Sociology Area

8/31/06

About two weeks ago, I was listening to a radio station/don't know if it was fm or am that had on a live call in and talk show. The kept saying that it was the "Truth" radio station. At first the subject matter that they were talking about appeared to be all over the place. One person called in and made comments that seemed completely out of left field. Eventually, I focused and tried to really hear what they were saying. As I listened someone said that Rockefeller and Dale Carnigee had funded the topic of discussion in the early thirty's and that the Germans had gotten the concept from the United States. Both the names Rockefeller and Carnegee got my attention because I had read the book "Think and Grow rich" by Dale Carnigee and knew that he associated with Rockefeller; both being very rich.

But for them to use the term, Germans with two names that I admired for their accomplishements in life, made me really pay attention. Then I tried to really understand what they were talking about. They kept mentioning a term; that I really did not understand and wrote down a word that sounded like the term the radio audiance kept referring to. The term Ilater found out is "EUGENICS". DICTIONARY.COM
definition ="of or bringing about improvement in the type of offspring produced."
(http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=EUGENIC&x=30&y=9).

The radio host and the audiance were talking about a new book that had been written, which I now know is titled, "Eugenics Nation" writtened by Alexandra Minna Stern.
Part of the description that I read about the book stated that a lot of people think that eugenics ended with Germany but that the concept lived on; has and is being used in the United States in the twentieth century. After reading a few lines about the description of the book; I did a little google search/research which follows: Let me say first;that as I read the material about eugenics, it confirmed too many things; specifically-that for thirty years that "thang" that I just couldn't put my finger on was identified. It explainded why my brothers, fathers, were killed in front of my face and why all the authorities sat and watched. It is an organized system of killing people. As I listened to the callers on the radio station I knew that what I had recorded/documented was history. I kind of knew that anyway. But I really thought that my families situation was unique because of who my earthly father was. I thought it was just that for some reason he and they=??? just couldn't get along. Wrong=I now know that nobody gets along with them unless they join them in their system of killing.

The radio converstion about Eugenics;the quick google research about Eugenics; the years of documentation of the operation of the system of Eugenics-all explain WHY I have not been able to get help and WHY they?? feel so confident in what they are doing. And the most interesting part is the article that brought into question the church and pastor's roles in the process of Eugenics. The article asked "What part did the pastors and church play? How did they assist in the process of Eugenics. After eading the article is helped me to understand why they put me out of the church; why I have not fit in; I mean I kind of knew it; it's just that after I began to understand Eugenics that it really becomes clear that a lot of people would want to keep hid the fact that the concept and process is really occuring in the United States and even moreso most of the people who are helping them would tell you to your face that they would never help such people do that to anyone. Which I think is one of themost remarkable things of all; to be able to get people to do their own, and not being aware that they are. Usually they think that the person it is being done to has issues and that they are better than that person.

One of the things that they kept referrring to is that Eugenics is the process to help created a better species. Based upon my observations and experience from my standpoint; that means that ANYBODY who does not agree with their mind being controlled (not talking about cooperating with the rules/laws and regulations of a country); but talking about anyone who does not agree to having their mind controlled; by controlled I mean being told what to do; when to do it; told who they can see; who they cannot see; told who they can have a relationship with; then told what kind of relationship that they can have with the person; being told where they can go, when they can go there, how they can get there; I mean basically being a robot; having their mind confined; told what kind of work they can do; what kind of work they can't do; or anybody who has a problem with being used to put computer parts on their body without their permission; anybody who has a problem with another person not recognizing them as a human being and anybody who would dare to believe God , that they are not or do not have to be a robot would classify as someone who needs to be assisted in uderstanding that they qualify for the Eugenics process.

Imagine if there were people who wanted to make robots of everybody under them; through Eugenics, it would be easy; especially if only the people who were helping in the Eugenics process were the only ones that were allowed to work,especially in jobs where any type of money was made above the poverty or struggle level. The people who didn't help with the process would end up being put in prison, no job or cleaning, waitressing, custodial or substitute teaching, which is where most of the people in the African American churches work, even with degrees. Eugenics explains why they could take out four of my teeth without my permission and not be concerned; it explains why three organizations could lose my immunization records; and not be concerned; Eugenics explains a lot, sad to say.


Peacenowst


As stated much earlier, following are some of the articles and websites that I located information on Eugenics.




Eugenics is a social philosophy (sometimes labeled a "science", a "movement", or a "pseudoscience") which advocates to improve human hereditary qualities. Proposed means of doing so have included but are not limited to selective breeding, encouragement and discouragement of certain types of reproductive practices, genetic engineering, and, historically, extermination of the designated "unfit". Advocates of the approach have said variously that it would lessen human suffering and genetically caused health problems, would save society money, and some have said it would create a new, more intelligent human race.


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Eugenics
eugenics
Main Entry: heredity
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: traits
Synonyms: ancestry, congenital traits, constitution, eugenics, genesiology, genetic make-up, genetics, inheritance
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[yoojeniks] The ‘science’ that dealt with the alleged effects on the individual of biological and social factors. The term was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton as ‘the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities’. Eugenics was destroyed in the earlier years of the 20th-c by the propagation (eg in Germany and the USA) of political doctrines, in the name of eugenics, which were nonscientific and brutal.

http://www.reference.com/browse/crystal/11177
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Eugenics
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!

Eugenics is a social philosophy (sometimes labeled a "science", a "movement", or a "pseudoscience") which advocates to improve human hereditary qualities. Proposed means of doing so have included but are not limited to selective breeding, encouragement and discouragement of certain types of reproductive practices, genetic engineering, and, historically, extermination of the designated "unfit". Advocates of the approach have said variously that it would lessen human suffering and genetically caused health problems, would save society money, and some have said it would create a new, more intelligent human race.

The idea of eugenics was first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1865 (though the term, alternatively translated from Greek as "well born" or "good breeding", was not coined by him until the 1883), and eventually came to encompass the idea of using social policies which fell into the categories of "positive" eugenics (encouraging the designated "most fit" to reproduce more often) and "negative" eugenics (discouraging or preventing the designated "less fit" from reproducing). In the first half of the twentieth century, numerous countries enacted eugenics policies and programs of many types, many notably coercive or restrictive.

