Never heard it expressed like that, but I guess you could apply it to tons of stuff?
> Lobotomy is not scientifically unsound, as aswegs8 proves, it's just completely outside of today's Overton window.
As far as lobotomy, I don't know, but it seems to be widely discredited inasmuch as it didn't achieve its aims (or if it did, the aims themselves were highly questionable)
Given the title, lobotomy is an apt reference "The originator of the procedure, Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz, shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine of 1949 for the "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses"," - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
What's scientifically valid about that? What part of the scientific process is being utilized? What hypothesis is being tested?
If you're implying that people would start to be taller because we are culling short people, then you're talking about "artificial selection", not "eugenics". People who believe that there are groups of humans that are inferior or superior based on genetic differences would love for you to conflate the two concepts because that gets them closer to their political goals that have historically resulted in unimaginable human suffering.
It may not be possible to breed any trait to any distribution one would like.
For body size, maybe, also depending on maternal nutrition. But apparently there is (and anthropologists think always has been) a certain percentage of people with schizophrenia even though it carries a severe reproductive disadvantage.
Similarly, it may well be that personality always approaches a certain distribution like a random experiment.
The culling mechanism would work in any case, of course.
I can think of little modern philosophy more regressive than the idea that a self-appointed superior can determine that another is inferior to the point that they (or their offspring) should be culled from existence. Eugenics and racism have been intertwined since the beginning and with a modern twist continue to target vulnerable populations.
This is why thought experiments like the Trolley problems don't have a simple answer.. and they get even more complex with variations of the thought experiment.
However, please tell me which model of ethics supports eugenics. Is it Utilitarian, Rights, Fairness, Common Good, or Virtue?
THAT SAID, "Eugenics" as espoused and understood over the past two centuries isn't that at all. It's 100%, every time, a pretty face for racism. Human social and ancestry divisions ARE NOT the product of deliberate selection, never have been, and any attempt to conflate the ideas is, yeah, pretty fucking unsound. And horrifying.
That's called "artificial selection", and people who believe that certain groups of humans are somehow superior or inferior to each other because of differences in genetics would love for you to conflate "artificial selection" and "eugenics".
There's no need to steelman a concept that has caused unimaginable human suffering.
A simple example for why “Eugenics”[1] isn’t simply a scientific concept (without severe bastardizing of the word “science”) are people born with Down Syndrome. Abortions for fetuses shown to have Down Syndrome is a contentious topic because many individuals with Down Syndrome have an extremely high quality of life, and many find it insulting to consider them any less human or worthy of life.
But from a genetic perspective, Down Syndrome is objectively bad because it reduces fertility. In the most objective sense, less fertility = less genetic utility. But aside from being fucking horrific, there’s nothing inherently “scientific” about that, just like there’s nothing “scientific” about choosing one chess opening over a different chess opening due to objective measurements like win percentage. We’re not challenging hypotheses in this hypothetical, we’re applying an arbitrary utility function.
[1] using a capital E here intentionally to refer to the idea that humans can be bred to be superior, and inferior humans can be culled (disgusted even typing that out).
Edit: “artificial selection” is a scientific concept; “eugenics” is what I can’t believe we’re still talking about in 2026 in supposed polite company. That’s what HN is supposed to be, right? Polite company? Jfc, “eugenics”.
Get the fuck out of here saying anything remotely positive about "eugenics" while there are multiple genocides (and attempted genocides) happening across the globe right now due to racial and ethnic differences. Even if you're just being "devil's advocate", or "edgy", or if you genuinely believe that you're superior to other humans based on some deep personal inferiority complex that you're forced to externalize onto your political beliefs.
There's nothing "scientific" about eugenics, where the prefix "eu" implies "good" or "better" and the root "genics" refers to genetics. There is no objective utility function on which to base "good", they are all subjective. To imply that the scientific method can be twisted to create an "objective good" on which to measure human genetic utility against is pseudoscientific bullshit that should have been left behind 80 years ago. But it appears its a lesson we can never truly learn as a species.