It falls into the formerly mentioned "strange" category for other reasons, along with many other cruel practices. "Scientific soundness" is far from the only benchmark for a good idea.

> It's just completely outside of today's Overton window

Never heard it expressed like that, but I guess you could apply it to tons of stuff?

> Lobotomy is not scientifically unsound, as aswegs8 proves, it's just completely outside of today's Overton window.

It is ethically unsound.

Oooph. I'm going to be charitable and make a (horrifying) steelman point for you: Eugenics can be understood as a subset of the ideas of plant and animal breeding that have been practiced for centuries. Those are scientifically sound, thus the idea that humans can be bred for certain traits should be too.

THAT SAID, "Eugenics" as espoused and understood over the past two centuries isn't that at all. It's 100%, every time, a pretty face for racism. Human social and ancestry divisions ARE NOT the product of deliberate selection, never have been, and any attempt to conflate the ideas is, yeah, pretty fucking unsound. And horrifying.

It is unsound because “better” is completely subjective and up to the definer. There’s no objective, scientific truth there.

average Hacker News user opinion

Maybe you’re coming from a good place from this, so I’ll avoid tearing into you and just assume you haven’t really been exposed to people who challenge really shitty rightwing opinions.

A simple example for why “Eugenics”[1] isn’t simply a scientific concept (without severe bastardizing of the word “science”) are people born with Down Syndrome. Abortions for fetuses shown to have Down Syndrome is a contentious topic because many individuals with Down Syndrome have an extremely high quality of life, and many find it insulting to consider them any less human or worthy of life.

But from a genetic perspective, Down Syndrome is objectively bad because it reduces fertility. In the most objective sense, less fertility = less genetic utility. But aside from being fucking horrific, there’s nothing inherently “scientific” about that, just like there’s nothing “scientific” about choosing one chess opening over a different chess opening due to objective measurements like win percentage. We’re not challenging hypotheses in this hypothetical, we’re applying an arbitrary utility function.

[1] using a capital E here intentionally to refer to the idea that humans can be bred to be superior, and inferior humans can be culled (disgusted even typing that out).

Edit: “artificial selection” is a scientific concept; “eugenics” is what I can’t believe we’re still talking about in 2026 in supposed polite company. That’s what HN is supposed to be, right? Polite company? Jfc, “eugenics”.