I don't mind him performing eugenics on the mentally challenged. Even with genetics aside, it would be pure cruelty to the offspring of such parents who aren't even fit to look after them and who will end up with miserable lives.
From purely genetic perspective, eugenics fails as people carry recessive genes and it is very hard to breed a superhuman - the more of these superior similar genes you combine (as you would for instance with inbreeding), the lack of diversity really brings out the *beep* recessive genes they might carry. And the whole background to that idea were the notions of inferior races which has long been proven completely inaccurate.
The thing with Gallinger is that he is just too much of a bitch and his game is weak. He could have been a really interesting controversial character, even with his racism. At the beginning of the season I sympathized with him and his personal situation, and started getting some respect for him, but then in the end he is not a person of convictions. He is an inferior surgeon to Algernon so he whines about it and plays dirty to sabotage him (and trust me, Im no fan of Algernon.
His racism comes only partially from the ways of the society, which greater people around him managed to overcome, and other part purely out of his inferiority complex.
If it wasn't for that inferiority, if he played fair in the surgery room, maybe he would have more sympathizers. He is mainly focusing on sterilizing idiots because he sees it as his one way of getting some recognition, while his peers in the hospital are doing groundbreaking things. He isn't inventive or original. That's his motivation.
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sterlingferguson
8 years ago
I can't believe I'm actually answering this...but on the off chance your actually so confused and not just stirring the pot let me help out. Eugenics is a slippery slope. It's the ultimate slippery slope, you say sterilizing the mentally challenged is ok? How challenged do you have to be? If the goal is to "cleanse the population" as it was, you should be aggressive in theory. So is there an I.Q. cut off? What about those people who are autistic and might qualify as "special needs" yet have extrodinairely gifts for math? Don't we want that trait in the gene pool? Are we only selecting for looks? Because I know a lot of beautiful, and stupid people so that's not going to make our "race" any stronger. Look at the people who have made extrodinairy contributions to the world, Eisnstein, Van Gogh, Temple Grandin, etc all who had a learning issue, mental disorder, etc who would have been eradicated. And the fact is when you are breeding animals it is very well known that breeding for a single trait is how you get deformities. The more cross breeding that is done the stronger the species. (Hence the success of short lived highly reproductive organisms like bacteria and viruses). What we know about genetics today makes eugenics look about as good idea as some of the other medical practices of that time.
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rdavies23
8 years ago
Great point about autism/mathematical ability. Alan Turing springs to mind.
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chicago85
8 years ago
Once the camel gets its nose in the tent, you can't keep him out. Hitler and his quack doctors started with Jews. The it was Gypsies, Gays, and eastern Europeans, and anyone else they didn't like.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else
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