-I agree with Murray that this kind of psychology explains a lot of the resistance to hereditarian explanations. But as long as we're accusing people of motivated reasoning, I think Murray's solution is engaging in a similar kind of denial, but just putting it in a different place. The idea that people are unequal in ways that matter is [legitimately too horrifying to contemplate](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/faHbrHuPziFH7Ef7p/why-are-individual-iq-differences-ok), so liberals [deny the inequality](/2017/Dec/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention/), and conservatives deny [that it matters](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NG4XQEL5PTyguDMff/but-it-doesn-t-matter).
+I agree with Murray that this kind of psychology explains a lot of the resistance to hereditarian explanations. But as long as we're accusing people of motivated reasoning, I think Murray's solution is engaging in a similar kind of denial, but just putting it in a different place. The idea that people are unequal in ways that matter is [legitimately too horrifying to contemplate](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/faHbrHuPziFH7Ef7p/why-are-individual-iq-differences-ok), so liberals [deny the inequality](/2017/Dec/theres-a-land-that-i-see-or-the-spirit-of-intervention/), and conservatives deny [that it matters](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/NG4XQEL5PTyguDMff/but-it-doesn-t-matter). But I think if you _really_ understand the fact–value distinction and see that the naturalistic fallacy is, in fact, a fallacy (and not even a tempting one), that the progress of humankind has consisted of using our wits to impose our will on an [indifferent universe](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/sYgv4eYH82JEsTD34/beyond-the-reach-of-god), then the very concept of "too horrifying to contemplate" becomes a grave error. The map is not the territory: _contemplating_ doesn't make things worse; not-contemplating that which is _already there_ can't make things better—and can blind you to opportunities to make things better.
+
+Recently, Richard Dawkins [spurred a lot of criticism on social media for pointing out that](https://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/twitter-piles-on-richard-dawkins-over-eugenics-tweet/13333) selective breeding would work on humans (that is, succeed at increasing the value of the traits selected for in subsequent generations), for the same reasons it works on domesticated nonhuman animals—while stressing, of course, that he deplores the idea: it's just that our moral commitments can't constrain the facts. Intellectuals with the reading-comprehension skill, [including Murray](https://archive.is/uaFFF), leapt to defend Dawkins and [concur on both points](https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2020/02/16/dawkins-makes-a-tweet/)—that eugenics would work, and that it would obviously be terribly immoral. And yet no one seems to bother explaining or arguing _why_ it would be immoral. Yes, obviously _murdering and sterilizing_ people is bad. But if the human race is to continue and people are going to have children _anyway_, those children are going to be born with _some_ distribution of genotypes. There are probably going to be human decisions that do _not_ involve _murdering and sterilizing people_ that would affect that distribution—[perhaps involving](http://intelligence.org/files/EmbryoSelection.pdf) [selection of _in vitro_ fertilized embryos](https://www.gwern.net/Embryo-selection). If the distribution of genotypes were to change in a way that made the next generation grow up happier, and healthier, and smarter, [that would be good](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Aud7CL7uhz55KL8jG/transhumanism-as-simplified-humanism) for those children, and it wouldn't hurt anyone else! Life is not a zero-sum game! This is pretty obvious, really? But if no one except nobody pseudonymous bloggers can even say it, how are we to start the work?