Noor Siddiqui founded Orchid so people could “have healthy babies.” Now she’s using the company’s gene technology on herself—and talking about it for the first time.
There’s a debate about that ongoing, whether the word and basic idea can be divorced from its history with scientific racism. I don’t really have a skin in the game but would like to point out that psychiatry didn’t cease to be called psychiatry when we stopped physically abusing inmates, showing them off to gawkers, whatnot, got rid of phrenology, etc. You can make arguments both for “we must start from a clean slate” as well as “let’s own the bullshit of the past to have something to teach students to not do”.
That’s because phrenoloy and the other theories are under Psychiatry and Psychology. You don’t throw out Astronomy because of Heliocentrism. Eugenics was specifically developed to produce racial outcomes. It’s a theory, not a field of science.
It’s first and foremost a word meaning as much as “good stock”, or, more modern, “good genes”. Nazis didn’t actually use it, at least not prominently, they were all about “racial hygiene” – very different implications.
As to “specifically developed” I’m not so sure I don’t know enough about Galton. What I do know is that he first did e.g. twin studies to figure out the relative importance of nature vs. nurture and stuff. People motivated by hate don’t tend to be that thorough meaning if he had more information he might’ve ended up on the other side of the fence but as said I don’t know nearly enough about his work to actually draw conclusions, ask a literary critic or such.
His base assumption was something called genetic determinism. Which is exactly what it sounds like and exactly as debunked as you would think. He also tried to link body build and head measurements to genetic determinism.
And No. The Nazis absolutely loved Eugenics. The entire Western world did. The Nazis literally made it a required subject in grade school.
Eugenics needs to go die in a fire. There’s no need to resurrect the name or practices when we’re talking about actual genetic science.
The Nazis absolutely loved Eugenics. The entire Western world did. The Nazis literally made it a required subject in grade school.
I was talking about words. Said required subject was called Rassenlehre, very much not a calque of eugenics.
There’s no need to resurrect the name or practices when we’re talking about actual genetic science.
If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim the word, or even appropriate it as the case may be, I’m not going to call them racists over it. That needs to be judged by the practices.
Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics.
I’m sorry but that sentence doesn’t parse for me.
And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.
It’s not an English but Greek word and yes it exists in German. Nazis (unsurprisingly) weren’t big on loan words but it doesn’t end there: The non-racially charged German word would be Erbgesundheitslehre, erm, “erf health lore”. Just as neutral as a term as “genome health theory” would be. But that’s not what the Nazis used, they specifically used a term that included “race”.
One factor that comes to mind which would make me, if I were a geneticist, argue in favour of the term would be people using the term “eugenics” to smear things like screening and IFV to get rid of Hutchinson’s. Sure the field has plenty of ethical question marks but much of it is perfectly kosher, yet there’s people who are opposed on principle and are fighting hella dirty. Re-claiming, even appropriating the term then gets you out of the defensive.
But, as said: I don’t have a skin in the game. As said, there’s arguments for and against.
Eugenik (von altgriechisch εὖ eu „gut“ und γένος génos „Geschlecht, Familie“) oder Eugenetik, deutsch auch Erbgesundheitslehre, in der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus (da auch Erbpflege genannt) bzw. in Deutschland[2] meist gleichbedeutend mit Rassenhygiene (vgl. Nationalsozialistische Rassenhygiene), bezeichnet die Anwendung theoretischer Konzepte bzw. der Erkenntnisse der Humangenetik auf die Bevölkerungs- und Gesundheitspolitik bzw. den Gen-Pool einer Population mit dem Ziel, den Anteil positiv bewerteter Erbanlagen zu vergrößern (positive Eugenik) und den negativ bewerteter Erbanlagen zu verringern (negative Eugenik).
Eugenik (from old Greek “good” and “dynasty, family”) or Eugenetik, German also “erf health lore”, in the time of national socialism (there also called erf maintenance) respectively in Germany mostly synonymous with racial hygiene (cf. national socialist racial hygiene), denotes the application of theoretical concepts respectively insights of human genetics to population and health politics respectively to the gene-pool of a population with the goal of increasing the share of positively evaluated hereditary dispositions (positive Eugenics) and to decrease [the share of] negatively evaluated hereditary dispositions (negative Eugenics).
(my apologies for the quite literal translation I can’t be arsed but an AI will do much, much worse on that kind of dense language).
Note the completely neutral actual definition, nothing about race after “denotes”. If you scroll past all the racist history to the section 'modern form of eugenics" you see a brief section about abortion, of pre-implantation diagnostics being considered (by some at least) to be eugenics, then next short section on trans- and post-humanist ethics also containing eugenics as a major theme.
I’m not deep into that area either but I don’t think racial themes are common among transhumanists.
I don’t have access to the book wikipedia cites, but, well:
Die Begriffe Eugenik und Rassenhygiene werden in Deutschland stets synonym verwendet. Einen feinen Unterschied gibt es jedoch: Eugenik hat immer etwas mit Erbgesundheit zu tun
The terms eugenics and racial hygiene are always used synonymously in Germany. A subtle distinction exists, though: Eugenics always has something to do with hereditary health.
