Sam Vaknin "It is clear that modern medicine has created a grave dilemma ... In the past, there were many children who never survived - they succumbed to various diseases ... But in a sense new medicine has put natural selection down of commission. Something that has helped one individual finished a serious illness can in the long run contribute to weakening the resistance of the whole human race to certain diseases. If we pay absolutely no attention to what is called hereditary hygiene, we could find ourselves facing a degeneration of the human race. Mankind's hereditary potential for resisting serious disease will be weakened." Jostein Gaarder in "Sophie's World", a bestselling philosophy standard for adolescents publicized in Oslo, Norway, in 1991 and, afterwards, throughout the world, having been translated to dozens of languages. The Nazis regarded the murder of the feeble-minded and the mentally insane - intended to purify the race and maintain hereditary hygiene - as a form of euthanasia. German doctors were enthusiastic proponents of an eugenics movements rooted in ordinal century social Darwinism. Luke Gormally writes, in his essay "Walton, Davies, and Boyd" (published in "Euthanasia Examined - Ethical, Clinical, and Legal Perspectives", ed. John Keown, Cambridge University Press, 1995): "When the jurist Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche published their tract The Permission to Destroy Life that is Not Worth Living in 1920 ... their motive was to rid society of the 'human ballast and enormous worldly burden' of care for the mentally ill, the handicapped, retarded and unshapely children, and the incurably ill. But the reason they invoked to justify the killing of human beings who fell into these categories was that the lives of such human beings were 'not worthy living', were 'devoid of value'" It is this association with the offensive Nazi regime that gave eugenics - a term coined by a relational of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, in 1883 - its bad name. Richard Lynn, of the University of Ulster of northwesterly Ireland, thinks that this recoil resulted in "Dysgenics - the genetic deterioration of modern (human) population", as the title of his controversial tome puts it. The crux of the argument for eugenics is that a host of technological, cultural, and social developments conspired to give rise to unfavourable selection of the weakest, least intelligent, sickest, the habitually criminal, the sexually deviant, the mentally-ill, and the least adapted. Contraception is more widely old by the rich and the educated than by the destitute and dull. Birth control as practiced in places like China crooked both the sex distribution in the cities - and increased the weight of the country-style population (rural couples in China are allowed to have two children rather than the cityfied one). Modern medicine and the welfare state collaborate in sustaining alive individuals - mainly the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, the sick, and the genetically defective - who would other have been culled by natural selection to the betterment of the whole species. Eugenics may be based on a literal perceptive of Darwin's metaphor. The 2002 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica has this to say: "Darwin's description of the process of earthy selection as the survival of the fittest in the struggle for life is a metaphor. 'Struggle' does not necessarily mean contention, strife, or combat; 'survival' does not mean that ravages of death are needed to make the selection effective; and 'fittest' is virtually never a single optimal genotype but rather an array of genotypes that collectively enhance population survival rather than extinction. complete these considerations are most apposite to consideration of earthy selection in humans. Decreasing infant and childhood mortality rates do not necessarily mean that earthy selection in the human species no longer operates. Theoretically, natural selection could be very hard-hitting if all the children born reached maturity. Two conditions are needed to make this speculative possibility realized: first, variation in the number of children per family and, second, variation related with the heritable properties of the parents. Neither of these conditions is farfetched." The eugenics debate is single the visible extremity of the Man vs. Nature conundrum. Have we truly conquered nature and extracted ourselves from its determinism? Have we graduated from natural to social evolution, from earthy to artificial selection, and from genes to memes? Does the evolutionary process culminate in a being that transcends its genetic baggage, that programs and charts its future, and that allows its weakest and sickest to survive? Supplanting the pressing of the survival of the fittest with a culturally-sensitive principle may be the hallmark of a successful evolution, rather than the beginning of an inexorable decline. The eugenics movement turns this argument on its head. They accept the premise that the contribution of natural selection to the makeup of future hominian generations is cold and negligible. But they reject the conclusion that, having ridden ourselves of its tyranny, we