You’re confusing genetics with eugenics.

Genetics is heritable traits and no one finds that objectionable. Eugenics is asserting that certain heritable traits are superior to others, and selectively breeding people, killing or sterilizing them to control the propagation of traits.
Eugenics is Hitler and sterilizing native American women. Genetics is having the same color eyes as your father.

We don’t like eugenics because it treats people like animals.
There’s an argument to be made that we went a little far treating animals like animals when we aggressively bread them for appearance to the detriment of health.

And, for a small note: “race” is not a stand in for genetics. Race is a social construct.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t genetic differences between people, or that what we call race isn’t genetic, but rather where we draw the lines between races has little to do with significant genetic differences. Two random Americans, one black one white, with long family histories in North America are more likely to be genetically similar despite a difference in skin coloration, especially compared to an eastern European and a central African.

Visible traits are a poor indicator of broad genetic traits.

So it’s less that racial classification is abhorrent, and more that it’s inaccurate, antiquated, and too intermingled with complex social and economic forces to be useful for the topic you were discussing.

OP just discovered people treat animals really really badly and wonders why we dont want to do the same with people

You seem to confuse the concept of Eugenics (selective breeding to improve “genetic quality”) with the general idea that genetics can influence things like personality, intelligence etc. The latter is pretty much undisputed. But as Humans are seen as individuals with rights, selectively breeding them like you would dogs is seen as unacceptable.

I would argue it’s not good or acceptable in dogs. At least I wouldn’t accept it if it were up to me. A good boy is a good boy no matter what his talents are or how many butts he sniffs.

It’s ironic that dogs, when left to their own devices, will form packs where they will bring loot back to disadvantaged members of the pack, and here we are being more needy than that.

Something to consider here is that selective breeding of dogs is very often not done to the dog’s benefit, and indeed in some breeds makes them less healthy. It’s done for the benefit of their owners, either to do some job or for aesthetics, in a way that would be considered absolutely abhorrent if done to people (indeed, a lot of people think that in dogs it can go too far, especially where breeds with health problems are concerned). Eugenics is at least conceived by its proponents as being for the good of the species in a way that dog breeding is not, it’s just that the easiest way to do that is to control who has children, which isn’t generally considered acceptable for people, and the easiest ways to prevent someone you don’t want to have children from doing so are to kill or forcibly sterilize them, which is even worse. Additionally, it’s tricky to know what traits even are detrimental or beneficial to the species, and the personal biases of whoever is in charge come into play (for instance, a lot of historical examples of eugenics being pushed have been by people who were, well, extremely racist and therefore selecting for things like skin color, which if successful would simply lower genetic diversity, which is counterproductive)

Now, as far as comparing humans to dog breeds (as in, why people find it okay to say “x breed of dog tends to be more aggressive”, but not “x group of people are more aggressive”), it should be considered that humans already have a rather low genetic diversity, as far as species go. If were we like dogs, we would probably all be the same “breed”, so to speak, even people from different ethnic backgrounds (sure, we can tell ourselves apart due to not looking exactly the same, but even two dogs of the same breed don’t look exactly alike, and we’re very attuned to seeing small differences in humans that we might not see in other animals). I’d bet it would probably be possible to eventually selectively breed a bunch of humans to have noticably and consistently different traits beyond just skin and hair color (which while visibly distinct from the outside, don’t really represent very much change), but intentionally engaging in breeding humans like dogs like this would be considered, well, a horrible thing to do, and in any case, isn’t what we currently have nowadays.

Abrahamic religious traditions put the idea of men having dominion over life into our societies ideological underpinning.

You’re obviously correct, and so have many people throughout the ages, about there being ethical inconsistencies.

When future societies look back on this period, the way we use animals will be seen as absolutely barbaric. Mainly because it’s absolutely true.

I think it is because a dog has been seen as an object or tool for a long time. We are the owner. We buy the one that we like the most.

With humans we don’t have ownership over another human. The human is owned by itself. So we let everyone decide for themselves who the want to breed with. One person will select a partner that is nice, some like a “bad boy”, some like dark hair, blond, tall short, etc.

Also, humans are really not that different from each other while dogs can look like a completely different species.

Even in humans, we occasionally exercise “selective breeding,” like when potential carriers of Tay-Sachs (an absolutely horrific disease which mostly affects people with Ashkenazi heritage, and whose sufferers have an expected lifespan of a few years of horrible pain) and their partners choose to be tested before deciding whether or not to have children. Even with the context that mostly Jewish peoples’ genes are tested to see if they should have children, it’s not considered eugenics, because it’s an entirely voluntary process. Even if two people are both carriers, they aren’t prevented from having children, nor is their genetic predisposition shared with anyone.

Incest laws are essentially a way to restrict peoples’ choice of partner to ensure genetic vigor (that’s why they’re different for relationships which could and could not produce children). Even that’s not generally considered a form of eugenics, because it applies to people, without regard to their specific genes.

