16 Responses to “Continued: Eugenics Thread”

1. Joy Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

   nullasalus said:

   I've been following this thread, and commend your knowledge of the facts involved. Impressive, and surprising that no one discusses this much. (Then again, a lot of things go suspiciously unsaid.)

   Hahaha!!! You're doing better than me, then. My browser stops loading about halfway through every time now, if there's interest in further discussion I'll start a carry-over thread. I just can't keep up, and hubby's new cell modem just won't work on this ancient 'pooter - it won't take the software.

   I'm amazed at how much ignorance of history there is among DDs, but I've read the OT thread at ARN and it seems there's a lot of ignorance among IDers too (everybody wants to go Darwin > Hitler, and they all want to ignore America's role).

   Perhaps that's why Micklos launched his Eugenics Archive project the same time the HGP was launched. Not enough people have made use of it, but perhaps that will begin to change. I'm just gratified to know that NAS/NRC/AAAS can't hide behind decades' worth of obfuscation and denial anymore per their role, and hope someday they grow a collective brain cell or two and finally apologize for it formally.

   But this stood out to me, as I've had similar thoughts. I suppose as effort improves in such fields, it will yield the ultimate blow to any still harboring thoughts such views.

   The financial backers of US eugenics got cold feet as soon as the NRC Committee on Family Records (staffed entirely by AES advisory council/Board members) reported that at least 15 million citizens had to be sterilized, against their will if need be (and it would definitely have been needed, given that Catholics were among the designated targets). That number started at 10 million and grew so huge so fast that both the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations realized they'd created a monster. The ERO was ordered shut down (though it took another 6-10 years before it finally died, and until 2003 for the associated laws to go away).

   See, the money people were engaged from a real sense of social responsibility, and for awhile they really believed what their bought scientists were telling them about alleviating the suffering of the poor and unfortunate. IOW, they weren't evil people, they wanted to change the world. When they realized their racist scientists were harboring much more evil intent than they were willing to impose on the nation, they backed off. Their money and power then went into development of a "eugenics of choice," and that is the only kind of eugenics that can have a chance in the real world. Everything else is just orchestrated class/racial genocide.

Comment by Joy — May 9, 2008 @ 6:42 pm

2. Raevmo Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

   Joy:

   See, the money people were engaged from a real sense of social responsibility, and for awhile they really believed what their bought scientists were telling them about alleviating the suffering of the poor and unfortunate. IOW, they weren't evil people, they wanted to change the world. When they realized their racist scientists were harboring much more evil intent than they were willing to impose on the nation, they backed off.

   Hey, suddenly the money people are the good guys and the evil racist scientists the bad guys again. But earlier you wrote:

   The eugenics horror stories here are about blacks, Creoles, Native Americans, Asian and Hispanic immigrants, poor southern and Appalachian whites, orphans and anybody else the Robber Barons of the age decided to label 'inferior'.

   It's hard to keep a straight story on such a long thread.

Comment by Raevmo — May 9, 2008 @ 7:18 pm

3. Joy Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

   [edit] Raevmo:

   It's hard to keep a straight story on such a long thread.

   Well, things are never quite as simple as we'd like to portray. I don't suspect the Rockefellers, Carnegies, etc. of actual human sensibilities, but the Boards were comprised of real honest-to-God people, and they often took the charter goals of the foundations to mean something. When the money and name support withdrew from CSH, the truly committed just found other sources (some of it in Germany) and kept right on going.

   Many people did in fact construe the natural infertility of the rich and the natural fertility of the poor as "Nature Gone Wrong." They believed they were correcting nature, not helping it along. The Darwinian propaganda of course makes no sense in that scenario, but since when does propaganda have to make sense? Radical economic stratification (hoarding of wealth in the hands of non-producers while impoverishing the producers of wealth - basic Capitalism-101) led to an untenable situation that had only grown worse over the decades of repeating recessions and depressions.

   When there were no jobs, the plight of the poor was - as is true right now in recession America - the fault of the poor. Best to keep them from reproducing, maybe just kill them. They're surplus, society doesn't want or need them (and the rich can be saved from pangs of conscience).

   Consider Myanmar at this very moment. A storm went through last week and perhaps more than 100,000 people are dead. Millions are homeless and hungry. What does the 'first world' do? Why, it tries like crazy to send immediate relief - millions of dollars, food, tents, medicine, doctors, whatever is necessary. To people whose own government refuses to supply food, shelter or medical care to them in the best of times. Just today the military government seized aid shipments of food and supplies for itself. You'll find this sort of situation everywhere there is great human suffering in the world, where rich folks try to help. It's not that we WON'T feed the world, it's that we CAN'T. Greed always gets in the way.