Eugenics was supported by many prominent thinkers worldwide since its inception, including Alexander Graham Bell and W.E.B. DuBois, and was an academic discipline at many colleges and universities. It began falling into serious disrepute in scientific circles in the 1930s, around the same time eugenic rhetoric was incorporated by Ernst Rudin into the racial policies of Nazi Germany. In the postwar period, eugenics became associated with Nazism in the public and scientific eye, even though a variety of states maintained eugenic programs for a number of decades afterwards. Because of the association with "master race" ideologies, eugenics in the present period is a controversial idea and most of those involved in genetic and reproductive technology research tend to disassociate themselves with the term "eugenics". Modern inquiries into the potential use of genetic engineering have led to an increased invocation of the history of eugenics in the discourse of bioethics, usually as a cautionary tale, though some ethicists have questioned whether non-coercive eugenics programs would be inherently unethical.
Galton's theory
Selective breeding was suggested as early as the time of Plato, who believed that human reproduction should be controlled by authorities. He proposed that the selection should be performed by a fake lottery, controlled by the government, so that the people's feelings wouldn't be hurt by awareness of selection principles. Other instances of eugenics-like programs in ancient times include the city of Sparta's mythological practice of leaving weak babies outside of city borders to die. See Infanticide.But it was work by Sir Francis Galton in the 1860s and 1870s which systemized these ideas and practices along the lines of new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton was struck with an interpretation of Darwin's work where the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization, and since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton reasoned, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity"—a phrase he coined in statistics which he later changed to the now-common, "regression towards the mean."

Galton's theory, which he first sketched out in his 1865 article "Hereditary Talent and Character," and elaborated in his 1869 book Hereditary Genius, began by studying the way in which human intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. Galton's basic argument was that "genius" and "talent" were hereditary traits in humans (though neither he nor Darwin had yet a working model of this type of heredity), and that just as one could use artificial selection to exaggerate traits in animals, one could expect similar results applying such models to humans. As he put it in the introduction to Hereditary Genius:

I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.

Furthermore, according to Galton, society itself contained many conditions which were encouraging dysgenic conditions, claiming that the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent, a catastrophe in Darwinian terms. However, Galton did not yet elaborate on the methods which would be specifically used for this endeavor, and hoped that if social mores could change so that people could see the importance of breeding, at some point in the future a solution would be found.

As for Darwin, he read his cousin's work with interest, but dismissed its goals as too "Utopian." In his later work, The Descent of Man, Darwin noted that while Galton's formulation of the peril of civilization might be correct, the very human sensitivities that Galton thought were leading to inevitable doom were themselves also evolved and were part of a fundamental core of what distinguished man as a highly-evolved social species. On the second to last page of the book, though, he concluded on an uncharacteristically Galtonian note:

Man scans with scrupulous care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and dogs before he matches them; but when he comes to his own marriage he rarely, or never, takes any such care. ... Both sexes ought to refrain from marriage if they are in any marked degree inferior in body or mind; but such hopes are Utopian and will never be even partially realised until the laws of inheritance are thoroughly known. ... On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, whilst the reckless marry, the inferior members tend to supplant the better members of society. Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher, it is to be feared that he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Otherwise he would sink into indolence, and the more gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted.

Galton first used the word "eugenic" in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development, where he specified that the purpose of the work was "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalised one than viriculture which I once ventured to use.

Galton's formulation of eugenics was based in a strong statistical approach, influenced heavily by Adolphe Quetelet's "social physics." Unlike Quetelet, however, Galton did not exhalt the "average man," but decried him as mediocre. Galton and his statistical heir, Karl Pearson, developed what was known as the biometrical approach to eugenics, which developed new and complex statistical models (later exported to wholly different fields) to describe the heredity of traits. With the re-discovery of the hereditary laws of Gregor Mendel, however, there split into two separate camps of eugenics advocates, one of statisticians, the other of biologists (the former thought the latter to be exceptionally crude in their mathematical models, while the latter thought the former to be ignorant of actual biology). The "biometrical" school of the study of variation in humans (and species in general) focused on mean values and distributions of variation in successive generations—looking at something like "height" or "arm length" in terms of "averages" and concentrating on the trends such averages revealed (and speculating on ways to manipulate them) in society at large. The "Mendelian" school applied combinatorial methods of analysis to problems concerning the resemblance between parents and offspring—a way of conceptualizing heredity that would concentrate on a "height factor" rather than concentrating on average or individual heights. By the 1930s, however, these had been reconciled into a single model by the work of Ronald Fisher, who developed more powerful statistical models based on the Mendelian laws.

Eugenics developed to refer to human selective reproduction with the intent to create children with desirable traits, especially those that best meet an ideal of racial purity ("positive" eugenics), as well as elimination of undesirable traits ("negative" eugenics). "Negative" eugenic policies in the past have ranged from segregation to sterilization to even genocide. "Positive" eugenic policies have been typically awards or bonuses for "fit" parents after having another child, though even relatively innocuous things like marriage counseling have had early links with eugenic ideology. Eugenics differed from what would later be known as Social Darwinism on the question of activism: while both claimed that intelligence was hereditary, eugenics claimed that new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, whereas the Social Darwinists argued that society itself would naturally "check" the problem of "dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more, but would have higher mortality rates).
Eugenics and the state, 1890s-1945

One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenic ideas (before they were labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell, best known as one of the inventors of the telephone. In 1881, Bell investigated the rate of deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Mass. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and recommended a marriage prohibition against the deaf (in his "Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human Race"). Like many other early eugenicists, he proposed controlling immigration for the purpose of eugenics, and warned that boarding schools for the deaf could be considered possible breeding places of a deaf human race.Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for its eugenics programs, which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs which ran under the banner of "racial hygiene." Among other acts, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the more ghastly experiments carried out by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people who they viewed as mentally and physically "unfit," and killed tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled in their compulsory euthanasia programs. They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "Aryan" women who had large numbers of children, and even encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women would become impregnated by SS officers (Lebensborn). Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" Europeans, including Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals, during the Holocaust, and much of the killing equipment and methods employed in the death camps was first developed in their euthanasia program. The scope and coercion involved in the German eugenics programs, and the strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics and "racial science" throughout the regime, would create an indelible cultural association between eugenics and the Third Reich in the postwar years.

The nation that had the second largest eugenics movement was the United States. Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898, Charles B. Davenport, a prominent American biologist, assumed the role of director of a biological research station based in Cold Spring Harbor. Here he began experimenting with evolution of plants and animals. In 1904, Davenport received funds from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. 1910 heralded the Eugenics Record Office, Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.