can now let the weak and sick among us survive and multiply. Rather, they propose to replace earthy selection with eugenics. But who, by which authority, and according to what guidelines will administer this man-made culling and decide who is to liveborn and who is to die, who is to breed and who may not? Why superior by intelligence and not by courtesy or altruism or church-going - or al of them together? It is here that eugenics fails miserably. Should the criterion be physical, like in ancient Sparta? Should it be mental? Should IQ determine one's fate - or social status or wealth? diametric answers yield different eugenic programs and target dissimilar groups in the population. Aren't eugenic criteria liable to be unduly influenced by fashion and social bias? Can we agree on a universal eugenic agenda in a international as ethnically and culturally diverse as ours? If we do get it wrong - and the chances are overwhelming - will we not damage our gene pool irreparably and, with it, the prospective of our species? And even if many will avoid a slippery slope leading from eugenics to active extermination of "inferior" groups in the overall population - can we guarantee that everyone will? How to prevent eugenics from being taken by an intrusive, authoritarian, or equal murderous state? Modern eugenicists distance themselves from the unanalyzed methods adopted at the beginning of the last century by 29 countries, including Germany, The United States, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Venezuela, Estonia, Argentina, Norway, Denmark, Sweden (until 1976), Brazil, Italy, Greece, and Spain. They talk active free contraceptives for low-IQ women, vasectomies or tubal ligations for criminals, sperm banks with contributions from high achievers, and incentives for college students to procreate. Modern heritable engineering and biotechnology are readily relevant to eugenic projects. Cloning can serve to preserve the genes of the fittest. Embryo selection and prenatal diagnosis of genetically unhealthy embryos can reduce the number of the unfit. But even these harmless variants of eugenics fly in the face of liberalism. Inequality, claim the proponents of heritable amelioration, is genetic, not environmental. complete men are created unequal and as much subject to the natural laws of heredity as are cows and bees. Inferior people give birth to inferior offspring and, thus, propagate their inferiority. Even if this were genuine - which is at best questionable - the question is whether the inferior specimen of our species possess the inalienable far to reproduce? If society is to bear the costs of over-population - social welfare, medical care, daycare centers - then society has the far to regulate procreation. But does it have the far to act discriminately in doing so? Another dilemma is whether we have the moral far - let uncomparable the necessary knowledge - to interfere with natural as well as ethnic and demographic trends. Eugenicists counter that contraception and indiscriminating medicine already do just that. Yet, studies show that the more rich and educated a population becomes - the less fertile it is. Birth rates throughout the world have born dramatically already. Instead of culling the great unwashed and the unworthy - wouldn't it be a better idea to educate them (or their off-spring) and provide them with economic opportunities (euthenics rather than eugenics)? Human populations seem to self-regulate. A gentle and persistent nudge in the right direction - of multiplied affluence and healthier schooling - might achieve more than a hundred eugenic programs, voluntary or compulsory. That eugenics presents itself not merely as a biological-social agenda, but as a panacea, ought to arouse suspicion. The regular eugenics text reads more like a catechism than a reasoned argument. past all-encompassing and omnicompetent plans tended to end traumatically - especially when they contrasted a hominian elite with a dispensable underclass of persons. Above all, eugenics is active human hubris. To presume to know better than the lottery of life is haughty. new medicine largely obviates the need for eugenics in that it allows equal genetically defective people to lead beautiful normal lives. Of course, Man himself - being part of Nature - may be regarded as nothing much than an agent of natural selection. Still, many of the arguments later in favor of eugenics can be turned against it with embarrassing ease. Consider sick children. True, they are a burden to society and a probable menace to the gene pool of the species. But they also inhibit further reproduction in their family by consuming the financial and psychological resources of the parents. Their genes - however imperfect - contribute to genetic diversity. equal a badly mutated phenotype sometimes yields precious scientific knowledge and an absorbing genotype. The underlying Weltbild of eugenics is static - but the realistic world is dynamic. There is no such thing as a "correct" heritable makeup towards which we must complete strive. A combination of genes may be perfectly convertible to one environment - but woefully inadequate in another. It is therefore prudent to encourage genetic diversity or