'In the Name of Eugenics'

Eugenics Apologists & Abandoning the Scientific Method

Eugenicist Paul Popenoe was known as “infinitely wise” but “unusually modest,” happily married, and the member of a “brilliant family clan.”

Read Part I, where I detail the history of Eugenics in the early 20^th century in the U.S.

The American eugenics movement lost momentum and support by the early 1940s. Some anthropologists argued that eugenics had no scientific basis, others realized the politization of the work, and various “theories” behind eugenics were disproven (Farber 2008; Jones 2021). Universities began dropping eugenics courses as enrollment decreased. However, it is important to note that academia never openly rejected eugenics ideas, but, instead, slowly backed away from them.

Though eugenics courses were dropped, its core ideas persisted in other courses, including the belief that genetics can be related to social phenomena (Glenna, Gollnick, and Jones 2007). Furthermore, the post-World War II era saw even more advances in genetics that were kickstarted with the discovery of DNA’s structure. Emphasis on “basic research” versus applied research tended to shift the focus more towards isolated discoveries and medical research, rather than their major social implications.

Cal Tech science historian Daniel Kevles single-handedly revived academic interest in the history of eugenics

In 1985, UC Berkeley hosted the 17^th International Congress of History of Science in which Kevles softened the history of eugenics by highlighting its supposed “complex” motivations. He likened contemporary genetic counselling to eugenics:

[Eugenics] was a lot more politically complex than people assume. It was not simply a right-wing proto-fascist program […] There were many social reform socialists, such as H.G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw, who were eugenicists […] The possibility of intervening genetically in some diseases, will become more and more possible […] The closer we come to manipulating the human genome, the more these eugenics possibilities will be raised (Vaughn 1985)

Around this time, Kevles published his “critically acclaimed” and “widely-sold” (Alper 1986; Olby, Lewontin, and Kevles 1986; Shea 1986) book called In the Name of Eugenics. In the preface to his book, he states that

I was led to write this history of eugenics partly by the recognition that the subject casts a shadow over all contemporary discourse concerning human genic manipulation […] I was convinced that eugenics held a rich variety of opportunities for historical investigation as such. There have been a number of important studies of the subject, but most have dealt with it in only one country or another, tended to view it through the lens of the Holocaust, and halted the story in the 1930s. I have made this book a comparative history of eugenics in the United States and Britain from the late nineteenth century to the present day, giving attention to its expressions elsewhere, especially in Germany, insofar as they affected Anglo-American developments […] I have also attempted a critical assessment of Anglo-American eugenicists as they diversely recognized themselves before the Nazis came to power; and the assessment has led me to depart from prevailing interpretations to advance the view instead that eugenics involved not only scientific rationalizations of class and race prejudice, but a good deal more, including disputes over how men, and especially women of the modern era were to accommodate to changing standards of sexual and reproductive behavior (Kevles 1985 pp ix-x).

Daniel Kevles is prominently featured on the Yale Website for “research and writings encompass the interplay of science, technology, and society past and present with a focus on the United States. His particular research interests include the history of physics, biology, scientific fraud and misconduct, plant and animal breeding, biotechnology, intellectual property, and science, arms, and the state.”

While Kevles condemned the racist and political applications of eugenics he attempted to rehabilitate some aspects of its reputation, notably the statistical, medical, and genetic developments that historically co-occurred with the eugenics movement. He goes into great biographical details of certain leaders of the movement like Charles Davenport, Francis Galton, and Karl Pearson without adequately exploring larger social contexts.

In reality, these eugenicists abandoned statistics. Many early 20th-century eugenicists were initially inspired by emerging statistical and mathematical methods but abandoned them when the results failed to support their claims. Yet, in his high-flown writing style Kevles argues that in reality, eugenicists helped to fight pseuodscience by casting “the light of science upon superstitions concerning conception, pregnancy, and childbirth” (66) though he concedes that “some eugenic literature continued to advance such wrongheaded notions” (66-67).

Kevles details the development of genetics as a separate and scientifically legitimate field in the post-World War II era. By doing so, he gave tacit approval of current advances in genetic engineering. In the book, he emphasizes the distress of parents whose children have rare, genetic diseases and argues that they are leading the forefront of genetic solutions to disease. There is no consideration of where the line should be drawn, or how these genetic advances could be misappropriated, or the systemic risks of attempting to classify and police disability. Instead, he elevates aspects of eugenics into a legitimate area of academic study. He ultimately gives eugenics undue importance in the development of the field of genetics.

In reality, eugenics emphasized “improving” the population and delved minimally into the hard science of genetics. The field argued that genes also determined one’s behavior and temperament, thus lumping certain races of people into stereotypes. The field was more concerned with “advice” such as partner selection for “good traits” or grandiose statements with little scientific backing, which unfortunately influenced genetic class curriculum.

Yet, ‘In the Name of Eugenics’ has become a revered classic

Mark A. Largent in a 2014 retrospective of the book, states that

“Kevles’s In the Name of Eugenics signaled to my generation that eugenics was a legitimate topic for research by serious historians of science and a topic that could garner significant professional and popular interest” (Largent 2014, p 515).