In years to come the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees, which concluded that those that were unfit were from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, and the conservationist Madison Grant (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit" (Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods, Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family, Grant favored all of the above and more -- even entertaining the idea of extermination). Though we now see the methodology and research methods as being highly flawed, in their time they were seen as legitimate scientific research, though they did have their scientific detractors (notably Thomas Hunt Morgan).

In 1924, the Immigration Restriction Act was passed, with eugenicists for the first time playing a central role in the Congressional debate, as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from Eastern and Southern Europe. http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/topics_fs.pl?theme=10&search=1113&matches=1113 This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to fifteen percent of that of previous years, to control the proportion of "unfit" individuals entering the country. The new Act strengthened the existing laws prohibiting race mixing in an attempt to maintain the gene pool. Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the USA, and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.

Some states also practiced sterilization of "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The US Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those they thought unfit. Between 1907 and 1963, the most significant era of eugenic sterilization, over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States. A favorable report of the results of the sterilizations in California, by far the most sterilizing state, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe, and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators were on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified their mass-sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by pointing a finger at the USA as their inspiration.

Almost all non-Catholic western nations adopted some eugenics legislation. In July 1933, Germany passed a law allowing for the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards, sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable disease which would be passed on to their offspring . . ." http://century.guardian.co.uk/1930-1939/Story/0,6051,126942,00.html Sweden forcibly sterilized 62,000 "unfits" as part of a eugenics program over a forty year period. Similar incidents occurred in Canada, Australia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Switzerland and Iceland for people the government declared to be mentally deficient. Singapore practiced a limited form of "positive" eugenics which involved encouraging marriage between college graduates in the hope that they would produce better children.

Various authors, notably Stephen Jay Gould, have repeatedly asserted that restrictions on immigration passed in the United States during the 1920s (which were overhauled in 1965) were motivated by the goals of eugenics, in particular a desire to exclude "inferior" races from the national gene pool. In the early part of the twentieth century the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of southern and eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Harry Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments that these were inferior races who would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted. It is argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants who were almost completely banned from entering the country. However, several people, in particular Franz Samelson, Mark Snyderman, and Richard Herrnstein have argued, based on their examination of the records of the Congressional debates over immigration policy, that in fact Congress gave virtually no consideration to these factors. Rather, they maintain, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the country's cultural integrity against the heavy influx of foreigners.

Some who disagree with the idea of eugenics in general contend that eugenics legislation still had benefits; namely, that advocates such as Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood of America) found it a useful tool to urge the legalization of contraception. In its time, eugenics was seen by many as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the death camps of World War II, the idea that eugenics, in an ultimate expression, could lead to genocide was not taken as a serious possibility.
Stigmatization of eugenics in the post-Nazi years

In the years after the experience of Nazi Germany, many of the ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society rapidly were renounced publicly by members of the scientific community and politicians alike. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world much of the sadistic practices of the regime and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on race (though, notably, American domestic policy towards race issues were still highly discriminatory). Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed in response to the abuses of the second World War, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948, affirmed that "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm

Along with these other reactions to Nazi ideas, eugenics was almost universally reviled in many of the nations in which it had once been popular (some eugenics programs, including sterilization programs, continued quietly for many more decades, however). Many eugenicists of the previous period engaged in what they at one point labeled "crypto-eugenics," purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs "underground" and becoming highly-respected anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists in the post-war world, such as Robert Yerkes in the USA and Otmar von Verschuer in Germany. Californian eugenicist Paul Popenoe became the founder of 1950s marriage counseling, a career change which initially grew out of his eugenic interests (promoting "healthy marriages" between "fit" couples).

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the 1940s frequently contained chapters touting the scientific progress to be made by applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals devoted to the study of heredity in general were run by eugenicists and featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in non-human organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most references to eugenics were removed from both the textbooks and future editions of the journals. Even the names of some journals changed to reflect new attitudes: for example, "Eugenics Quarterly" became "Social Biology" in 1969, a journal which still exists today though looks little like its predecessor. Notable members of the American Eugenics Society (1922-1994) in the second half of the 20th Century included Joseph Fletcher, originator of Situational ethics, Dr. Clarence Gamble, of the Procter and Gamble fortune, and Garrett Hardin, population control advocate and author of The Tragedy of the Commons.
Eugenics and genetic engineering

The history of eugenics, and the concept of eugenics, have become more heavily discussed in the last twenty years as knowledge about genetics has significantly advanced. Endeavors such as the Human Genome Project have again made the possibility of effective modification of the human species seem real, just as Darwin's initial theory of evolution did in the 1860s, and the rediscovery of Mendel's laws did in the earliest years of the 20th century. The difference this time around is, however, the guarded attitude towards "eugenics"—it has become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced.

Only a few researchers, such as the controversial psychologist Richard Lynn, have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology, but represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural circles. One of the best known recent cases of attempting to implement a form of eugenics in practice was a "genius sperm bank" (1980-1999) created by Robert Klark Graham, from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donor was Nobel Prize winner William Shockley). In the USA and Europe, though, these attempts have generally been criticized as being in the same spirit of the classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s.

At the present time, only a few governments in the world have anything which resemble eugenic programs. In 1994, China passed the "Maternal and Infant Health Care Law" which included mandatory pre-marital screenings for "genetic diseases of a serious nature" and "relevant mental disease." Those who are diagnosed with such diseases are required either to not marry or to agree to "long term contraceptive measures" or to submit to sterilization. A similar screening policy (including pre-natal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists on both sides of the island of Cyprus. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease among certain Jewish communities, is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with eugenics. In Israel, at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose the disease before the birth of the baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, the pregnancy is usually terminated. The ultra-Orthodox association Dor Yesharim tests young couples to check whether they are genetically "suitable." If both the young man and young women are Tay-Sachs carriers, the match is determined to be unsuitable and the couple split up.

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents large number of moral and ethical questions. Many commentators have suggested that the new "eugenics" will come from reproductive technologies which allow parents to create "designer babies" (what the biologist Lee M. Silver prominently called "reprogenetics"). It has been argued that this "non-coercive" form of biological "improvement" will be predominately motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire for creating "the best opportunities" for children, rather than by the urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early twentieth century forms of eugenics. Because of this apparently non-coercive nature, the lack of involvement by the state, and the difference in goals, it has been asked by a number of commentators whether or not this situation would actually be "eugenics," or something else; it has additionally been asked whether or not it thus carries the ethically problematic components of early twentieth century eugenics.

