I found this, published in 1936, in my fathers collection. I have been reading it just to get a flavor of how far we’ve come in 86 years and what the world view was like back then.
In 1936, the New York Yankees beat the New York Giants in six. It was the first Series for the Yankees without Babe Ruth and with Joe Dimaggio. Over in Berlin, two years before Kristallnacht. Jesse Owens embarrassed their Chancellor Hitler during the Summer Olympics. In America, it was the height of the Dust Bowl, but we started our first recovery from the Great Depression. The budget deficit was well over a billion dollars and our national debt reached an astounding 33.7 billion dollars.
It is my intent to summarize each chapter for the readers on a weekly-ish basis. The main sections are Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Engineering, and Social Consequences.
Chapter 1 is titled “Eugenics”. That seems fitting, since the subject of Ashkenazi Jews came up last week here in DKos.
“Stock breeders long ago observed that like produced like, so they picked out the cows they preferred and took especial pains to see that they kept the right kind of company and were fruitful and multiplied.” From this starting point, the author discusses how difficult it is to predict which characteristics are hereditary, since there are over a hundred genes on each of 24 chromosomes. Some traits are definitely hereditary ,like some types of feeble-mindedness, color blindness, blood type and others. Genius is notable by its absence from this list.
Competent investigators estimate it takes at lease 30 generations to establish a true-breeding strain of definite characteristics in anything as complicated as animals. That would take us back to the Crusades and who knows what they would have considered as desirable, Similarly, how could we know what would be desirable thirty generations from now. If we breed for genius, then who would fill the dull jobs.
The only people we can afford to exterminate [In my opinion, the author is not talking about killing, but about removal from the gene pool] are the obviously defective either physically or mentally. If intelligent eugenicists can accomplish this — power to them; if they attempt much more in our present state of limited knowledge the evil they do will like for generations after them.”
There follows a long section regarding the unpredictability of transmission of genius and the lack of association with a particular breeding line [family], social order or class.
Here is an interesting distinction embedded in a set of statistics. “… an idiot has only 1/3 as much chance of living to age 10 as a normal being. Imbeciles are slightly better, for they have 2//5 as much chance. Morons have about 7/8 as much chance.”
The author discusses the financial benefits of not allowing these people to propagate. A brief discussion of confinement into mono-sexual camps surrounded by impassible walls goes on with the thought that it would have to be a tremendous wall. The conclusion is that it does not appear to be the most humane method of approach.
Sterilization is the next method for discussion. Critiques include that the victim of castration (both male and female) was not only deprived of children but also of the valuable hormonal secretions of one of the more important ductless glands. Modern surgery is improved over that. It is very likely that males will resist much more than women, because for some unexplainable reason, they are usually more proud of their procreative ability.
Eventually we will come to the point that possessors of obviously defective germ plasm will be sterilized just as bearers of contagious diseases are quarantined. We are growing accustomed to the sacrifice of personal liberty. There will always be the borderline case and the question will be material for many court cases. “Since there is no definite stopping place the most ardent eugenicist will urge the continual raising of the requirements for parenthood as long as they don’t feel their own ducts or tubes are in danger of severance.”
Sterilization of the unfit, however, will not materially raise the normal mental plane of the nation. The study of genetics is not nearly enough advanced. Only the very largest genes have ever been seen under the microscope and their structure and composition are as unknown as the bottom of the sea.
The chapter concludes thusly. “The few persons who without doubt carry outstandingly defective germ plasm should not be allowed to propagate. Beyond that I am very much opposed to the eugenicists’ propaganda. Their course is too visionary and it is not certain that their objectives are desirable.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday, there was news of the four year sentence for the Chinese researcher who used CRISPR to edit a human genome. I wonder how much progress we have made in 84 years in the hard questions. “Can we?” is vastly different and easier than “Should we?”
I did some quick Wiki on the subject. When this was written, the Nazis were beginning to implement their version. It eventually ended up with several hundred thousand sterilizations and an equal number of killings. Probably as the result of their program, the movement fell into some disfavor although it never really went away. In its modern incarnation, eugenics has moved from governmental action to private choice through gene screening.
It is worth noting that the criticisms leveled by this author are still valid. We don’t really know what the endgame should look like and we don’t know what effect some given action will have.