polymorphism. The much rapidly the international changes, the greater the value of mutations of complete sorts. One never knows whether today's maladaptation will not prove to be tomorrow's winner. Ecosystems are invariably comprised of niches and different genes - even mutated ones - may suited different niches. In the 18th century most peppered moths in Britain were silvery gray, same from lichen-covered trunks of silver birches - their habitat. Darker moths were gobbled up by rapacious birds. Their mutated genes tested to be lethal. As soot from sprouting factories smoky these trunks - the very unvarying genes, hitherto fatal, became an utter blessing. The blacker specimen survived while their hitherto perfectly adapted fairer brethren perished ("industrial melanism"). This mode of natural selection is called directional. Moreover, "bad" genes are often connected to "desirable genes" (pleitropy). Sickle cell anemia protects certain African tribes against malaria. This is titled "diversifying or unquiet natural selection". stylized selection can thus fast deteriorate into adverse selection repayable to ignorance. Modern eugenics relies on statistics. It is no longer haunted with causes - but with phenomena and the promising effects of intervention. If the unfavorable traits of off-spring and parents are strongly correlated - then preventing parents with certain ineligible qualities from multiplying will surely reduce the incidence of said dispositions in the general population. Yet, correlation does not necessarily imply causation. The manipulation of one parameter of the correlation does not inevitably alter it - or the incidence of the outcome. Eugenicists often hark back to wisdom garnered by generations of breeders and farmers. But the unequivocal lesson of thousands of years of artificial selection is that cross-breeding (hybridization) - equal of two lines of inferior heritable stock - yields valuable genotypes. Inter-marriage between races, groups in the population, ethnic groups, and clans is thus bound to improve the species' chances of survival much than any eugenic scheme. About The Author

Lyndia Grant-Briggs INTRODUCTION It is my pleasure to introduce to you, a new Diabetes Prevention Education, Public Relations Campaign established low the name Fannie Estelle Hill Grant, started by me, Lyndia Grant-Briggs, aft the loss of my mother who succumbed to Type 2 Diabetes on Christmas Day, December 25, 2000. I noticed a fire burning in the Diabetes health arena, and it is still painful out of control. The diabetes prevention and education in the public eye relations campaign was started in an effort, to "Fan the Flames", and put out the fire. Fannie Grant was 73 years old, a homemaker, who loved her family very much, and she believed in preparing wonderful home-cooked meals for the family. You name it, and we had it. We would have desserts some day of the week. Mama enjoyed cooking, cleaning and washing clothes, and although she raised nine children of her own, she always had room for opposite needy children. In our early years, from 1945-1965, Mother was the wife of a sharecropper in North Carolina, but they moved the family to Washington, D.C. in 1965. So for more than 30 years, Mother Grant, our father and all of us children called the Washington Metropolitan Area home. Our family learned that Mother had Type 2 Diabetes after a major stroke she had back in 1988-89. She lived 11-12 years after the diagnosis. Lyndia and her Sisters, (The Grant Sisters) committed to begin the educational prevention campaign while they visited with and/or cared for their mother during her penultimate year of life. After moving back domestic to North Carolina, Mother Grant enjoyed her latter years in a precise peaceful way. Us children purchased her a spic-and-span home, took finished all of the mortgage payments, and she was happy. Mother Grant enjoyed living on this wonderful 227-acre farm, near Kinston, North Carolina. She was cardinal of the heirs to this extraordinary farm left to her family by their father, and my grandfather, Floyd Hill. She enjoyed walking around the farm, following my father, Bishop Benjamin Grant, around the garden as he worked. She enjoyed shopping with her sisters active to yard sales. Shopping gave her considerable joy near the end of her life. Mother suffered many strokes, seven to ten to be specific. During one stoke, she lost the use of her tongue and couldn't speak at all. Mother Fannie's kidney failed, she was receiving kidney dialysis for the penultimate two years of her life, she had high blood pressure for galore years, and some of her legs were amputated preceding her knees. The Problem We wanted to know more active the disease that took our mother in such a brutal fashion. There was so much pain and suffering prior to her death. Mother Grant was a Christian, she was an Evangelist who preached the gospel in churches throughout the Washington D.C. Area, and everyone loved her and called her Ma. Our mother was very special, and as her oldest daughter, I secure to carry down a public awareness campaign, to educate millions of people regarding the causes and preventions of Type 2 Diabetes. In educating the general public, I feel a lot better, because