Although any ideas that can be described as "eugenic" are still highly controversial in both the public and scholarly spheres, a few distinguished scientists, including Nobel Prize winners such as John Sulston ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world") and James D. Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it."), have recently spoken in support of "voluntary" eugenics. Watson, the first director of the Human Genome Project, initiated the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Program (ELSI), which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human genetic engineering (as well as a prominent website on the history of eugenics), because:

In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project would point out that I was a representative of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that one housed the controversial Eugenics Record Office. My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying racial discrimination. (Watson 2000, p.202)

See also

* Brave New World
* Charles Goethe
* Compulsory sterilization
* Dor Yeshorim
* Dysgenics
* Evolution
* Ernst Rudin
* Cosmotheism
* Gattaca
* Genetic counseling
* Genetic engineering
* Genetics
* Human evolution
* Liberal eugenics
* Project Prevention
* Pioneer Fund
* Race
* Race and intelligence
* Racial Hygiene
* Richard Lynn, a modern psychologist who has advocated eugenic ideals
* Scientific racism
* Social Justice
* The Genographic Project

References

* Elazar Barkan, The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). (On the changing attitudes towards race and biology in the 20th century academic community)
* Francis Galton, Hereditary genius: an inquiry into its laws and consequences (London: Macmillan, 1869). (Galton's first comprehensive work on eugenics)
* Francis Galton, "Hereditary talent and character," Macmillan's Magazine 12 (1865), 157-166 and 318-327. (Galton's first article on heredity and eugenics)
* Francis Galton, Inquiries into human faculty and its development (London, Macmillan, 1883). (Galton coins the word "eugenics")
* Stephen J. Gould, The mismeasure of man (New York: Norton, 1981). (Looks at the history of using science for racist purposes)
* Mark Haller, Eugenics: Hereditarian attitudes in American thought (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963). (Early work on the history of eugenics)
* Daniel Kevles, In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity (New York: Knopf, 1985). (Most recent survey work on the history of eugenics)
* Stefan Kühl, The Nazi connection: Eugenics, American racism, and German National Socialism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). (On the connections between U.S. and Nazi eugenics and eugenicists)
* Dieter Kuntz, ed., Deadly medicine: creating the master race (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004). (On the use of science for eugenics in the U.S. and the Holocaust) online exhibit
* Donald A. MacKenzie, Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The social construction of scientific knowledge (Edinburgh: Edinburg University Press, 1981). (On the development of 19th century eugenics and theories of heredity)
* Diane B. Paul, "Darwin, social Darwinism and eugenics," in Jonathan Hodge and Gregory Radick, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Darwin (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 214-239. (Darwin's assessment of Galton)
* Robert Proctor, Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). (On the mobilization of the medical community under the Nazi state and the development of the racial hygiene movement)
* James D. Watson, A passion for DNA: Genes, genomes, and society (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000). (Co-discoverer of DNA talks about genes and ethics)
* Paul Weindling, Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989). (On the development of hygiene movements in Germany)
* "Sterilisation of the unfit", The Guardian, July 26, 1933. (Reporting on the passage of the German sterilization law)

Further reading

* Mark B. Adams, ed., The Wellborn science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). ISBN 0195053613
* Edwin Black, War against the weak: Eugenics and America's campaign to create a master race (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/
* Edwin Black, "Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection", San Francisco Chronicle (9 Nov 2003).
* Michael Crichton, State of Fear, (New York: HarperCollins, 2004). ISBN 0066214130 (contains an appendix on eugenics, politics, and science in the US.)
* Richard Lynn, Eugenics: A reassessment (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001). ISBN 0275958221 (controversial book which argues for eugenics)

External links
Anti-eugenics and historical websites

* Eugenics Archive - Historical Material on the Eugenics Movement (funded by the Human Genome Project)
* Eugenics Watch

* Shoaheducation.com:Eugenics
* Vermont Eugenics: A Documentary History
* University of Virginia Historical Collections: Eugenics
* "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit)
* DNA: Pandora's Box - PBS documentary about DNA, the Human Genome Project, and questions about a "new" eugenics
* Fighting Fire with Fire: African Americans and Hereditarian Thinking, 1900-1942 - article on the support of eugenics by African American thinkers

Pro-eugenics websites

* Eugenics - a planned evolution for life
* Future Generations Eugenics Portal
* Creative Conscious Evolution: A Eugenics Directory
* Millennium Eugenics Section
* Mankind Quarterly
Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century by John Glad

http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Eugenics
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Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of developing a cultivated breed over time.

In general, the owners of the animals use three strategies to refine local populations:
Selective Breeding Methods

1. Isolation. There must be a period in which the members of the group are relatively fixed, so that no new genetic material comes in. Without genetic isolation of the group, the differentiation that creates a new breed cannot take place.
2. Artificial selection. Breeders must prevent random mating from coming about, and limit mating to those individuals who exhibit desired characteristics. One logical consequence of this isolation is the next characteristic: inbreeding.
3. Inbreeding. Ordinarily those who are controlling the artificial breeding will find it necessary at some stage to employ a degree of linebreeding (mating within one bloodline, or strain) or inbreeding (mating closely related individuals), to facilitate the weeding-out of undesired characteristics and the fixation of desired traits. Inbreeding and linebreeding are controversial aspects of artificial selection, but have been practiced for centuries.

The Appaloosa horse, which was developed by the Nez Perce Indians in the Northwest United States, provides an example. The Spanish colonists had established horse breeding in what is now New Mexico by about 1600, and the Spaniards of that era were known to have horses with spotted coats. By 1806 (when they are mentioned in journals kept by the Lewis and Clark expedition) the Nez Perce were observed to have developed strong, hardy, spotted horses.

It is not known if the Nez Perce practiced inbreeding, but they were reputed to geld stallions judged unsuitable for breeding, and to trade away mares likewise unsuitable for breeding, which accomplishes the goals of isolation and artificial selection.
Closed vs. open studbook
A studbook is the official registry of approved individuals of a given breed kept by a breed association. It is said to be "closed" if individuals can be added only if their parents were both registered. It is said to be "open" if individuals can be added without their parents being registered, such as by inspection.

