eugenics - history of the manipulation of the human genome

"throughout the [nineteenth] century men of the sturdy stocks of the north of europe had made up the main strain of foreign blood which was every year added to the vital working-force of this country or else men of the latin-gallic stocks of france and northern italy, but now there came multitudes of men of the lower class and men of the meaner sort out of hungary and poland — men out of the ranks where there was neither skill nor any initiative of quick intelligence ..." - united states president woodrow wilson, writing in his "history of the american people of the shift in immigration to the united states" at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century

in the first part of the last century, the eugenics movement brought together some of the best geneticists and physicians in the western world. it was — and for some, still is — easy to endorse their initial agenda: civilized people have an obligation to minimize the number of defective versions of genes in their chromosomes and in those of their descendants, replacing them with good, better and best versions.

some eugenicists, however, were impatient with simple testing and counseling. would it not be easier to cultivate the best selections of human genes, they asked, if the wasteful, genetically risky business of having children were put under rational control, and easier still if the results of genetic analysis were fed into a state apparatus that would decide who could be born and who not?

andrew carnegie, whose free libraries grace new york and many other cities, was a generous and enthusiastic supporter, as well, of the international eugenics movement. He founded the carnegie station for experimental evolution at cold spring harbor, **long island, new york - the favourite place for the us military's more clandestine human research projects** - at the turn of the century. charles davenport, the director of the cold spring harbor laboratory in the 1920’s, contributed heavily to congress’s decisions in that decade to restrict immigration to the united states on "national" grounds. his testimony before congress, and that of others, was full of eugenic contentions couched in the most scientific tone; for example, alcoholism, poverty and avarice were argued to be "genes" inherited by people born of irish, italian and jewish parents, respectively.

the inaccuracy, intellectual sloppiness and prejudices of scientists like davenport and like-minded members of congress converged in the immigration law of 1926, which codified the most crudely racist and biologically foolish distinctions since the constitution’s definition of an african slave as two-thirds of a human being. by the 1940’s, this eugenically based law had blocked the escape to the united states of many people who subsequently died in actions carried out according to the more activist racial laws of the third reich - **not however, those highly educated in the fields of science and mathematics who for various reasons found it opportune to emmigrate**. not the unfortunate slavs and poles, but the for the most part jewish scientists whose family wealth and connections had assured them an education to reach the pinnicle of their chose professions, not to mention some political influence outside of germany itself.

(based on robert pollack's paper "natural design and moral constraints in science")