Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics

This book connects the past research of the 19th century with the atrocities of the 20th century and the continued eugenic efforts in the modern era. The author has a PhD in genetics and knows first hand knowledge of the modern capabilities of genetic biology.

The foundational history of eugenics in the 19th & 20th century were anything but scientific. People with inherent biases (sometimes) used the tools of scientific analysis to come to an already predisposed conclusion: “the rich white people who are currently in charge are superior to everyone else.” How convenient. The 20th-century eugenics movements were merely an effort to shroud classist and white-supremacist ideologies with fabricated scientific legitimacy and fantasies of “Declinism” and called for “Nordic purity”.

Eugenic thinking is still prevalent, still espoused by our leaders, and still forced upon people not just in far away lands, but right here in the imperial core. Eugenics has never been ideologically neutral and is always used as a reason for the powerful to prey upon the less powerful.

The scientific discoveries and technological developments in the 21st century are not sufficient to achieve any sort of “designer baby”, and the more humanity learns about genetics, the more we realize how utterly impossible it would be to achieve.

The current level of genetic testing, embryo selection, end reproductive self-determination is not “eugenics”.
Though some of the claims made by genetic testing companies about what they can screen for are reaching beyond scientific fact. These tools should be liberated as an option for the masses instead of being locked away for only the super rich. These include...
• Genetic counseling
• pre-implantation diagnosis, screening fertilized eggs for genetic diseases
• Embryo selection to select for embryos without genetic abnormalities or disease genes to be implanted.
• prenatal screenings and testings
• Access to abortion in the event a genetic abnormality is discovered.
These are not eugenics, these are medical techniques specifically conceived and designed for the alleviation of suffering in individuals.

We should slowly, carefully, and safely progress with advances in genetic microbiology, gene editing, and genetic research what the ultimate goal of eliminating inheritable diseases, not toward any sort of far-fetched “enhancement” effort.

We as a society should continue to strive toward a better understanding of the human genome and how it is impacted by outside conditions. The solution to improving humanity is not through mass culling of the “unworthy” or sci-fi genetic alterations to load the dice. It is by raising the minimum standard of living, improving universal education, instilling universal access to healthcare. Eliminate poverty, hunger, and homelessness and you'll see a decrease in “inferior” people.

Likewise eliminate or flatten the power structures capable of giving rise to forced eugenics on the people. Any state apparatus willing and capable of legalizing forced eugenic practices upon the population is one that should be dismantled.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has any interest in (or disgust toward) eugenics and genetic modification. I think it was really well written and eye-opening.

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Here are some quotes and fun facts I liked from the book...

“We often deploy the clumsy ideas of nature and nurture to describe what is innate in us, and what is extrinsic. What this really means is: genetics (that is, what is encoded in DNA), and everything else in the universe. [...] Nature was never versus nurture; it is and always was via.”

“I'm a scientist, and we are a tribe whose pursuits, in theory, serve a higher purpose. We constantly strive for real truth, via our tried and tested methods that seek to supress the political, or the subjective, and amplify a reality that exists independently from these flawed minds and feeble bodies that we inhabit. What we do, in principle, transcends politics and morality.
Scientists can tell themselves this lie as often as they like, but it will never be true. When we talk about the control of lives, the question of who gets to live or reproduce, we are in a territory where biology and politics are inseparable.”

“The United Kingdom's principal African colonizer Cecil Rhodes, Francis Galton, a young Winston Churchill and many other leaders were open in expressing the sense that White supremacy was the moral duty of the British: to fill the world with the dominant race of the best type of men. This era [1890 to 1910] provided a rich soil for the formalization of eugenics. The idea of racial decay was the fertilizer. Superiority could be achieved with science as the engine of social change.”
Eugenics has never successfully been separated from racial superiority. And since race is an artificial social construct, it means eugenics cannot be scientifically implemented.Winston Churchill was a racist and a eugenicist.

“All these people and so many others of cultural and historical significance were great supporters of an idea we have learned to despise. A common response to this truth is that they were women and men ‘of their time.' This is vapid. All people are of their time, and it is impossible to be alive at any other time. It is perfectly possible and indeed desirable to criticize the past, and to criticize the views of people in the past through the lens of our values and those of their contemporaries. That is the definition of history. Hitler was a man of his time, and was legitimately (albeit among political chaos) appointed to the position of German chancellor in 1933.
Too often, the argument that the past was a foreign country where people did things differently, and that they were simply acting appropriately for that era, is deployed to end or avoid discussion and debates, or to reinforce a cultural history that serves only to make the powerful feel comfortable.”

Eugenic thinking falls apart because it assumes every negative and positive trait is inheritable, rather than environmental. “We inherit our environment from our parents, family and peers, so for many of the traits that animated the eugenicists, the prospect of breeding them out of families and populations was always doomed to failure. Criminality can run in families, but there is no gene for it. Alcoholism can run in families, and while there are genes that increase the risk of addiction, there is no gene for alcoholism. You can have every one of those risk factors, but never become an alcoholic if you never drink alcohol. Poverty runs in families, but there is no gene for being poor.” A lot of the “feeble minded” people targeted for extermination by eugenicists would later turn out to actually be people suffering from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a non-heritable environmentally-induced issue.