Studbooks have been kept for centuries; the concept of the breed associations and clubs is more recent. Most of the "purebred horses" have open studbooks. For example, a "purebred" Arabian mare can be "examined" by the Trakehner authorities; if she is found acceptable, her offspring can be registered as Trakehner. By contrast, the studbooks of purebred dogs only remain open if the breed is under development or if there is deemed to be an insufficient genepool.
Crossbreeding and backbreeding
In some registries, breeders may apply for permission to crossbreed other breeds into the line to emphasize certain traits, to keep the breed from extinction or to alleviate problems caused in the breed by inbreeding from a limited set of animals. A related preservation method is backbreeding, used by some equine and canine registries, in which crossbred individuals are mated back to purebreds to eliminate undesirable traits acquired through the crossbreeding.

Some horse societies accept crossbreds who meet certain criteria onto the breed registry.
Purebred Cats, Dogs and the Debate over 'Breed Purity'
Most purebred cats and dogs of breeds recognized by all-breed club registries are controlled by "closed studbooks". In a number of modern breeds recognized by the kennel clubs, there are high incidences of specific genetic diseases or disorders and sometimes increased susceptibility to other diseases, reduced litter sizes, reduced lifespan, inability to conceive naturally, etc. This came about because:

1. Many breeds have been established with too few foundation dogs or ones that were already too closely related, or both
2. There was artificial isolation: the registries (stud books) are closed for most breeds; therefore one cannot introduce diversity from outside the existing population.
3. Most selective breeding practices have the effect of reducing the diversity further. In addition, in the show world, breeding specimens are often selected on the basis of aesthetic criteria only, without regard for soundness.
4. Even if the foundation dogs were sufficiently diverse genetically, almost no one knows how their genetic contributions are distributed among the present day population, consequently, breeding is done without regard to conserving these contributions, which may be of value to the general health and survival of the breed.

Similar problems affect purebred cats, however to a lesser extent since selective breeding in cats has not been practiced for nearly the length of time that it has been in dogs. The purebred cat is a relatively modern invention, in fact some breeds of cats have been in existence less than fifty years and most do not have closed studbooks.
Purebreds
The very idea of 'breed purity' often strikes an unpleasant chord with modern animal fanciers because it is reminiscent of nineteenth-century eugenics notions of the "superior strain" which were supposedly exemplified by human aristocracies and thoroughbred horses. The application of theories of eugenics has had far-reaching consequences for human beings, and the observable phenomenon of hybrid vigor stands in sharp contrast.

The idea of the superior strain was that by "breeding the best to the best," employing sustained inbreeding and selection for "superior" qualities, one would develop a bloodline superior in every way to the unrefined, base stock which was the best that nature could produce. Naturally the purified line must then be preserved from dilution and debasement by base-born stock. This theory was never completely borne out. It can be said that when the ideal of the purified lineage or aesthetic type is seen as an end in itself, the breed suffers over time. The same issues are raised in the world of purebred cats.

His claim that selective breeding had been successful in producing change over time was one of the key arguments proposed by Charles Darwin to support his theory of natural selection in his acclaimed yet controversial work Origin of Species.
See also

* Artificial selection
* Breed registry
* Breeding


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Selective_breeding
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Eugenics Record Office
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!

The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. Both its founder, Charles Benedict Davenport, and its director, Harry H. Laughlin were major contributors to eugenic thought and policy in the United States (and in many ways, Germany). Founded in 1910, was financed primarily by Mary Harriman (widow of railroad baron E. H. Harriman) and then the Carnegie Institution until 1939. In 1944 it closed, and its records were transferred to the Charles Fremont Dight Institute for the Promotion of Human Genetics at the University of Minnesota.
External links

* Eugenics Archive - features many materials from the ERO archives.
* American Philosophical Society ERO index - index of ERO archives.

Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, (New York / London: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003);


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Eugenics_Record_Office
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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
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The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is a research and educational institution, consisting of science laboratories located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York on Long Island, USA. The Laboratory has research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics, and has a broad educational mission, including the recently established Watson School of Biological Sciences.

The laboratory began its history in 1890 as an extension of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; in 1904, the Carnegie Institution of Washington established the Station for Experimental Evolution at Cold Spring Harbor on the site. In 1921, the station was reorganized as the Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics.

The Carnegie Institution Department of Genetics scientists at Cold Spring Harbor made innumerable contributions to the sciences of genetics, medicine, and the then-infant science of molecular biology, and in 1962 its facilities merged with those of The Brooklyn Institute's Biological Laboratory to create what is known today as Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

In 1944 Barbara McClintock discovered at CSHL transposons ("jumping genes"), for which she received the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

One well-known aspect of the Laboratory is its hosting of the experiments of Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase, and the work of Max Delbrück and Salvador Luria. Nobel laureate James D. Watson (who co-discovered the double helix structure of DNA with Francis Crick) served as the Laboratory's Director and President for 35 years, remains today as its Chancellor. The Laboratory also offers many programs for students in high school and college in biotechnology and biology. The lab is particularly well known for its contributions towards the training of young scientists, notably through the establishment of its Undergraduate Research Program in 1959, its Dolan DNA Learning Center in 1988, and the founding of the Watson School of Biological Sciences in 1999.

During the years 1910 to 1940, the laboratory was also the home of the Eugenics Record Office of biologist Charles B. Davenport and his assistant Harry H. Laughlin, two prominent American eugenicists of the period. In 1935 the Carnegie Institution sent a team to review their work, and as a result the ERO was ordered to stop all efforts. In 1939 the Institute withdrew funding for the ERO entirely, leading to its closure. Their reports, articles, charts, and pedigrees were considered scientific "facts" in their day, but have since been discredited.
External links

* Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
* Dolan DNA Learning Center
* Eugenics Archive
* CSHL URP site
* Watson School of Biological Sciences


Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Cold_Spring_Harbor_Laboratory


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Eugenics Board of North Carolina
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!

The Eugenics Board of North Carolina (EBNC) sterilized more than 7,600 people, among them 2,000 children, between 1929 and 1974, in an attempt to remove mental illness and "social misbehaviour" from the gene pool (eugenics).


APA:
eugenics board of north carolina. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved August 31, 2006, from Reference.com website: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolina



http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Eugenics_Board_of_North_Carolina

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Elaine Riddick Jessie


Elaine Riddick Jessie was a 14-year-old girl who, in 1968, was forcibly sterilized by the US government of North Carolina's Eugenics Board which argued that she was "feebleminded" and "promiscuous".