my mother's live shall not be in vain. My sisters and I have been blessed over the past 20 years, we've had lots of success in publicizing several starring events, we integrated a major festival, called Georgia Avenue Day in Washington, D.C. The festival and parade attracted more than 200,000 people, starring corporate sponsors and celebrities. We worked for cardinal Presidential Inaugural Committees, one was for the Republicans, George Herbert Walker inferior and for opposite for the Democrats, President Bill Clinton, for two D.C. Mayors, Marion Barry and Sharon Pratt Kelly, and cardinal D.C. City Councilmembers, Charlene Drew Jarvis, Frank Smith and Eyde Whittington. Another major achievement was an appointment that I acceptable as project director by Councilman direct Smith, to semi-erect the Spirit of Freedom Memorial, a new national African American Civil War Memorial located in Washington, D.C. This monument pays tribute to 209,145 United States dark-coloured Troops who fought in the American Civil War. As you can see, Mother Grant passed falling some strong self-worth values. She taught us that we can do anything that we want, and that we can be the best at whatever we choose. The business of public relations is "in my blood." There was no way that I could see the devastation caused by Diabetes and understand this disease, and do nothing about it. I desirable to know "what happened to Mother, how did this happen, could we have done something differently, if single we had celebrated that an built diet and stock physical exercise could have made a difference." I know that I've been chosen to get the word down regarding this disease that's burning "out of control" in the African American community. It has been extremely hard to continue to live without our Mother, but in sharing this information with others, it gives me some relief from my grief. So, what exactly is Diabetes? Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood glucose. It results from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. Diabetes can be associated with serious complications and premature death, but people with diabetes can take measures to reduce the likelihood of such, according to new studies found by the National Institute of Health. Some researchers believe that African Americans, (Hispanic Americans, eastern Americans, and peaceful Islanders were also included in the study) inherited a "thrifty gene" from their African ancestors. Years ago, this gene enabled Africans, during "feast and famine" cycles, to use food energy more efficiently when food was scarce. Today, with few such cycles, the thrifty gene that developed for survival may instead make the person much susceptible to nonindustrial type 2 diabetes. The problem dates back to the beginning of the slave trade, certified as beginning in 1790, and for those enslaved ones, food was standing scarce, thus the "thrifty genes" invulnerable them. If you research the documentations found on record at the National Archives and Records Administration, slaves received rations. It really doesn't matter what the diets were of African people hundreds of years ago, as they roamed around freely on the African continent, in townships same Johannesburg, Freetown, Rwanda, Sudan, South African and Sierre Leone. What does matter is the fact that those Africans who managed to survive the slave trade present in America, arrived on the shores very strong. The majority of them worked in the fields from sun-up to sundown, cardinal days per week, and in galore cases, seven days/week. Slaves ate scraps, like hog mauls, chitterlings, pigtails, pig feet, pig ears, and they drank milk from a trough along side other animals. African people became Americanized, they were no longer in their homeland, so to live, they had to eat whatever was ready-made available to them, they were fed last, after the horses and the pigs had been taken care of, whatever was left-handed was given to those enslaved people -- scraps, left-overs, garbage. In an effort to create a pleasing meal, the women worked at creating recipes that they could all enjoy. They darling collard greens with fat back meat, and learned to bake sweet potato pies, cleaned chitterlings and made them into a delicacy to be eaten on special occasions. They ready-made pots of beans seasoned with ham hocks, or pigtails, and they cured with pork. They made home-made biscuits from self-rising, light-colored flour and lard, and they scholarly to make hush puppies, candied yams, lots of potatoes, and they ate plenty corn bread, so even until this day, African people who became African Americans opening in the after-hours 1700's, had a very different diet than Euro-Americans. Even though this wasn't a "good" and "healthy" diet for the slaves, they ate it, they enjoyed it, and they were able to sustain themselves easily. They worked so very hard in the fields 12-16 hours a day. But of course, since they had the questionable "thrifty genes" which allowed their bodies to preserve food in an suitable manner, when food was scarce, seems that was probably a good thing, since the slave didn't always have ample food supplies. There is a nitid side to this though, as they worked, they were receiving strenuous