Social Biology and Population Improvement

Crew, F. A. E.; Darlington, C. D.; Haldane, J. B. S.; Harland, Chad; Hogben, Lancelot; Huxley, Julian; Müller, Herbert J.; Needham, Joseph; Child, George P.; Koller, P. C.; David, P. R.; Landauer, Walter; Dahlberg, Gunnar; Plough, Harold Henry; Dobzhansky, Th.; Price, Barbara J.; Emerson, R. A.; Schultz, Janet L.; Gordon, Carlos; Steinberg, A G; Hammond, Jim; Waddington, C. H.; Huskins, C. Leonard

doi:10.1038/144521a0

Cited by 41 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…Roman Catholic theorists opposed the enhancement of the race by population 56 Buchanan et al 2000, p. 36;Crew et al 1939 (this paper, written by Herman Muller and signed by 23 leading American and English scientists, became known as 'the geneticists' manifesto'). 57 See, e.g., Rhodes 1999;Häyry 2001a;Vehmas 2001. …”

Section: Social Concerns and Individual Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Historical Idea of a Better Race

Häyry¹

2008

Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology

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This paper explores the historical idea of improving humanity. Developments in genetics and political thought have during the last century contributed to eugenic policies which have sometimes had adverse effects on people's lives. But European philosophy has seen attempts to make better human beings long before the current scientific advances. The paper explores these attempts by an examination of the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Condorcet, Herder, and Mill, as well as the technological Romanticism of Mary Shelley, before moving on to the more recent eugenic policies inspired by Darwin and Galton.

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Section: Social Concerns and Individual Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Historical Idea of a Better Race

Häyry¹

2008

Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology

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“…In this he continued his pre-World War II crusade for a ''left-wing eugenics,'' argued in the name of human rationality and expressed, for example, in the ''Geneticists' Manifesto'' (Crew et al 1939). Unlike Kemp, who saw questions on human reproduction from a very narrow medical-governmental viewpoint, Muller regarded humankind from a lofty and abstract perspective and argued for the necessity that it rationally guide its own biological future.…”

Section: Human Genetics and The Fight Against Lysenkoismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The 1948 International Congress of Genetics in Sweden: People and Politics

Bengtsson

Tunlid

2010

Genetics

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The International Congresses have played an important role in the history of genetics. The Eighth International Congress, which in 1948 was held in Sweden, celebrated the conclusion of the war against Nazism and many new decisive scientific advances. It also signaled a hardening of the fight against Lysenkoism, which was growing in strength in the Soviet Union. A rare document is available from the Congress-an amateur film made by a young delegate, Nils Nybom. With its help a living description can be given of the scientific and political melees in which the delegates were involved.The period immediately following a war is a most difficult one in which to organize an international congress. (M. Demerec, 1948, in Bonnier and Larsson 1949, p. 85)

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“…Modern societies often fail at controlling the fallout from medico-scientific progress (Luhmann, 1994: p. 58 (Muller, 1939) through Genetic Counseling projects in the 1940s all the way to the vision of Biological Future of Man (Lederberg, 1963) by engineering the human germline. Interestingly, these developments were also always concerns of avowed eugenicists (Lederberg received the 1958 Nobel Prize in Medicine).…”

Section: The Power Of Fictionalized Factsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spill-Over Effect and Functional Illegality—Towards a Sociology of Gene Doping

Körner¹

2017

APE

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Numerous examples illustrate that modern societies tend to fail at controlling the fallout from medico-scientific progress. Technologies developed for medicine and therapeutics do not infrequently spill over into other social ambits to be repurposed. Within the area of emerging technologies, and necessarily linked to gene-therapeutical research, so called gene doping is discussed as promising form of illegitimate performance enhancement in elite sports at the moment. The following paper focuses on the relationship between elite sports and gene doping from a sociological point of view. For what social reason is sport likely to become an experimental field for the use of gene doping? In a first step, prevailing fantasies about gene doping as opposed to the current state of biomedical research are outlined. In a second step, 1) relevant social structures of modern elite sports are presented exemplarily, in order to 2) shed light on doping as a functional adaptation of internal expectations of the system. Considering this background, it becomes clear that the potential use of gene doping is highly expectable for elite sports. The contribution ends up with the conclusion that the promise of gene doping is functional and challenging for a large number of players inside and outside the world of sports.

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Social Biology and Population Improvement

Cited by 41 publications

References 0 publications

The Historical Idea of a Better Race

The Historical Idea of a Better Race

The 1948 International Congress of Genetics in Sweden: People and Politics

Spill-Over Effect and Functional Illegality—Towards a Sociology of Gene Doping

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