   We know this, try it anyway. Over and over and over again. Is it so surprising that so many have written the whole thing off and blame the victims? It's their own fault for being too numerous, for living in the wrong place, for not staging revolutions against their despotic rulers… you name it, it's THEIR fault.

   This is what early 20th century rich folks tried to rectify in this country with eugenics, even while knowing what really causes the issues. They wanted it dealt with quickly, scientifically, as humanely as possible, so THEY wouldn't have to feel guilty. Science was only too willing to oblige for the ample funding offered. That's what they do. They are not the aristocracy, after all, they work for it just like everybody else. The masters dictate the goals, the slaves just develop the means.

   That this turned into such a fiasco (and Holocaust) is not the least bit surprising, nor was it at any point unpredictable (or unpredicted). They ALL thought they were "doing the right thing." They just forgot to examine reality and their own motivations.

Comment by Joy — May 9, 2008 @ 8:24 pm

4. olegt Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 8:55 pm

   I have finally obtained the book War against the weak by Edwin Black that was quoted by mynym on the previous thread.

   It turns out that the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council are mentioned in the 550-page book once, on p. 236. Here's the relevant excerpt:

   The Second International Congress of Eugenics was rescheduled for September 1921, still in New York, under the auspices of the Washington-based National research Council, the administrative arm of America's prestigious, Congressionally chartered National Academy of Sciences. The National Academy of Sciences functioned as a way of uniting America's disparate scientific establishments. As it had for the first congress, the State Department mailed the invitations around the world. Although the National Research Council was the official authorizing body, Davenport wrote his colleagues that it was "up to the New York group to put this Congress through."

   I'm afraid that's not much of an indictment.

Comment by olegt — May 9, 2008 @ 8:55 pm

5. olegt Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

   An excerpt on Dalton from p. 19.

   … by the dawn of the twentieth century, Galton's notions of voluntary family planning and positive governmental structures would be transmogrified into an entirely different constellation of negative and coercive thought. The new faithful called it "negative eugenics." Galton died in 1911. With his passing, his positive eugenic principles of marriage regimentation also disappeared from the eugenics main stage. Certainly his name lived on as a rallying call, stamped on the plaques of societies and academic departments. But before long others would come along to chew up his ideas and spit them out as something new and macabre, barely resembling the original.

Comment by olegt — May 9, 2008 @ 9:16 pm

6. Joy Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

   So… because NAS still claims total ignorance and innocence and Galton's ideas got corrupted by those many scientists the NAS still won't claim, NOBODY is responsible for American Eugenics or what it became in Germany? Just another of those famous evolutionary accidents?

   Wow, Oleg. You apparently missed the whole point. Must be my fault, of course.

Comment by Joy — May 9, 2008 @ 9:30 pm

7. olegt Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 10:03 pm

   The following excerpt shows how much of a role science played in establishing the eugenics movement in the US at the turn of the century (pp. 28-29):

   But in America, it did not matter that Galton and his followers found themselves fighting for intellectual acceptance with little evidence on their side. Nor did it matter that British eugenic leaders themselves admitted that eugenics did not rise to a level of scientific certainty sufficient to formulate public policy. Nor did it matter that Mendel's newly celebrated laws of heredity might make good sense for peapods, but not for thinking, feeling men, women and children.

   In America, racial activists had already convinced themselves that those of different races and ethnic backgrounds considered inferior were no more than a hereditary blight in need of eugenic cleansing.

   These people needed no stinkin' science. They used ideas of Darwin, Galton, and Mendel to advance their racist agenda. P. 31:

   The racial purity and supremacy doctrines embraced by America's pioneer eugenicists were not the ramblings of ignorant, unsophisticated men. They were the carefully considered ideals of some of the nation's most respected and educated figures, each an expert in his scientific or cultural field, each revered for his erudition.

   So when the facts about Mendel's peapods appeared in America in 1900, these influential and eloquent thinkers were able to slap numbers and a few primitive formulas on their class and race hatred, and in so doing create a passion that transcended simple bigotry. Now their bigotry became science—race science. Now Galtonian eugenics was reborn, recast and redirected in the United States as a purely and uniquely American quest.

   There goes the "chain of corruption as Darwin > Galton > BES/AES/BCS and high finance sociopolitical movement > negative eugenics legislation US > negative eugenics legislation Scandinavia > negative eugenics legislation Germany."

Comment by olegt — May 9, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

8. olegt Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 10:11 pm

   Joy, just to make it clear. I am not talking to you, so don't bother to reply.