If humans were genuinely good eugenics might be just another tool for improvement.

But humans are awful, so eugenics always becomes a tool for racists to enact their racism, a justification for the violation of human rights, and a form of violence against an outgroup. Just like other modes of so-called “meritocracy” and other fascist pablum.

You are more than a little lost. We do this with plants too. Societies draw lines. This is where the line is right now. Eugenics used to be perfectly acceptable. The line moved. Eventually people will realize the AKC sets dispicable standards and the line will move a little toward breeding out unhealthy characteristics at least. There will always be Individuals like yourself that are extreme outliers. I wouldn’t predict society would ever move the level of wokeness you have achieved and abandon selective pet breeding but who knows.

How can we reconcile eugenics in dogs but not humans?

That’s the neat part, you don’t.

Firstly, there are plenty of people who believe that humans have made terrible mistakes when selectively breeding dogs. See the oft-reposted “dog breeds then be now” image. Which leads into the primary technical reason eugenics doesn’t work, the fallibility of human decision making combined with the lack of perfect information.

Some traits may seem undesirable, however biodiversity is very important for survivability, and we are already very non-diverse genetically. Consider sickle cell anemia, a blood disease caused by a genetic trait. However part of the trait that causes it also offers protection from malaria.

Second is the controversial aspect. Who gets to decide which traits are desirable? If left up to individuals we would be awash with poorly informed trends, but if some central authority were given control, it could never be apolitical and would certainly devolve from any scientific basis into ideology.

The issue is thinking of genetics as prescriptive. Genetics simply influence behavior and setup initial probabilities.

Plus the distinction with breed and behavior with dogs isn’t as extreme as most people think. Yes, some breeds do have some genes that do influence behavior, but most people don’t even know what kind of dog they have unless they have purebred documents.

Here’s a great article from Ars Technica with a survey of thousands of dogs and linking their genes to behaviors. https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/04/genetics-goes-to-the-dogs-finds-theres-not-much-to-breed-behavior/

What we know vs. what we believe

One of the caveats here may be that people who own purebred dogs may have expectations regarding their behavior and interpret things the dogs do accordingly. And there’s some evidence for that. Golden retrievers have a reputation for being friendly dogs, and the owners of retrievers tend to say that their pets don’t fear strangers. But the researchers were able to identify mutts with significant golden retriever ancestry and find that the behavior of these dogs is all over the map.

Despite that caveat, a few behaviors appear to have a significant genetic component, and some of these behaviors have been partially selected for in some specific breeds. But there are two reasons to expect that the genetics of these behaviors would be complicated. As the researchers point out, the first is that most modern breeds only originated about 150 years ago, so the number of generations to fix subtle features like behaviors have been too few.

The second issue is that, in humans, complicated behaviors tend to be shaped by many genetic factors that, individually at least, have a weak influence. There’s no real reason to expect that it would be different in dogs, making it significantly harder to select for that behavior in a breed.

For actual dog owners, you can rest assured that there is a real genetic influence on some breed behaviors. And, if your own dog seems to be a complete mutant when it comes to its behavior… well, there’s a chance it is.

You may love your pet, but it is your property. You may love your child, but it is not your property.

Probably because of Hitler. He was very inspired by eugenics and Darwin’s recently published seminal work on evolution. In his writings and speeches he frequently referred to Darwinism and human engineering via eugenics. Here’s a quote from Hitler’s Mein Kampf:

“In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher evolution.”

Not just Hitler, the whole of the Nazi party and their public propaganda was based on extreme Darwinism.

An important official Nazi Party publication, “Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte”, edited by Alfred Rosenberg, occasionally featured articles promoting evolution. In a 1935 article Heinz Brücher praised German biologist Ernst Haeckel for paving the way for the Nazi regime. In addition to mentioning Haeckel’s advocacy of eugenics and euthanasia, Brücher highlighted Haeckel’s role in promoting human evolution. Brücher reminded his readers that Haeckel’s view of human evolution led him to reject human equality and socialism. In 1941 Brücher published another article in “Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte” on evolution through natural selection. Several times he stressed that the principles of evolution were just as valid for humans as for other organisms. He closed the essay by explaining the practical application of evolutionary theory:

“The hereditary health of the German Volk and of the Nordic-Germanic race that unites it must under all circumstances remain intact. Through an appropriate compliance with the laws of nature, through selection and planned racial care it can even be increased. The racial superiority achieved thereby secures for our Volk in the harsh struggle for existence an advantage, which will make us unconquerable.”

In Brücher’s view human evolution is an essential ingredient of racial ideology, not a hindrance to it. In 1936 another author named Heberer launched an attack on antievolutionists in Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte. He praised Haeckel and stressed the affinities of Darwinism and human evolution with Nazi ideology.

The history is really quite fascinating and it’s rarely taught in your state-mandated evolutionary biology classes!