Prior to the sterilization (at age 13), Jessie had been coerced into having sexual intercourse with a man in his 20s (See: statutory rape). Her son, Tony Riddick, states, "The work of the Eugenics Board was not far from the thinking of Hitler."

Jessie was living with her grandmother, Maggie "Miss Peaches" Woodard, when a social worker discovered her pregnancy. The illiterate Woodard signed an X on a consent form, not knowing what it was, only that if she didn't sign, Elaine would be sent to an orphanage. The Perquimans County Department of Public Welfare had earlier custody of Jessie and her 7 siblings (from their alcoholic parents), sending 5 to an orphanage, and Elaine and one of her sisters to live with Woodard.

In March of 2003 Mrs. Jessie and other victims of the Eugenics Board spoke out against the atrocities committed to the Eugenics Study Committee. http://www.charleston.net/stories/031503/sta_15ster.shtml


Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation


http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Elaine_Riddick_Jessie

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http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/iss/Eugenics/EugenicsStateDocuments.htm


Page 2=Study relating to Mental Illness, Mental Definicency, and epilespy in a selected Rural County by the Eugenics Board of North Carolina.
http://statelibrary.dcr.state.nc.us/iss/Eugenics/EugenicsStudy48.pdf

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Liberal eugenicsWikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!Liberal eugenics is the study and use of genetic engineering to improve human beings, specifically in regards to biological characteristics and capacities.
The term liberal is used to differentiate it from the eugenics programs of the first half of the twentieth century, which were associated with racism, classism, and coercive methods to insure that genetic information was not passed on to another generation. The most controversial aspect of those programs was the use of "negative" eugenics laws which allowed government agencies to sterilize individuals with "undesirable" genes. Historically, eugenics is often broken into the categories of "positive" (encouraging reproduction in the designated "fit") and "negative" (discouraging reproduction in the designated "unfit"). Many "positive" eugenics programs were advocated and pursued in early twentieth-century eugenics programs, but the "negative" programs were responsible for the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of persons in many countries and states, and were contained in much of the rhetoric of Nazi Germany's programs of racial hygiene and ethnic cleansing. Advocates of liberal eugenicists generally do not favor sterilization except as a part of population control.
Liberal eugenics is conceived as being entirely "positive", relying more on genetic manipulation than on breeding charts to achieve its aims. It seeks to both minimize congenital disease and enhance ability, traditional eugenic goals. It is intended to be under the control of the parents, though the substantial governmental and corporate infrastructure required for genetic engineering may limit or steer their actual choices. Currently, tests have been developed to allow for "unfit" embryos carrying congenital diseases to be discarded.
The people who embraced eugenics in the early twentieth-century were primarily "social Darwinists" but also "progressives" (though not all progressives embraced eugenics), whom often (but not always) had what we would now consider very socially conservative ideals but were confident in enacting socially active, governmentally involved methods, with a firm belief that what they were doing was "scientific" (a distinction which does not mold easily onto modern political categories). Beyond that, eugenics was a mobile philosophy which found support among many different political traditions, ranging from what we would today call staunch social conservatives to the most optimistic British socialists of the early twentieth century.
A key goal of liberal eugenics is to reduce the role of chance in reproduction. Joseph Fletcher laid the intellectual groundwork for liberal eugenics in 1974 when he described an alternative to reproductive roulette. His visions soon become a reality when in vitro gender determination became possible. The modern "liberal eugenics" movement is believed to have started in the 1990s. It is associated with the transhumanism movement, which espouses using all available technology to better the human species.
See also
Bioethics
Human enhancement technologies
Reprogenetics
References
Joseph Fletcher. The Ethics of Genetic Control: Ending Reproductive Roulette. (Doubleday and Company 1974)
Nicholas Agar. Liberal Eugenics: In Defence Of Human Enhancement (Blackwell, 2004). ISBN 1405123907
Erik Parens. Enhancing Human Traits: Ethical and Social Implications (Georgetown University Press, 2000). ISBN 0878407804
Glenn McGee. The Perfect Baby: A Pragmatic Approach to Genetics (Rowman & Littlefield, 1997). ISBN 0847683443
Allen Buchanan, Dan W. Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler. From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Gregory Stock. Redesigning Humans: Our Inevitable Genetic Future (Houghton Mifflin, 2002) ISBN 061806026X
Osamu Kanamori. Relief and Shadow of New Liberal Eugenics (The University of Tokyo) Unpublished paper . http://www.med.osaka-u.ac.jp/pub/eth/kanamori.doc




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http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Transhumanism

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http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Biopolitics

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!The term "Biopolitics" or "Biopolitical" can refer to several things:
An axis on the political spectrum that reflects positions towards reproductive technology and genetic engineering.
Political advocacy in support of, or in opposition to, reproductive technology and genetic engineering.
Public policies regarding reproductive technology and genetic engineering.
Political advocacy concerned with the welfare of all forms of life.
The application and impact of political power on all aspects of life.
In the work of Michel Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations.

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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - Cite This Source new!
Bioconservatism is a stance of hesitancy about technological development in general and strong opposition to the genetic, cybernetic and cognitive modification of human beings in particular. Whether arising from a conventionally right-leaning politics of religious/cultural conservatism or from a conventionally left-leaning politics of environmentalism, bioconservative positions oppose medical and other technological interventions into what are broadly perceived as current human and cultural limits in the name of a defense of "the natural" deployed as a moral category.
Bioluddism is a more reactionary stance than bioconservatism.
Technoprogressivism is the stance that contrasts with bioconservatism.