Comment by olegt — May 9, 2008 @ 10:11 pm

9. Joy Says:
   May 9th, 2008 at 10:39 pm

   oleg, quoting Dalton:

   Galton died in 1911. With his passing, his positive eugenic principles of marriage regimentation also disappeared from the eugenics main stage.

   So… eugenics was never meant to apply to the poor, the sick, the handicapped or the less-than-white? Strange then that these were the first targets of US, Scandinavian and German eugenicists, eh?

   I cited in the previous thread the whole "eugenic principles of marriage" scam. It went just like this…

   The eugenic marriage, when it comes, will be based upon the principles and knowledge of heredity. When a young man and a young woman, offering themselves for marriage, can produce certified records of their ancestry back for three or four generations, showing that their progenitors have been entirely, or largely, free from nervous prostration, sick headaches, neurasthenia, hysteria, melancholia, St. Vitus' dance, epilepsy, syphilis, alcoholism, pauperism, criminality, prostitution and insanity - when they can further show that their ancestors have been free from all other inheritable forms of nervous disorders, including certain forms of deafness, color blindness and other indications of defectiveness and degeneracy, then it may truly be said that such a union may be correctly styled a eugenic marriage.

   [The Science of Eugenics, Page 6]

   Can you produce certified records of your ancestry back three or four generations to show no one in your family ever had migraine headaches, was ever poor, ever got drunk, ever was sad, ever caught a venereal disease or was arrested, never became hysterical, etc.? How about AES's criteria, that meant you had to be able to trace your ancestry back to a landed family in one of the 13 original American colonies prior to 1776?

   Weirdly enough, I CAN do that. I can trace my father's paternal line straight to Maryland in 1651. That guy traces back to a Huguenot who entered England with William the Conqueror in 1066. His grandson was one of 30 signers of a petition from Rowan and Orange counties to the House of Representatives under George III asking for tax relief, relief of tyranny and oppression. Before those Adams boys in Boston ever thought about revolution.

   Dad's maternal side came through Nottinghamshire in 1066, landing in Pennsylvania in 1666. Eventually merged with Wilsons, as in Woodrow. My Mom's maternal ancestors came to North Carolina around 1720 and established the burg of Durham. Her paternal side was a bit polluted with shiftless Irishmen - name of Cash (as in John) - but that's forgivable in this neck of the woods.

   Hubby's paternal line is Campbell, rulers of Argyll with a history all the way back to King David II and Dalraida, well before Robert the Bruce, and James (a bit of dysgenic Jesse and Frank there). Thomas Campbell's offspring got to Pennsylvania before 1740. His maternal line is Montgomery, came to England with William in 1066, and Penn. As in Pennsylvania. Throw in a few Zacharys (such good friends of the Taylors of Orange county that they named their son Zachary) and you get the idea.

   See how easy it is? Why, these folks would no doubt have encouraged us to have at least a dozen kids to spread this wondrous 'superior' stock around a bit, no matter how poor we are in real life or the fact that there were some bank robbers and musicians in the mix! What would they have done with YOUR desire to have a family, Oleg? How about your parents? Would you even be here at all? Would that have been okay?

   I linked an appendix to a book about the AES in the other thread. It contains a list of all the advisory board members from 1923 to 1940, complete with THEIR family credentials back to the 13 pre-1776. Beginning with William Wallace Campbell (I kid you not, he was president of AAAS and NAS) through Robert Simpson Woodward (president of AAAS) there were 29 council members who were presidents or vice-presidents of NAS and/or AAAS and served on committees of the NRC. Among a literal galaxy of impressive scientific, religious and/or political stardom. They took it very seriously, and by 1929 they had a mind to sterilize (no doubt moving on from there to euthanasia) AT LEAST 15 MILLION CITIZENS. Really.

   All in the name of "good science." It was not, and even their staunchest benefactors had figured that much out by then.

   You don't have to agree, but I sure don't see that as "good science." Hell, I don't even see it as "good humanism." They didn't get very far into these highlands and hollows, though it was most certainly a target area of their philanthropic largesse. Too dangerous, what with all the stills and paranoia of Revenuers and such. We tend to view such incursions of do-gooders bearing scalpels and court orders as target practice… §;o)

   Oleg, just to make it clear, I AM talking to you. But you needn't reply. Science in the service of racism and bigotry is just as ugly as anything else in the service of racism and bigotry. It's just more POWERFUL a tool.

Comment by Joy — May 9, 2008 @ 10:39 pm

10. Vladimir Krondan Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 10:51 pm

    [Joy] I don't suspect the Rockefellers, Carnegies, etc. of actual human sensibilities, but the Boards were comprised of real honest-to-God people, and they often took the charter goals of the foundations to mean something.
    
