Eugenics and the Modern Synthesis, Part II

This is the second part of the 14th installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. You can read the first part here. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in collaboration with the Los Angeles Review of Books, and supported by the Center for Genetics and Society, the Othering & Belonging Institute, and Berkeley Public Health.

¤

JULIAN HUXLEY PERSONIFIES the conjunction of genetics, eugenics, and the modern synthesis. His connection with evolutionary theory was familial. His grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was a naturalist and polemical Darwinist who referred to himself as “Darwin’s bulldog.” Upon first reading On the Origin of Species (1859), he exclaimed to himself, “How extremely stupid [of me] not to have thought of that!” and wrote to Charles Darwin professing himself “prepared to go to the Stake” to defend the theory. His enthusiasm apparently overflowed his metaphors as he also said, “I am sharpening up my claws & beak in readiness.”

Darwin and...