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The term cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic organism, is used to designate a creature which is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology.
The term was popularized by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in 1960 to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who could survive in extraterrestrial environments. Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to take place. A designer of physiological instrumentation and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland State Hospital in New York.
According to some definitions of the term, the metaphysical and physical attachments humanity has with even the most basic technologies have already made us cyborgs. In a typical example, a human fitted with a heart pacemaker might be considered a cyborg, since s/he is incapable of surviving without the mechanical part. As a more extreme example, clothing can be seen as a cybernetic modification of skin; enabling us to survive in drastically different environments by constructing things that aren't naturally existing in those environments. A notepad can be seen as rudimentary memory augmentation. The boundary blurs even more when controlled fire or agriculture are thought of as modifications to our digestion processes. Most definitions only consider technologies made possible by the industrial revolution, especially those that are inside the body.
In the feminist thinking of Donna Haraway the cyborg becomes a starting metaphor for exploring ways of breaking down the nature/culture binary. She demonstrates how the desire to separate these two aspects of the world is becoming increasingly difficult and attempts to utilise this confusion of borders in order to create new ways of acting politically. This line of thought is known as cyborg theory.
The term fyborg (a portmanteau of "functional" and "cyborg") was coined by Alexander Chislenko to differentiate between the cyborgs of science fiction and the everyday ways humans extend themselves using technologies such as contact lenses, hearing aids, and mobile phones.
James Litten coined the term cyborgation to describe the action or process of becoming a cyborg.
A 1972 science fiction novel by Martin Caidin titled Cyborg told the story of a man whose damaged body parts are replaced by mechanical devices. This novel was later adapted into a TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, in 1973.
A book titled Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer was published by Doubleday in 2001. Some of the ideas in the book were incorporated into the 35mm motion picture film Cyberman.
Isaac Asimov's short story "The Bicentennial Man" explored cybernetic concepts. The central character is a robot who begins to modify himself with organic components. His explorations lead to breakthroughs in human medicine via artificial organs and prosthetics. By the end of the story, there is little physical difference between the bodies of robots and humans.
Examples
Real life
Steve Mann
Ratbot
Kevin Warwick
Fictional
The Borg, Star Trek
Cyberman, Doctor Who
Cyborg, DC comics
Darth Vader, Star Wars
Alan Gabriel, Big O
General Grievous, Star Wars
Kree Supreme Intelligence, Marvel comics
Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell
Lobot, Star Wars
Master Chief, Halo science fiction series
Metabarons, comics
Robocop, movie
Admiral Screed, Star Wars Droids (cartoon)
T-800, The Terminator
Grand Moff Trachta, Star Wars
Ziggurat 8, Xenosaga
See also
Android
Cybernetics
Cyberware
Cyborgs in fiction
Gynoid
Monster
Robot
Transhumanism
Waldo
References
Manfred E. Clynes, and Nathan S. Kline, (1960) "Cyborgs and Space," Astronautics, September, pp. 26-27 and 74-75; reprinted in Gray, Mentor, and Figueroa-Sarriera, eds., The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 29-34. (hardback: ISBN 0415908485; paperback: ISBN 0415908493)
Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer, (2001), Steve Mann with Hal Niedzviecki, ISBN 0385658257 (A paperback version also exists, ISBN 0385658265)
External links
TransVision: Transhumanism Conference, 2004
Cyberman reviews
Cyborgblog
Cyborg Fantasies
Are you a cyborg? by Alexander Chislenko
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia © 2001-2006 Wikipedia contributors (Disclaimer)This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation


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Cyborg


The term cyborg, a portmanteau of cybernetic organism, is used to designate a creature which is a mixture of organic and mechanical parts. Generally, the aim is to add to or enhance the abilities of an organism by using technology.
The term was popularized by Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline in 1960 to refer to their conception of an enhanced human being who could survive in extraterrestrial environments. Their concept was the outcome of thinking about the need for an intimate relationship between human and machine as the new frontier of space exploration was beginning to take place. A designer of physiological instrumentation and electronic data-processing systems, Clynes was the chief research scientist in the Dynamic Simulation Laboratory at Rockland State Hospital in New York.
According to some definitions of the term, the metaphysical and physical attachments humanity has with even the most basic technologies have already made us cyborgs. In a typical example, a human fitted with a heart pacemaker might be considered a cyborg, since s/he is incapable of surviving without the mechanical part. As a more extreme example, clothing can be seen as a cybernetic modification of skin; enabling us to survive in drastically different environments by constructing things that aren't naturally existing in those environments. A notepad can be seen as rudimentary memory augmentation. The boundary blurs even more when controlled fire or agriculture are thought of as modifications to our digestion processes. Most definitions only consider technologies made possible by the industrial revolution, especially those that are inside the body.
In the feminist thinking of Donna Haraway the cyborg becomes a starting metaphor for exploring ways of breaking down the nature/culture binary. She demonstrates how the desire to separate these two aspects of the world is becoming increasingly difficult and attempts to utilise this confusion of borders in order to create new ways of acting politically. This line of thought is known as cyborg theory.
The term fyborg (a portmanteau of "functional" and "cyborg") was coined by Alexander Chislenko to differentiate between the cyborgs of science fiction and the everyday ways humans extend themselves using technologies such as contact lenses, hearing aids, and mobile phones.
James Litten coined the term cyborgation to describe the action or process of becoming a cyborg.
A 1972 science fiction novel by Martin Caidin titled Cyborg told the story of a man whose damaged body parts are replaced by mechanical devices. This novel was later adapted into a TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man, in 1973.
A book titled Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer was published by Doubleday in 2001. Some of the ideas in the book were incorporated into the 35mm motion picture film Cyberman.
Isaac Asimov's short story "The Bicentennial Man" explored cybernetic concepts. The central character is a robot who begins to modify himself with organic components. His explorations lead to breakthroughs in human medicine via artificial organs and prosthetics. By the end of the story, there is little physical difference between the bodies of robots and humans.
Examples
Real life
Steve Mann
Ratbot
Kevin Warwick
Fictional
The Borg, Star Trek
Cyberman, Doctor Who
Cyborg, DC comics
Darth Vader, Star Wars
Alan Gabriel, Big O
General Grievous, Star Wars
Kree Supreme Intelligence, Marvel comics
Motoko Kusanagi, Ghost in the Shell
Lobot, Star Wars
Master Chief, Halo science fiction series
Metabarons, comics
Robocop, movie
Admiral Screed, Star Wars Droids (cartoon)
T-800, The Terminator
Grand Moff Trachta, Star Wars
Ziggurat 8, Xenosaga
See also
Android
Cybernetics
Cyberware
Cyborgs in fiction
Gynoid
Monster
Robot
Transhumanism
Waldo
References
Manfred E. Clynes, and Nathan S. Kline, (1960) "Cyborgs and Space," Astronautics, September, pp. 26-27 and 74-75; reprinted in Gray, Mentor, and Figueroa-Sarriera, eds., The Cyborg Handbook, New York: Routledge, 1995, pp. 29-34. (hardback: ISBN 0415908485; paperback: ISBN 0415908493)
Cyborg: Digital destiny and human possibility in the age of the wearable computer, (2001), Steve Mann with Hal Niedzviecki, ISBN 0385658257 (A paperback version also exists, ISBN 0385658265)
External links
TransVision: Transhumanism Conference, 2004
Cyberman reviews
Cyborgblog
Cyborg Fantasies
Are you a cyborg? by Alexander Chislenko


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Christine Rosen. Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American Eugenics Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. viii + 286 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $35.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-19-515679-X.
Reviewed by: Alexandra Minna Stern, Center for the History of Medicine, University of Michigan.
Published by: H-Indiana (February, 2005)

While conducting archival research into the history of eugenics in the United States, I regularly came across the names of various rabbis, reverends, and ministers, and always wondered what role they played in the eugenics movement. How did they reconcile and meld science and religion? Did they actively promote sterilization, immigration restriction, and birth control from the pulpit? Did they formulate theological justifications for "playing God" with biological destiny? Were there significant differences between Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish approaches to selective breeding? How was Sir Francis Galton's entreaty to introduce eugenics like a "new religion" into the national conscience received among America's spiritual elite?