Eugenics simply does not work

“...[C]omplex traits rarely have single genetic causes, they always involve the nongenetic environment and genetics is probabilistic, not deterministic. This is a key reason that the eugenics project was always on precarious ground: the conditions under scrutiny, whether it was feeblemindedness or epilepsy or alcoholism, do have a genetic component to them—almost everything in human biology and psychology does—though they are never single genes, and those genetic causes are rarely if ever deterministic.”

There is no “intelligence gene” to breed for or cull for or genetically modify. And even if we knew how to do it, it could backfire.

“The first major [genome-wide association study] on cognitive abilities (in 2013, this time via the metric of educational attainment) featured 126,559 people and it uncovered 3 single-letter genetic changes of significance. Three years later, the sample size had doubled, but the genetic landmarks of interest had gone up to 74. Or there was the landmark 2018 study that had 269,867 participants and found genomic locations of note in 1,016 genes. Or the other 2018 landmark paper that had 300,486 individuals and found 148 genetic markers and 709 genes. Or maybe the big daddy, also in 2018, when the number was 1.1 million people and 1,271 places in the genome that were associated with cognitive abilities.
Finally, after a hundred years of searching, we had found the 709 genes associated with general intelligence. Or the 1,016 genes. Or whatever the correct number turns out to be.”

Now we could throw more data into the machine to try and figure out “what gene[s] make us smarter” even though we have a very limited (and extremely Western) understanding of intelligence. OR we could look at the chronic stress associated with poverty and its relation to “intelligence”. Maybe kids would be smarter if they weren't hungry & poor.

“IQ correlates with many things, some considered positive such as income and longevity, and other not so desirable, such as mental health problems.”

“...we already know how to improve the intelligence of populations with better education, health care and access to physical exercise, without having to fantasize about tinkering with genes that would only be accessible to a minuscule minority.”

“When people start anxiously or glibly opining about gene editing for designer babies or selecting embryos for blue-eyed children, they're not really talking about our contemporary understanding of genetics. Instead, they are relying on a hugely outdated or a never true version of altering heredity that is pretty much impossible.”
This was the most revelatory quote of the book. I remember posting about the morality of “designer babies” ~5 years ago. I thought we were maybe a generation away before these thought experiments became a reality. Seems more like a century away or more likely never.

“Would I want to select embryos with those variants, or even edit the genomes of embryos to harbor those variants? No. Not while the roles of those bits of DNA are poorly understood. Not when we don't know if selecting for something means you are inadvertently selecting against something else. One study found that IQ positively correlates with anorexia, anxiety disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and asthma. Though, as I've argued, the gains might be slight, a nudge taller or smarter, you may also be nudging that child toward an eating disorder or other unforeseen health problems.”

“If a couple have histories of inherited disorders in their families, the first step would be genetic counseling. [...]The next stage could be pre-implantation diagnosis. An in vitro fertilization can be screened for sex and for an ever-increasing number of genetic diseases. Embryo selection comes next, where only those without any genetic abnormalities or disease genes are implanted into the mother's womb. The pregnancy can then be monitored for normal progress, including the prenatal screens for Down syndrome and other potential abnormalities.
I want to be explicitly clear here. In my considered opinion, none of these interventions are eugenics. What they are is medical techniques specifically conceived and designed for the alleviation of suffering in individuals. They are medical treatments that reduce the risk of serious illnesses, and give options to parents who wish to have children but, for no reason other than blind luck, carry a higher risk that their kids (and by extension their family) will suffer hardships or reduced mortality well beyond that of a typical life.”

“You may have noted that most of the people who knock around the idea of embryo selection tend not to be the ones who will have to endure the daily rounds of injections to induce ovarian hyperstimulation, or the needle through the vaginal wall to get access to the ovarian follicle. The people who seem most excited by the idea of eliciting molecular control over reproduction don't tend to have wombs at all.”

Whoa Social Democracy is better than Eugenics? What a shock!

“I would also not want embryo selection when the gains of those variants are so marginal that they can be overwhelmed by solutions that are known, and understood, and can be deployed to populations instead of individuals—things as radical as education for all without privilege, tailored to individual needs. Things like better nutrition, health care, exercise, welfare. If we want the betterment of our people—and who doesn't?—we don't need to turn to a scientific creed that is at best poorly understood.”

[b:Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics 60165430 Control The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics Adam Rutherford https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1661527924l/60165430.SY75.jpg 93998113] is a well-written and thought-provoking book that delves into the disturbing history of eugenics and its continued influence on contemporary society.[a:Adam Rutherford 88617 Adam Rutherford https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1544078679p2/88617.jpg] does an excellent job of tracing the origins of eugenics from its early roots in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to its horrific implementation in Nazi Germany and the United States. He clearly explains the ideas behind eugenics and the ways in which it was used to justify discrimination and violence against certain groups of people.One of the most disturbing aspects of the book is the way in which eugenics was used to justify forced sterilization and other forms of medical experimentation on marginalized groups, such as people with disabilities and Indigenous communities. These practices were not only unethical but also deeply harmful and have had long-lasting consequences for the individuals and communities affected.Despite the well-documented history of eugenics and its devastating impact, Rutherford also explores the ways in which these ideas have continued to influence contemporary society. He discusses the ongoing debate over genetic engineering and the potential risks and benefits of this technology, as well as the ethical considerations that must be considered.Overall, Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics is a thought-provoking and important read that sheds light on the disturbing history and ongoing influence of eugenics. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the intersection of science, ethics, and social justice.I listened to the BBC Radio version of the book: Bad Blood: The Story of Eugenics.