regular exercise, which kept them healthy. It really didn't matter what the slaves ate, because what they ate, in today's normal would have finished them too, but it didn't, because they burned it off every day out in the fields working. It was a vicious cycle. They ate, and they worked off the carbohydrates. They ate and they worked off much carbohydrates, and they didn't die from diseases back then, as they do today, diabetes or cancer, and don't think that their bowels didn't move regularly as well, thus eliminating complete of the colon cancer, they eliminated the toxins from their bodies finished sweat and perspiration. They may have been tired, but they had healthy bodies. So all of these diseases that are out of control today, same Diabetes came along later due to the many lifestyle changes of Americans. Let us complete learn a precise important lesson from this bit of history: reported to all legislations and laws today, African Americans can Be whatever they want to be, they can Do whatever they are capable of doing, and they can Have whatever they can manage to work hard sufficient to achieve. We know that this is a true statement, when you look around and you see such role models as Oprah Winfrey, the queen of talk shows, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan, we have had several black Miss America's, including the current reigning queen, we have Tiger Woods, the primo golfer of complete times and The Williams Sisters, who have broken complete records. The list goes on and on. Today, we liveborn in fabulous homes; our children can now go to college, (sidebar: yet we have more African American men in prison today, over 900,000 than we have in college today, only 600,000, that's another article.) The trouble with this complete thing is, African Americans continue to enjoy many of the delicious foods handed down to us by our ancestors, our diets haven't changed precise much, but we've forgotten one precise important ingredient, our ancestors worked 12-16 hour days, performing physical labor. They received the necessary exercise daily, therefore, they didn't get sick with diabetes, and complete of the greasy was burned disconnected in blood, sweat and tears. Today, in order for us to get proper exercise, we must plan to have physiological exercise at least 30 minutes daily, one-hour is preferable, but no little than 30 minutes. That's not a lot, compared to the amount of time our forefathers worked, but according to studies done by the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, the little time we manage to put in, while exercising for 30 minutes, 3-4 days/week can prevent the occurrence of Diabetes. Today, we continue in the tradition of eating our "soul food" diets, very untold the same as we did cardinal years ago, except today, most of us don't use lard, and we can eat complete we want. We've graduated to vegetable oils same Crisco and opposite vegetable oils. (Olive Oils are better for us, less cholesterol). Families today standing enjoy foods, which include far too many carbohydrates same macaroni and cheese, desserts, and lots of bread. We have enjoyed these foods for hundreds of years, but now, we sit at computers, walk out to our cars, drive everywhere, including to the grocery stores, we don't have to walk to school for miles any longer, we can ride the school buses, and exercise has complete but been eliminated. America is overwhelmingly FAT, equal our children in many cases are overweight and/or obese. It's a simple problem, bad diets that includes too untold junk food from fast food restaurants, and a lack of strenuous exercise. How galore times have you pigged out, aft a hard day, then, you inhumane asleep? That food is finished you up, retributory the way that it does for newborn babies. Remember how babies eat and sleep, and soon, you notice their infinitesimal legs beginning to get a infinitesimal meat on their bones. But you can almost look at them grow and gain weight. But they are standing babies, and that's what they need, nutrition to grow. For adults though, it's a different story, we have already grown up, and all we can do now is grow OUT!!! We just keep getting BIGGER and BIGGER and BIGGER! We look bad to ourselves and to others, we can't suited into our pleasant clothing, we have to keep buying fat clothes. And worst of all, our hearts cannot stand this, and neither can the rest of our organs. (I give a speech entitled "Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled" - How to have a healthy mind, body & spirit). It's no wonder that our starvation genes are reacting the way that they have, this so-called "thrifty gene" that is found in African Americans seems to store even much of this extrinsic food that we continue to ingest into our bodies. We came from strong, wizened backgrounds, Africa has never been a "fat" nation, but as African Americans, we have Americanized our bodies so badly, that our health problems are out-of-control! If you take a look at the stats provided by the National Institute of Health, Today, diabetes mellitus is cardinal of the most serious health challenges facing the cohesive States. The favourable statistics illustrate the magnitude of this disease among African Americans.

