WOUD OUR SPECIES BE BETTER OFF IF BREEDING WERE INTENTIONAL?

IF breeding already were intentional, next question would be: do you trust everyone's judgment?
And if you can even think up the initial question of this thread I am pretty sure the answer is NO!.

So you'll be wanting to control that too.. Who gets to have children.. Which genes do we want to cultivate.
I'm not sure I trust any single individual or even group of people to make that judgment. Particularly one who feels himself called upon to make it.

You might get at least an answer to this question if you read Temple Grandin's book on the subject, only she discussed animals. She is considered the foremost authority on the safety, security and humane care of domestic animals.

Among many things about animals, she discusses breeding - namely, selective breeding. She found that breeding for only one or two traits in animals can have disasterous results. We all know, or some of us remember, what happened to the Collie dog when they were bred to have "needle" noses. She found that birds would rape each other, as would other birds or animals selectively bred. Grandin also described how horses that were bred to be only black and white in color, but with blue eyes, proved to be "crazy."

Temple Grandin is possibly the only successful autistic person. At least I haven't heard of another.

Anyhow, this is a provocative question.

Her work is astounding, Ive read some of her technical papers and she seems to intuit stuff from an erie understanding of animals.Its as if her autistic hyperesensitivity was the "gift" that gave her insight into how animals sense their environment and react.

Yes, she's amazing. Her book described how the brain of an autistic differs in that they only have the first layer, or covering, whereas a normal brain has a second covering. I'm saying this wrong, but this allows autistics to think like an animal! I plan to buy another copy of this book.

I keep praising the little book written last year by Rupert Isaacson, called Horse Boy. It is even more astounding but in a very different way, about a couple who travel by horseback to Outer Mongolia and Siberia to cure their son of Autism. The couple own a horse ranch here in Texas where they work with horses and disabled children. A recent article in our Austin newspaper, with photo of the little boy, reported he was cured. A very intelligent book, also quite humerous. I learned something very new.

I just noticed this thread has 4 or 5 add'l pages.