Old Science Looks at Independence Day
by MikeGeneWhat can I say on Independence Day? Well, I have an old textbook on genetics, entitled The Principles of Heredity, by Laurence H. Snyder. It was written in 1935 and thus, toward the end of the book, we get a chapter on eugenics. In the future I will transcribe the chapter and post it on Telic Thoughts so some people can see how eugenics was being taught to students. Suffice it to say that you find that standard arguments for eugenics: lots of behavior has a genetic basis; lots of that behavior is bad for society; society might want to intervene and slow down the propagation of such traits, etc. What does this have to do with July 4? Well, consider the last of the chapter's "problems" for students to work on:
7. The Declaration of Independence states "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal"¦." Discuss this statement from the genetic standpoint.
July 4th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
I'll look forward to your transcription of this "old science" text per the eugenics position - which was not just taught to schoolchildren, but extorted from pulpits and enshrined into laws that remained on the books in some parts of this country until the 1980s (one law was just recently stricken, but I don't recall which state).
And we should not forget that by 1935 the Darwin family's direct support and promotion of eugenics was strongly in force in Britain and Europe as well as in the US. Or that by 1935 the "Neo-Darwinian" theory had been formulated, combining the Mendelian notion of particulate inheritance with Darwin's original focus on natural selection.
And as historical footnote, by 1935 Hitler was fully in charge of Germany and consolidating dictatorial power, building up the German war machine, instituting his broad "negative eugenics" policies, and preparing to launch his plan for world domination. At the time, he was very popular with the Darwinian "Eugenics Societies" and their multinational lobbying arms.
Had selection remained the primary focal point - or had particulate inheritance not been deemed by proclamation (but not by evidence) to be "random" - perhaps eugenics could have been bypassed as the wrong answer to perennial social 'problems' in favor of engineering the social environment in human societies to promote and encourage class opportunities and mobility rather than just trying to eliminate entire classes by force. Who knows?
Anyway, to your question #7, had it been a test question for me in school, I'd have gone ahead and included the rest of the sentence…
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Thus providing specific points of argument -
1. "Endowed by their Creator" so as to remind the self-indulgent overclass of notoriously bad breeders that the 'creation' being denied in their pogroms is not of their own making, nor within their power to re-write.
2. "Unalienable Rights" defined as not to be legitimately removed from persons or classes without incurring 'sin' against that Creator.
3. "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" describing with admirable brevity of words the precise rights that the eugenics movement existed to FORCEFULLY DENY to everyone deemed 'substandard' by virtue of class, color, physical condition, parental presence, personal choice and religious heritage.
Comment by Joy — July 4, 2005 @ 1:50 pm
July 4th, 2005 at 2:14 pm
Hi Joy,
Yes, it is interesting that the author omitted the rest of the sentence. And yes, from a genetic standpoint, all men are not created equal. Thus, either our nation was built around a delusion or there are some truths that transcend science.
Comment by MikeGene — July 4, 2005 @ 2:14 pm