There are many different ways eugenics can be looked at, from both positive and negative view points as well as historical and futuristic. However, it is all around us on a daily basis and needs to be discussed more in present tense.
Animal breeding is the most common form of eugenics that takes place constantly, both for farm livestock and for pets. On page 84 of the book Better For All The World Galton believed there could be more than just a "poetic analogy between the breeding of dogs and men." Galton also mentions breeding humans like animals again on page 96. Dogs have been breed for centuries to create ideal sizes, traits, appearance and skill. Could this technique not also be then applied to man to do the same? Galton seems to be in favor of this but rather than creating the ideal man, I believe it would create a monster.
Looking at dogs that have been breed for specific traits or appearance you see a genetic nightmare. These dogs are unhealthy, they have shorter life spans, are prone to mental illness and even violent outbursts. Many of the dogs breed to have shorter legs get arthritis very early on, and the dogs bred to have short noses have serious sinus and breathing issues. The most common issues purebred dogs have, mostly due to inbreeding, include a very high risk of cancer and tumors. They often develop eye and heart diseases, joint and bone disorders, immune system and neurological diseases. Some breeds have skin problems as well. Epilepsy is also a very common result of this selective breeding. (Source: Petmd.com )
Purebreds are far from prefect.
If the methods used to breed dogs were in fact used to breed humans, it would not be creating a superior being, it would be increasing the mental health issues and diseases they were trying to prevent in the first place.
On the other side of this is the "designer baby", a concept once only thought of by science fiction writers and hopeful eugenicists. However as of 2004, the designer baby became science fact and the phrase was added to the Oxford Dictionary. ( Source ) I remember when I first heard about designer babies being real science, my friend came to me and said "Your favorite sci-fi movie is real, you can live GATTACA now." In the film people are separated into two classes, the natural born and the genetically altered. Your class was determined by your DNA sequence. Those who were superior could be anything they wanted, those who were not had to struggle to get though life. In the end however, the natural born brother is able to adapt and become stronger while the designer brother is locked into what was pre-planed for him. The moral of the story being, natural is always better than something created in a lab by people dreaming of a utopia.
Today, the most common uses of this genetic alteration is to change the babies sex, prevent multiple diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia, and to ensure harmful traits are not passed down from the parents. Unlike the movie, you can not choose your babies eye or hair color and various things of that nature. The Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs actually released a statement back in 1994 in support of using genetic selection as a means to prevent specific diseases, but that selection based on benign characteristics was not ethical. ( Source) There have been several ethical debates about this, one of the biggest concerns being that if this were to become a perfected science and one could literally design a baby like it was a video game, that it would create a major rift between the social classes of those that could afford the procedure/surgery/character selection menu, and those that could not. Which ties directly back to GATTACA. However, others believe it should be the parents right to be able to choose what traits their child will have.
However if they need to have that much control over somethings genetic code, they could just get a dog.
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