E-Letter responses to:

essays: Garland E. Allen ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY: Is a New Eugenics Afoot? Science 2001; 294: 59-61 [Summary] [Full text] [PDF]

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Published E-Letter responses:

What Does a "New Eugenics" Look Like?

David Van Horn   (30 October 2001)

A Decade Late

Pascale H. Lane   (18 October 2001)

What Does a "New Eugenics" Look Like? 30 October 2001
David Van Horn, Biochemist University of California, Berkeley Respond to this E-Letter: Re: What Does a "New Eugenics" Look Like?	Allen’s Essay is a timely review of factors influencing the rise of the deplorable eugenics practices of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The piece also explores the potential of similar practices arising in the present. Most of the space is devoted to a description of eugenics practices and the influence of Mendelian genetics on shaping the eugenicists’ programs. However, social applications of Darwinism, not Mendelian genetics, are the culpable figure in this regrettable history. Many books have detailed this aspect of eugenics and the basis for racist programs founded on this misapplication of scientific theory. This might be best summed up in a quote from "Darwin’s Spectre" by Michael Rose: “Most evolutionary biologists don’t even want to THINK about the degree to which Darwinism contributed to the development of racist ideologies in the modern world" [emphasis mine]. Although Mendelian genetics may have provided the tools of heredity, the ideological thrust to reducing society to veterinary schemes of population control is from elsewhere. (Have you ever heard of a group espousing ‘radical Mendelianism’ as the basis of their activities of any sort, good or evil?) Mendelian science simply does not have the speculative breadth, theoretical flexibility, and philosophical implications of Darwinism. The cautionary examples of modern eugenics that Allen gives only seem to scratch the surface of a "new eugenics." It may be that a modern version of eugenics seems a little more positive, and to be economically driven. I mean "positive" in the sense that overt eradication programs will not be installed, but we are undertaking actions we think may have a positive socio-economic-genetic effect. One example might be the offer of $30,000+ for a donated egg of exact specifications (donor is smart, athletic, of a certain ethnic origin, etc.), another is research into germ line intervention and manipulation. It may be that humanity must make a conscious decision to avoid practices heading down the path unfortunately trodden a 100 years ago. As a way forward, I suggest a careful evaluation of anything that trends to treating humanity in a veterinary manner. Issues of cloning, embryonic stem cell research, germ line modifications, and perhaps even Health Maintenance Organizations might whither under such scrutiny.
A Decade Late 18 October 2001
Pascale H. Lane, Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Nebraska Respond to this E-Letter: Re: A Decade Late	I found the article on the "new" eugenics movement interesting, frightening, and even entertaining. Those of us who watched the original "Star Trek" series recall that there was a Eugenics War on Earth. This war resulted in Khan and other super-humans who showed up later in the series, movies, etc. After painstaking research on Trekkie Web sites, I can confirm that the Eugenics War took place from 1992 to 1996. I guess we're just 10 years late for Gene Roddenberry's predictions.