Essay using Kevles's _In the Name of Eugenics_
david ford
summary and introductory paragraph: Daniel J. Kevles's _In the Name of
Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity_ (1985) is a valuable
introduction to the intertwined histories of genetics and eugenics. His
book describes the symbiotic relationship between the social thought of
eugenicists and the science of genetics. Each depended upon the other
for further growth and refinement. After eugenical ideas were first
espoused, an effort was made to find the basis of heredity. Scientific
investigations in turn led to a revision of beliefs about eugenics.
The originator of the term "eugenics," Francis Galton, believed that
genius, talent, success, character, ability, and physical features were
decided by hereditary factors. These views reassured the professional
classes of their superiority. With the publication of his cousin
Charles Darwin's _On the Origin of Species_ (1859), Galton formulated
the idea that man should take over and direct evolutionary processes to
develop physically, mentally, and morally better humans through
interbreeding the already superior professional classes. Eugenical
thought was born.
The question was then raised of what were the laws of inheritance.
Galton used statistical methods while attempting to solve the problem.
He found that population characteristics tended to remain stable over
the generations. Since variations tended to return to their usual
distributions, the question was then raised of what the mechanism was by
which evolutionary forces acted, if not through small variation
selection.
Gregor Mendel's work provided the basis for an answer in which small
variations could be selected. Before awareness of Mendel's derivation
of the laws of heredity, many evolutionists were Lamarckian in believing
that heredity was influenced by environmental factors. Mendel's
experimental work highlighted the problem of rampant speculation in
evolutionary studies.
Biologist Charles Davenport decided to investigate evolution using
methods more concrete than those involved in the speculative
construction of possible trees of phylogeny. To do so, he turned to
family pedigrees. Although not inferable from his pedigree study, he
believed that various conditions, including feeblemindedness,
alcoholism, and criminality, were the result of heredity.
Since the supposedly inferior lower classes were increasing in number
most rapidly, and thus were fittest according to Darwinian theory, the
largely upper-middle class eugenicists made a distinction between
Darwinian fitness and eugenical fitness. Achievement of a eugenically
fit, or perfect, society, was believed to be possible through artificial
selection. While it was believed to be nice if selection was done
voluntarily, eugenicists were not above favoring the use of state power
in the furtherance of their goals.
To belief in Galton's positive eugenics, in which reproduction among the
better classes and people was to be promoted, negative eugenics was
added. According to negative eugenics, those deemed inferior were to be
stopped from inflicting their inferior protoplasm on future generations,
and in pursuit of these ends, sterilization and immigration limitations
were possible options. Compounding the difficulties involved in
creating the desired perfect society were the many non-Wasp immigrants
entering the United States. Therefore, anti-immigration laws were
imposed at the national level in the 1920s. The basis for exclusion of
these immigrants was intelligence test results. Only later was it
realized that these results had much to do with the environment in which
an individual developed. At the local level, states passed
sterilization legislation designed to prevent undesirables from passing
on their deleterious genetic material.
Despite these legislative victories for eugenics, the government was
also criticized by eugenicists. The state was thought to be
substituting a harmful artificial selection for natural selection by
promoting the spread of the dangerous protoplasm through the provision
of welfare to the poor and disadvantaged. Aiding the burgeoning
popularity of eugenic ideas during the early twentieth century were
monetary concerns involved with the provision of welfare, fears of a
decline in national intelligence, and, in the United States, societal
racism. In Great Britain, belief in the inferiority of Negro stock did
not play as large a role in the eugenical tradition as did friction
between the classes.
Scientists, meanwhile, started distancing themselves from the eugenical
movement. This occurred as more knowledge of genetics was acquired.
For example, it became known that physical traits such as hair or eye
color were the result of many genes working in concert. By extension,
intelligence was similarly believed to have a polygenic base. Also
understood was the fact that a difference existed between genotypes and
phenotypes, and "that even in the simplest version of Mendelism like did
not necessarily produce like."[pg. 145] Genetic diversity came to be
regarded in some circles as an asset. More understood was the nature of
mental illness and the important role of the environment on intelligence
levels.
In response to the effective attacks of eugenics coming from, among
other areas, genetics, reformers of eugenical thought in the 1930s and
1940s toned down earlier claims that genes determined everything and
acknowledged that nurture played a part in molding an individual. Just
what the respective roles nature and genetics played were to be
investigated through research.
Though humans were not good subjects for the study of heredity, research
proceeded out of a desire to know what man was made of, and with this
knowledge, to possibly take over, accelerate, and improve upon
evolution. If genetic diseases could be detected, effective treatments
could perhaps be administered. Even better, the opportunity existed
that genetic disease could be eliminated in an individual through
genetic engineering. Genes could be designed, new and better genes
created, and the genetic fitness of all humanity lifted instead of
merely working with those variations that existed naturally.
Linkage studies provided means by which the presence of defective genes
could be detected indirectly. A variety of new tools, including
electrophoresis, artificial insemination, paper chromatography, and
restriction enzymes, were used in the research. The effects of
radiation exposure upon the genotype were explored through
investigations of radiation exposure in fruit flies, mice, and Japanese
citizens exposed to atom bomb radiation. Biochemistry and genetics
cooperated to produce insights into genetic diseases such as sickle-cell
anemia. Lionel Penrose's early research pointed to a genetic basis for
Down's Syndrome, which was considered at the time to be an instance of
atavism. The syndrome was subsequently demonstrated to have a genetic
base and not be an instance of atavistic tendencies.
Reform eugenicists responded to the new scientific information by
setting up genetic counseling centers where families could receive
guidance regarding the chances of having defective children given the
presence of a particular recessive gene in potential parents. Because
recessive genes tended to gang up in the offspring of closely related
individuals and result in genetic diseases, reform eugenicists opposed
the marriage unions of relatives. The humane portion of eugenical
intentions was thus given a sounder scientific basis. Concern over the
health of the gene pool gave way to considerations of personal fitness.
Besides the new discoveries in genetics, reformers of eugenical thought
were encouraged in their work by the fullest and most extreme
practitioners of eugenics, the Nazis. Reform eugenicists attempted to
separate eugenics from the horror of Nazi atrocities committed under the
aegis of the Final Solution. Justification for the Nazi's genocide and
euthanasia had been based upon an appeal to notions of the struggle for
existence. Reformers also took care to avoid any connotations of
racism.
However, research into human genetics militated against eugenical causes
in the long run. It became obvious that the tremendous amount of
biochemical diversity present within the human genome was too much for
eugenics to possibly handle. Research emphasized the fact that it was
unknown what sorts of genes in what combinations and under what
circumstances would result in intelligence. Since the vast majority of
genetic disorders were the result of a combination of defective genes,
and since therapy for genetic diseases where only a single gene was at
fault remained far in the future, eugenics's practicality was further
called into question. Instead of interbreeding those that were
superior, as Galton had proposed, which would aid the appearance of
genetic diseases, free matings between different classes and ethnic
groups were now advocated. In addition, sociological investigations
cast doubt on the claim that genes were responsible for intelligence.
In conclusion, Galton's ideas helped spur an investigation of the basis
for heredity. The scientific investigations' results undermined the
basis for eugenical thought. In response to these attacks, eugenicists
conceded some ground on the nature vs. nurture question and made use of
the new scientific knowledge to give reformed eugenics something of a
scientific basis.