So not only does wikipedia misquote the source, the source shouldn’t be bloody cited in the first place because it contradicts itself within the span of two sentences: If there’s a distinction, they aren’t synonymous. Mostly that stuff is just not talked about at all in the public discourse, I’d be very sceptical about inferring any distinctions from practically non-existent use of those terms.
“respectively in Germany mostly synonymous with” also doesn’t make any sense, really. Semantically speaking: Respectively to what? German uses the word all the time this is a very very sloppy use I can’t make heads and tails of what it’s actually intended to mean.
Are we actually arguing about the use of the word in Germany, though. All, literally all I actually said about my opinion on the issue is, I quote:
If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim the word, or even appropriate it as the case may be, I’m not going to call them racists over it. That needs to be judged by the practices.
That’s all. Literally all. That’s my opinion on the matter. If you want to criticise something, criticise that, don’t go off on tangents.
There’s a debate about that ongoing, whether the word and basic idea can be divorced from its history with scientific racism. I don’t really have a skin in the game but would like to point out that psychiatry didn’t cease to be called psychiatry when we stopped physically abusing inmates, showing them off to gawkers, whatnot, got rid of phrenology, etc. You can make arguments both for “we must start from a clean slate” as well as “let’s own the bullshit of the past to have something to teach students to not do”.
That’s because phrenoloy and the other theories are under Psychiatry and Psychology. You don’t throw out Astronomy because of Heliocentrism. Eugenics was specifically developed to produce racial outcomes. It’s a theory, not a field of science.
It’s first and foremost a word meaning as much as “good stock”, or, more modern, “good genes”. Nazis didn’t actually use it, at least not prominently, they were all about “racial hygiene” – very different implications.
As to “specifically developed” I’m not so sure I don’t know enough about Galton. What I do know is that he first did e.g. twin studies to figure out the relative importance of nature vs. nurture and stuff. People motivated by hate don’t tend to be that thorough meaning if he had more information he might’ve ended up on the other side of the fence but as said I don’t know nearly enough about his work to actually draw conclusions, ask a literary critic or such.
His base assumption was something called genetic determinism. Which is exactly what it sounds like and exactly as debunked as you would think. He also tried to link body build and head measurements to genetic determinism.
And No. The Nazis absolutely loved Eugenics. The entire Western world did. The Nazis literally made it a required subject in grade school.
Eugenics needs to go die in a fire. There’s no need to resurrect the name or practices when we’re talking about actual genetic science.
I was talking about words. Said required subject was called Rassenlehre, very much not a calque of eugenics.
If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim the word, or even appropriate it as the case may be, I’m not going to call them racists over it. That needs to be judged by the practices.
Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics. And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.
I’m sorry but that sentence doesn’t parse for me.
It’s not an English but Greek word and yes it exists in German. Nazis (unsurprisingly) weren’t big on loan words but it doesn’t end there: The non-racially charged German word would be Erbgesundheitslehre, erm, “erf health lore”. Just as neutral as a term as “genome health theory” would be. But that’s not what the Nazis used, they specifically used a term that included “race”.
One factor that comes to mind which would make me, if I were a geneticist, argue in favour of the term would be people using the term “eugenics” to smear things like screening and IFV to get rid of Hutchinson’s. Sure the field has plenty of ethical question marks but much of it is perfectly kosher, yet there’s people who are opposed on principle and are fighting hella dirty. Re-claiming, even appropriating the term then gets you out of the defensive.
But, as said: I don’t have a skin in the game. As said, there’s arguments for and against.
You really should read your own sources.
(my apologies for the quite literal translation I can’t be arsed but an AI will do much, much worse on that kind of dense language).
Note the completely neutral actual definition, nothing about race after “denotes”. If you scroll past all the racist history to the section 'modern form of eugenics" you see a brief section about abortion, of pre-implantation diagnostics being considered (by some at least) to be eugenics, then next short section on trans- and post-humanist ethics also containing eugenics as a major theme.
I’m not deep into that area either but I don’t think racial themes are common among transhumanists.
I don’t have access to the book wikipedia cites, but, well:
So not only does wikipedia misquote the source, the source shouldn’t be bloody cited in the first place because it contradicts itself within the span of two sentences: If there’s a distinction, they aren’t synonymous. Mostly that stuff is just not talked about at all in the public discourse, I’d be very sceptical about inferring any distinctions from practically non-existent use of those terms.
“respectively in Germany mostly synonymous with” also doesn’t make any sense, really. Semantically speaking: Respectively to what? German uses the word all the time this is a very very sloppy use I can’t make heads and tails of what it’s actually intended to mean.
Are we actually arguing about the use of the word in Germany, though. All, literally all I actually said about my opinion on the issue is, I quote:
That’s all. Literally all. That’s my opinion on the matter. If you want to criticise something, criticise that, don’t go off on tangents.