Reaping the Whirlwind of Nazi Eugenics
        
            By Kate Douglas, 
                New Scientist
             | 07. 14. 2014
        
                    
                                    
                    
                                                                                                                                    
                                                                            
                              
    
  
  
    
  
          
  
      
    
             
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Are some fields of scientific exploration so incendiary they should be fenced off and labelled "Keep out"?
 
   
 
   
 
  I'm   inclined to think not, both from a commitment to intellectual freedom   and for the practical reason that if you put up such notices,   trespassers are guaranteed. Still, if any area of research might warrant   prohibition it is eugenics – the branch of human genetics used to   justify repugnant Nazi ideology and, before that, the enforced   sterilisation of "degenerates" around the world.
 
  Yet eugenics was not cordoned off. A mere   two decades after the second world war, it was reinvented as behaviour   genetics. The story of what happened next is both gripping and salutary –   and it is told with wonderful insight by sociologist Aaron Panofsky   from the Institute of Society and Genetics at the University of   California, Los Angeles.
 
   
It is testament to human resilience and optimism   that behaviour genetics was born into an atmosphere of academic   excitement. Seen as an antidote to behaviourism – the idea that   behaviour can be scientifically understood without recourse to anything   beyond the observable...
 
 
  
 
    
    
  
   
                        
                                                                                
                 
                                                    
                            
                                  
    
  
  
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            This is the 10th 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. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in...