    I think there have been cases where Rockefeller III was denied money from the Foundation to pursue some project or other. Here's a little historical oddity. Rockefeller funded Davidson Black and the Peking Man dig. He/the Foundation was also funding Peking Union Medical College. Isn't it an amusing coincidence how Black, who had clowned around at the Piltdown site, made off for China and knew exactly where to look for ape-men. And get money from Rockefeller. Of course all that Peking ape-man stuff vanished without a trace, like we knew it would, but that's a different story.

Comment by Vladimir Krondan — May 9, 2008 @ 10:51 pm

11. Joy Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    Vladimir:

    Of course all that Peking ape-man stuff vanished without a trace, like we knew it would, but that's a different story.

    I don't know much paleontology (though grandson is determined to BE one). Did find mention of some mystery associated here. Was Peking real, or just another hoax?

    Seems like even Charlie Darwin understood that the great apes never lasted very long. My hubby went to the back corners of Indonesia in '68 with the Peace Corps, learned in Tarajaland (Borneo or South Celebes, can't recall) about how the villagers used to 'adopt' baby Orangs and train them to do housework. Called them the "Old Men of the Forest."

    Personally - and I surely expect to be demonstrated wrong one of these days (or maybe not) - I don't think they'll ever find a real "missing link" between us and chimpanzees. To whom we are supposedly much closer related than to Orangs. We aren't descended from Neandertal either, the only other genuine homo sapien we ever shared the planet with. That we can find evidence of, anyway.

    Maybe we were genetically engineered. That's a sci-fi staple these days! §;o)

Comment by Joy — May 9, 2008 @ 11:20 pm

12. Vladimir Krondan Says:
    May 9th, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    [Joy] Was Peking real, or just another hoax?

    I don't think "hoax" correctly describes the things Darwinans do. "Fraud" is a better word. For example, what excuse is there for the purposefully deceptive McGregor sculptures? You can see them in all their glory in H. F. Osborn's Men of the Old Stone Age. Here's another example of Darwinian scientific fraud: Trend of the Race by Samuel J. Holmes. On page 18 there is a table of recessive and dominant human hereditary traits. Note how "inferior mentality" and "superior mentality" are inserted among the others. Of course the rest of the book is full of fraud and lies too…

    Anyway, if you want to read something really demented, try the essays by John R. Baker in Biology in Everyday Life. Baker was an Oxford cytologist. His book Race was endorsed by Sir Peter Medawar (who belonged to the Eugenics Society, btw). Baker developed contraceptives which were tested on Blacks in the USA. He contributed to Julian Huxley's Evolution, The Modern Synthesis.

Comment by Vladimir Krondan — May 9, 2008 @ 11:44 pm

13. Vladimir Krondan Says:
    May 10th, 2008 at 7:23 am

    Joy,

    You know Eugen Fischer, no? Here's a most interesting essay by him concerning the evolution of the Jews: Racial Origin of the Hebrews. He even mentions Peking Man.

Comment by Vladimir Krondan — May 10, 2008 @ 7:23 am

14. Nick Says:
    May 12th, 2008 at 1:05 pm

    Joy:
    Was Peking real, or just another hoax?

    The consensus, based on records, is that they were Homo erectus. The original fossils disappeared during WWII, but after WWII, additional H. erectus fossils were found at the same site. Any suggestion that Black faked the excavation site and fossils will need to explain the fossils uncovered in the 1950s and 1960s. Black died in 1934.

Comment by Nick — May 12, 2008 @ 1:05 pm

15. Todd Berkebile Says:
    May 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

    It looks like there is another modern group which claims to be scientific that has prominent members who seem to endorse eugenic concepts. Michael Medved of the Discovery Institute.

Comment by Todd Berkebile — May 14, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

16. Joy Says:
    May 14th, 2008 at 5:42 pm

    Todd B.:

    Michael Medved of the Discovery Institute.

    Wow. So the Rush Limbaugh wannabe hard-right wingnut (it pays well) is trying to sell the 'new eugenics' of a couple of overpaid shrinks at UCLA. Is this supposed to be impressive? Intellectual? Representative of actual cutting-edge genetics and evolutionary biology?

    Medved's a fellow of DI since exactly 6 months ago. I don't find that very impressive either, but then, since Medved's got exactly zip scientific credentials, I don't suppose I'm supposed to be impressed. Just makes me glad I avoid DI types, since their goals don't seem to have much to do with science.

Comment by Joy — May 14, 2008 @ 5:42 pm

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