Kevles also detailed his original motivations for book:

“I expected that it would be advantageous to explore eugenics before 1933 on its own terms, recognizing that its advocates were ignorant of the future […] Eugenicists are now often written off as pseudoscientists, but I tend to think that science at any given time is what scientists do—or at least people whom by various criteria we can recognize as scientist” (Kevles 2014, p 522).

Eugenicists WERE pseudoscientists and lacked any real scientific grounding—they abandoned math and science when the numbers did not work out in their favor.

Yet, the overall attitude towards the book in its 40 years of existence has been glowingly positive. The sole negative review I could find was by a R.C. Lewontin who argued that

Kevles has chosen to use the biographical method in a somewhat shallow form to write the history of a subject, that, perhaps more than any other in science has a pervasive social origin […] Psychoanalyzing in the hypothetical mode become sheer omniscience […] Perhaps a consequence of Kevles’s concentration on pop biography is that he had paid insufficient attention to the details of scientific arguments […] it is not made at all clear what scientific advances really were the cause of the shift in eugenic attitudes (Olby, Lewontin, and Kevles 1986, pp. 315-316)

Unsurprisingly, eugenics ideas continue to influence scientific and medical research into the 21^st century and threaten democracy and scientific credibility. Contemporary genetic discourse has made the eradication of so-called ‘undesirable’ genes increasingly acceptable. Feminist disability scholars argue that such frameworks (by assigning value to certain human traits over others) undermine the egalitarian principles on which modern democracies were founded (Garland-Thomson 2015). In this day and age of limited funding, there is more and more pressure for scientists to provide larger scope and broader impacts of scientific work. Focusing on incremental discoveries is not enough and can incentivize people to push narrow findings as “revolutionary breakthroughs” or make grandiose claims.

This also translates into academia and conceptions of intelligence. A chilling 2020 op-ed piece from The Chronicle of Higher Education by instructor Fredrik DeBoer entitled “Some Students Are Smarter Than Others (and That’s OK)” notes that “weed-out” classes in engineering are necessary. In his words, they are

an artifact of a pragmatic and necessary acknowledgment that not all students possess the underlying ability necessary to flourish in some fields […] college acts as a sieve, allowing employers to pick through those who have the underlying academic talent and soft skills, like time management, needed to succeed at work. This is particularly useful because in many states, employers are barred from using certain criteria, like intelligence testing, to judge applicant (para. 4, 10)

He laments that attempts to remedy these institutional issues will result in a “lowering” of standards. Anyone who reads my Substack knows weed out courses are complete B.S., and that these so-called “standards” are often used as an excuse to resist diversity efforts.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, data fabrication and abandonment of the scientific method is not rare--it is more common than we think. Nearly every step of the scientific method can be twisted to meet whatever agenda the researcher has. Eugenics never left—they only became disguised under the scientific method. This would inspire the 21st century’s explosion of biomedical advances that would focus on eliminating disability. Entitled “Velvet Eugenics” this would usher in a new era of ableism and discrimination, which I will detail in future posts.

References

Alper, Paul. 1986. “The Eugenics Legacy.” Journal of the Minnesota Academy of Science 52(1): 19–20.

DeBoer, Fredrik. 2020. “Some Students Are Smarter Than Others (and That’s OK).” The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/some-students-are-smarter-than-others-and-thats-ok.

Farber, Steven A. 2008. “U.S. Scientists’ Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907–1939): A Contemporary Biologist’s Perspective.” ZEBRAFISH 5(4).

Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. 2015. “Human Biodiversity Conservation : A Consensual Ethical Principle.” The American Journal of Bioethics 15(6): 13–16.

Glenna, Leland L., Margaret A. Gollnick, and Stephen S. Jones. 2007. “Eugenic Opportunity Structures: Teaching Genetic Engineering at US Land-Grant Universities since 1911.” Social Studies of Science 37(2): 281–96.

Jones, Stephen. 2021. “Zoology 61: Teaching Eugenics at WSU.” Washington State. https://magazine.wsu.edu/2009/10/02/zoology-61-teaching-eugenics-at-wsu/ (March 19, 2021).

Kevles, Daniel J. 1985. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

———. 2014. “Postscript : In the Fullness of Time and Scholarship.” Historical Studies in the Natural Science 44(5): 521–30.

Largent, Mark A. 2014. “On Daniel J. Kevles’s ‘In the Name of Eugenics.’” Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences 44: 514–20.

Olby, Robert, R. C. Lewontin, and Daniel J. Kevles. 1986. “Review Reviewed Work (s): In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity by Daniel J. Kevles.” Isis 77(2): 311–19.

Shea, Christine M. 1986. “Daniel J. Kevles. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity.” History of Education Quarterly 26(4): 621–26. Academia; Abelism.

Vaughn, Chris. 1985. “Prof: Eugenics Destined to Get a Second Look.” The Daily Californian: 1,5,10.