Whatever one thinks of their politics and morality (lousy and nonexistent, respectively), Watson and Crick did a marvelously clever, and helpful, thing 51 years ago, and should be remembered for it.

But their dark side should surely not be glossed over? Remember any obits of Reagan that didn't mention on negatives in the first paragraph?

Materialism is not a dark side.

Mind if I kill you?

I'll bet Robert would materially take exception to your attempting to kill him.

In what way was his materialism materially wrong?

All of them, actually.

In fact, I don't recall ANY Reagan obit that even mentioned Bitburg, as evil a moral statement as any made in that evil century.

Harry:

Aren't you being a little narrow? Bitburg wasn't good, but Reagan wasn't honoring the SS. Kohl was disengenuous about the whole thing, but wouldn't you agree that (for America, at least), turning away from the Cambodian genocide was orders of magnitude worse than Bitburg? Allowing Rwanda was light-years worse than Bitburg. There's a forest behind all that bark, if you step back just a bit.

Harry:

Bitburg was actually one of the best speeches of his or any presidency, but at any rate, you'll find most mentioned it:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3638299/

Jeff:

If all you are is material then what does it matter how it's arranged?

OJ, how does "spirit" make a difference? You either find life worthwhile or not. If you find life worhtwhile, what does it matter what life is comprised of?

Suppose someone serves you a dish that you find delicious. You ask her for the ingredients, thinking that they are all natural (say you are a nature freak) and you find out that she used artificial flavorings. Do you all of a sudden say "I was wrong, it tastes terrible"?

Why does the diner need to know the ingredients? All he needs to do is sample the dish and decide if he likes it or not. If he likes it, what the ingredients are is of no consequence to him. Only the cook needs to know.

So it is with life. I am not the cook, I am the diner. Whatever ingredients make up this dish called life, I like it. Can you cook up life, are you privy to the recipe? No? Then who are you to say what is required?

Robert:

Bingo!

But what if Soylent Green is people?

Bingo what?

Eugenics is one of those problems that fascinate me. How can so many learned people get it so wrong ?
The "gene pool" isn't like a swimming pool, it's a pit of mud. A pail of dye thrown into a pool of water will gradually diffuse throughout the pool; a pail of dye thrown into a mudpit will stain an area only.
"Bad" genes don't diffuse throughout the population, because successful people rarely procreate with unsuccessful people. Study after study has shown that people marry their own kind, people at a similar status level.
Now, there's more than one currency to "status", for instance, women can use beauty to make up for lack of money, and men can use money to make up for a lack of beauty, but how many good-looking geniusses date homely idiots ?
Therefore, not killing retarded and/or deformed people might cause more of them to be around, but, it won't in any way affect the top end of humanity.
We'll still breed uber-men, they'll just share the Earth with some non-uber-men.

David:

So what ?
As long as people aren't being killed to make Soylent Green, (and IIRC, they weren't), what does it matter what's done with the protein left behind once the spirit's fled ?

If I were starving, I'd certainly eat Soylent Green, even if it came with a list of ingredients.
Like organ donation, it's even a bit noble to give of yourself, after death.

Michael, Darwin once observed that the reason the English upper classes were, on average, so good looking was that they'd had their pick of the women.

He was a pretty subtle humorist, and I'm not sure exactly how he meant it, but it is not necessarily correct that there isn't a lot of gene flow across statuses.

I'll buy your overall argument, on other grounds, though.

As for Bitberg, I took it as a moral statement and found it, as morals, as deplorable as anything anybody said during that century.

I'll admit Reagan did not personally kill millions of Cambodians.

He also didn't collaborate with Stalin.

So he wasn't as bad as Hitler. Granted.

Or FDR