people had to think about was where they got their next meal. No-one worried about race, creed or colour.

[El]

I beg to differ, Alex. You breed down through the generations long enough, you can get rid of the tendency and the behaviours. It's how civilised society works. But the big thing is, if we did wipe out the 'gene' (if it exists at all), wouldn't we then want to enlarge on that to wipe out something else? I mean, what if some boffin came up with a theory on a 'religious' gene? They've talked about a 'violence' gene for murderers, what about one that predisposes god?

I've done a wee bit of reading up on that one and actually that seems to be about as ingrained as our tendency to sort and segregate ourselves.  Not religion per se, but a tendency to attribute random/suprising/big events to forces beyond ourselves (fate, karma, luck, the FSM, whatever).  It's a fascinating quirk of evolutionary psychology- we're blueprinted to have a hard time being 100% atheist all of the time.

[odeon]

If we really did manage to isolate a racism gene, I think that many groupings in our society would start arguing its necessity. They'd probably say that it's an evolutionary thing to protect the village or something.

And the bigots and the racists would continue as if nothing had changed.

[Callaway]

If we really did manage to isolate a racism gene, I think that many groupings in our society would start arguing its necessity. They'd probably say that it's an evolutionary thing to protect the village or something.

And the bigots and the racists would continue as if nothing had changed.

I think they probably would. 

They could argue that favoring the people from your village would tend to favor people who are more related to you over the people who aren't and would enable more of your genes to survive.

[odeon]

Yes, because racism was never about reasoning.