The Politics of Heredity: Essays on Eugenics, Biomedicine, and the Nature-Nurture Debate (Suny Series, Philosophy and Biology)

By Diane B. Paul

Book Overview

Explores the political forces underlying shifts in thinking about the respective influence of heredity and environment in shaping human behavior, and the feasibility and morality of eugenics.

The essays collected in The Politics of Heredity explore the political factors underlying shifts in thinking about the role of nature and nurture in shaping human behavior, and about the desirability and feasibility of controlling human reproduction. They ask why many assumptions that were simply taken for granted as late as the 1950s and '60s came to be considered fundamentally mistaken in the 1970s and '80s. They also suggest that some apparent shifts in thinking were not as deep as they may seem, and that changes in rhetoric may obscure the stability of core underlying beliefs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0791438228
• ISBN13: 9780791438220
• Release Date: July 1998
• Publisher: State University of New York Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

An honest look at eugenics--past and present.

This book presents the eugenics movement in a much more balanced manner than many of the other books from the socialist left. In fact, one of the most interesting facets of early eugenics as explained is that both the left and the right embraced eugenics. Yes, even the socialists new that any eugenic program could improve the quality of the state's people, and that generally socialism could only flourish in a homogenous state of like minded people. But as we all know now, the early eugenics program was overly ambitious, and relied on a purely Mendelian view of genetics--one that was far too simplistic and naïve.The book also takes a fairly balanced look how pervasive and enduring the concepts of eugenics has been. Most books from the left would like one to think that eugenics was an epiphenomena of a racist agenda. But of course we know that most nations in the past have had concerns about the genetic or racial quality of their people, and in fact it was only during a very brief period of history, from about 1960 to 1980 that the radical environmentalists (Gould et al.) attacked eugenics as a pseudoscience. Though this political correctness still prevails in the media and in government policies, academics now that these old Marxists are the ones that are now sicking into the quagmire of pseudoscience, or science based on a purely political agenda. This book helps clarify much of this propaganda.Also, contrary to other leftist books on eugenics, this book explains how with the legalization of abortion along with genetic testing, eugenics practiced by individuals is alive and well. And it is being openly discussed by numerous academics as the rising concern of a dysgenic trend and a falling of intelligence is starting to show up on the radar screen. And from recent work by numerous researchers, the heritability of intelligence is no longer in doubt. So eugenics is back and more vibrant than ever. This book gives a good overview of its history and some indications of where we are headed, at least from a socialist's viewpoint.