Christine Rosen's solidly researched and thoughtfully argued book explores these and many other important questions. Preaching Eugenics adds an original perspective that has been sorely lacking in the scholarship on eugenics in the United States. Rosen does a superb job of situating key religious leaders in the networks of organized eugenics, primarily through a close examination of the activities of clergy in the American Eugenics Society (AES). She documents their positions on AES boards and committees; relationships with well-known American eugenicists; and shared visions of human improvement as well as the causes for ongoing tensions and outright ruptures in their professional relationships.

Rosen effectively demonstrates that, regardless of denomination, most of the religious leaders who embraced eugenics were "modernistic liberals" searching for promising avenues of Progressive social reform. Yet of all religious groups, Protestants "proved the most enthusiastic and numerically powerful group of religious participants in the eugenics movement" (p. 15). For the most part, these Protestants were postmillennialist Christians who ardently believed in the Social Gospel ideals of "applied Christianity" and building the Kingdom of God in the here and now. Conversely, premillenialist Christians, identified principally as evangelicals, viewed intervening in the material world as arrogant, futile, and antithetical to Biblical doctrine. If the theological interpretation of liberal Protestants made them more receptive to eugenic ideas, then the anti-Semitic implications of much eugenic thought as well as the strictures of moral doctrine made Jewish and Catholic leaders, respectively, tread more cautious and conflicted paths to eugenic advocacy.

Rosen deftly navigates these differences and their ramifications in Preaching Eugenics, explaining why, for example, many liberal Protestants strongly supported eugenic marriage certificates (because they did not challenge the sacredness of the institution of marriage), why rabbis diverged so greatly in their opinions on the biological and social virtues of intermarriage, and how several prominent Catholic clergy could simultaneously champion sterilization (because it privileged the common good over the individual, as dictated by Natural Law) and reject birth control (because it perverted the most basic of human faculties and represented the selfishness and materialism of modern culture). Her analysis of the varied responses of Catholics to eugenics is particularly astute. Arguing that Catholics did not arrive at a "denunciation of eugenics as quickly or neatly as historians have suggested" (p. 139), Rosen profiles Fr. John A. Ryan and Fr. John M. Cooper, both of whom sought, through active AES membership, to bring Catholicism and eugenics into harmony in the 1920s and early 1930s. Ultimately, however, each tendered his resignation, mainly because of growing discomfort with mainstream eugenicists' promotion of sterilization and, most important, birth control. Nevertheless, Rosen suggests that Catholics such as Ryan and Cooper were able to sustain their relationship with the AES for more than a decade because they drew clear distinctions "between eugenic means and eugenic ends" (p. 153). While a tad too simplistic, this clarification--between means and ends--does offer insight into the continuum conceptualized by many religious leaders, which contained utopian visions of human and spiritual perfection on one end and concrete strategies of race betterment and social reform on the other.

Rosen explores much new terrain in Preaching Eugenics. So much so that by the conclusion readers will most likely be left with lingering questions. Some of these require additional research and interpretation by historians of science, medicine, and religion. Other questions, however, result from Rosen's reluctance to engage fully with themes that are now central to the eugenics literature. For instance, although Rosen illustrates how Jewish leaders vacillated on the concept of "race purity" and the benefits or drawbacks of intermarriage, she teaches us very little about what liberal Protestants and Catholics thought about race and ethnicity in genetic terms or about the potential impact of such thinking on sermonizing or congregational dynamics. The vast majority of liberal Protestants were WASPs, yet Rosen scantly examines how their awareness (or lack thereof) of themselves as a racial group affected which eugenic policies they rejected and endorsed. By not engaging with unspoken ideas about Anglo-Saxon or Nordic superiority, readers will finish Preaching Eugenics with little sense of how religion and eugenics worked in tandem (although not always in unison) to underpin the broader patterns of racial segregation and hierarchy in the United States from 1900 to 1930. Readers with minimal familiarity of American history during this period will encounter a national demographic that consists largely of the white middle class, and "new" and "old" immigrants. Perhaps this is the lens through which many early twentieth-century religious leaders, particularly those on the East Coast, perceived this country and their parishioners. Nevertheless, this circumscribed framing means that the stories of African Americans and immigrants (who were excluded de facto from mainstream eugenics organizations) become irrelevant. Yet the leaders associated with these ethnoracial groups often relied heavily on churches to sustain their communities and selectively appropriated theories of racial progress from biology and medicine.[1]

Rosen also exhibits a tendency to conflate marriage and reproduction, which makes it difficult for her to gauge the degree to which liberal Protestants' support of marriage and health certificates was about enforcing religious norms of gender and sexuality or about being able to control the procreation of their parishioners (or both, but this analytical distinction is important). Along similar lines, the role of religious women is never broached in Preaching Eugenics, an omission that raises intriguing questions about how male religious leaders constructed their authority on both scientific and spiritual bases.

Rosen breaks new ground in Preaching Eugenics. She has written an impressive intellectual and social history of the role of religious leaders affiliated with organized eugenics, above all the AES, from 1900 to the 1940. Beyond illuminating some of the complex intersections between science and religion in an era that saw the emergence of the modern birth control movement, the Scopes Trial, and the papal encyclical Casta Connubi, Rosen's monograph can read as an invitation for further historical studies of religiosity, hereditarianism, and the meanings of morality in modern America.

Note

[1]. See Michele Mitchell, Righteous Propagation: African Americans and the Politics of Racial Destiny after Reconstruction (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).

Library of Congress Call Number: HQ755.5.U5R67 2004

Subjects:

* Eugenics -- United States -- History -- 20th century
* Eugenics -- Religious aspects