• 2.8 million African Americans have diabetes.
• On average, African Americans are twice as likely to have diabetes as light-colored Americans of related age.
• Approximately 13 percent of complete African Americans have diabetes.
• African Americans with diabetes are more likely to develop diabetes complications and experience greater disability from the complications than light-colored Americans with diabetes.
• Death rates for people with diabetes are 27 percent higher for African Americans compared with whites
• National health surveys during the past 35 years show that the percentage of the African American population that has been diagnosed with diabetes is increasing dramatically. The surveys in 1976-80 and in 1988-94 plumbed fasting plasma glucose and thus allowed an assessment of the prevalence of undiagnosed diabetes as well as of previously diagnosed diabetes. In 1976-80, whole diabetes prevalence in African Americans ages 40 to 74 years was 8.9 percent; in 1988-94, total prevalence had increased to 18.2 percent--a doubling of the rate in just 12 years.
• Prevalence in African Americans is untold higher than in white Americans. Among those ages 40 to 74 years in the 1988-94 survey, the rate was 11.2 percent for whites, but was 18.2 percent for African Americans
• Regular physical activity is a prophylactic factor against type 2 diabetes and, conversely, lack of physical activity is a risk factor for developing diabetes. Researchers suspect that a lack of exercise is cardinal factor contributing to the high rates of diabetes in African Americans. In the NHANES cardinal survey, 50 percent of African American men and 67 percent of African American women according that they participated in little or no leisure time physical activity.

Conclusion In furthering the causes of this Diabetes instructive Prevention Campaign, the first order of business has been to make my very own Lifestyle Change. My Mother was belowground on December 30th, 2000. When I returned domestic to Silver Spring, Maryland, it took a few months before I could go on, the grief period was extremely hard, but the first order of business, was to begin a regular exercise routine. Walking became my exercise of choice -- cardinal to four miles three to cardinal days each week. Some weeks I walked, and continue to walk, five days, equal six days a week, and recently, I've added "walking up and falling the stairs in five minute increments, for 12-15 minutes. There is an extreme difference in the way that I look and feel. The pounds and inches have been steadily coming off. I've changed my diet. I'm now drinking green mineral drinks each morning, (you can buy chromatic drinks at nonsynthetic stores); and I'm no longer eating white bread. In fact I don't eat precise much bread at all, but when I do, it is whole grain or wheat bread, brown rice, much fresh fruits and green leafy vegetables. I enjoy using my juice machine for new green spinach and carrot drinks. Recently, I found myself with excellent health results from my physical examination. My cholesterol equal was low, at 126, and my glucose levels were average. My blood pressure was 120/80, which is fine for me, and I feel wonderful too. There is one area that I'm still employed on, and that is my perfect Body Mass, IBM. I'm standing overweight, but I've lost 30 lbs., and still counting. If you are reading this article, and you're at risk for Type 2 Diabetes, consider making a starring Lifestyle Change. It's very simple: 1-Change your diet, eliminate most of the carbohydrates from your diet; 2-Exercise regularly for the rest of your life, and 3-Get rid of the extra pounds, work toward maintaining your ideal body weight. If you make this promise to yourself, to change your life, you will be "Fanning the Flames of the Diabetes Epidemic in America," and soon the fire will be put out, but it will take millions of people to join this fight. Won't you begin today? You don't have to get Diabetes, it can be prevented, you don't have to lose cardinal limb to this vicious disease, nor do you have to lose your kidney. Change your life, and enjoy your Thanksgiving Dinner - with all of the trimmings, but the next day, get back to the business of getting fit and staying healthy. ## END ## About The Author