Politics of Heredity

Diane B. Paul is Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts at Boston.

• Acknowledgments1. Introduction2. Eugenics and the Left3. The Nine Lives of Discredited Data4. The Rockefeller Foundation and the Origins of Behavior Genetics5. A Debate That Refuses to Die6. Eugenic Anxieties, Social Realities, and Political Choices7. Did Eugenics Rest on an Elementary Mistake?8. Eugenic Origins of Medical Genetics9. Genes and Contagious Disease: The Rise and Fall of a Metaphor10. PKU Screening: Competing Agendas, Converging StoriesReferencesIndex

"The essays are concise, intelligent, and well written. A couple are already minor classics among historians of science. What is most remarkable about them is their challenging of conventional wisdom. Most people believe that eugenics was attached only to right-wing Nazi-like causes; Paul shows that there were important left-leaning threads in the movement. Most people believe that 'good science' overcame 'bad eugenics;' Paul shows that many eugenicists were up to snuff on their science, and that political events had far more to do with the eventual discrediting of the movement. I must say that when I first heard her present her paper on 'Did Eugenics Rest on an Elementary Mistake?' the experience was actually thrilling. In a single stroke, Paul demolished one of the most sacred cows of eugenics historiography—and brilliantly." — Robert N. Proctor, Pennsylvania State University"I like the consistent focus on the relationship between science and politics, and the ties between historical and contemporary debates. Without reducing science to politics, the author shows, through historical examples, the importance of politics and ideology in the field of eugenics and genetics. This is especially interesting in light of the current debates over social constructivism in science studies, and the increased market involvement in science." — Dorothy Nelkin, New York University