Science

Is modern medicine affecting the human gene pool?

Not in any significant measure up till now by the measurements of accepted medicine as far as I can see. There is a quite a lot of arguments for the opposite for quite a lot of reasons by quite a few groups. Are they ignored or suppressed? I guess it's up to the educated individual to decide on what they believe.

Is curing hereditary diseases on a genetic level a scientific possibility?

I don't think we're to the point where science can with absolute certainty design genetic cures. From what I've heard from the scientists we can basically make changes and see the direct results, but we don't know if or what other consequences there are.

If so, why there’s a focus on supressing those diseases or their symptoms?

How do you mean? If it's a disease, it's something bad - And a cure, or at least something that eases the symptoms, is something good no?

Is this reducing the quality of the entire human race's gene pool? Due to medical science, the strongest are no longer the only ones to survive today

Wow, that question check a few fascist boxes.

Not saying it shouldn't get asked. But at least the answer should tackles than dimension.

Edit: negation

It's possible to fix genetic disorders, but it's untested as of now. It has been tested actually, but with mixed results because cancer insertions.

From a pure evolutionary science perspective, so, without even having to get into the human ethics of it, this argument is BS. The gene pool is only one part of a population's fitness and by no means the most important part. The most important parts are mortality rate and reproduction rate, and gene pool is just one factor among many that can influence those. AKA you care about the ends, not the means for determining the fitness of a species/population in evolutionary biology.

In other words, if people aren't dropping like flies and are reproducing such that its numbers won't dwindle to extinction range, that means the species is fit evolutionary speaking, and the actual reasons behind that are irrelevant from an exclusively survival fitness perspective. If the reason is because of advanced medicine and not necessarily a "healthy" gene pool, who the hell cares?!

Let's use an animal example. Say there are two species of rodents in an arid, fire-prone grassland. One species is kind of dumb and will walk straight into bushfires without a second thought, but their skin are very thick and they can survive walking right through burning grass. The other species is a lot more delicate, they would die immediately if they got too close to fire. But, they're smart and they avoid fire at all costs. If both species have similar mortality and reproduction rates, does it matter that one is physically strong and the other is physically weak, if they get by in their environment just the same?

Actually, an even simpler example would be social pack animals vs solitary animals, example: wolves vs foxes. Social pack animals, wolves, will almost always take care of sick members, bringing them food and comforting them so they recover. Solitary animals, foxes, don't have that kind of support, and have a much higher chance of dying as soon as they fall ill. For the same mortality and reproduction rates, you'd expect the solitary animals to have better immune systems and lower rates of illness than social pack animals, but, again, if they're doing equally well in the ecosystem, does it matter? Actually, in this case, real world data shows that social pack animals tend to have better survival rates and are more resilient than solitary animals, everything else being equal, and yes, humans are considered social pack animals.

People who ask these questions should answer this one: If you or the people you're close to were on the bad end of the spectrum (which they conveniently never think they are), are you willing to die or watch your friends and loved ones die for the sake of the """ideal""" human race? If you're not willing to end up getting the shortest end of your own deal, then shut up.

Every person that asks this question should be shoved in re-education, and that's a charitable response.

It is a question that is singularly only asked by people that want to do very bad and very awful things if they can justify it on the basis of the "gene pool" being "polluted" by "undesirables".

Literally nobody of good moral standing wants to explore this question because they know damn well what fascists want to do with this information.

EDIT: Lot of downvoters not justifying their downvotes.

There is no reason to ask this question.

If you're asking this question, why? What do you intend to do with the answer if it's negative? Let's consider the possibilities:

1. Nothing is happening to the "gene pool"? Great. Nothing happens.

2. Something is happening to the "gene pool"? Oh that's bad but we won't do anything about it because that would be monstrous.

3. Something is happening to the "gene pool"? That's bad and I am a fascist that wants to embark on a campaign to cleanse our gene pool of this pollution of it.

If you're asking this question you desperately need to do self-crit because there is no justification for it. There is only a bad outcome, there is absolutely no good reason to be asking it. If you're downvoting because you don't think fucking eugenicist fascists belong in re-education you're part of the problem that is resulting in rising fascism. The fascists continue to grow and you continue to want to do nothing about them, they will not magically go away because you convinced them to stop being fascists through the power of debating them. The options are either rehabilitating them through re-education campaigns or waiting for the situation to boil over and then resolving the situation with bullets instead. The preventative approach of re-education is superior to the liberal approach of uselessly allowing fascists to grow enough to gain power then do monstrous things and only then fighting them later.