The Scopes Trial

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Scopes "monkey trial" verdict. James C. Foster at the Free Speech Center:

The Scopes “monkey trial” was the moniker journalist H. L. Mencken applied to the 1925 prosecution of a criminal action brought by the state of Tennessee against high school teacher John T. Scopes for violating the state’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in public schools.

In the case Scopes v. State (1925), Scopes was found guilty and fined $100, but, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Tennessee, pointing to a technicality in the issuance of the fine, overturned Scopes’s conviction, while finding the Butler Act constitutional.

The trial involved A Civic Biology, a textbook by biologist George William Hunter. Today few people remember that the book's discussion of evolution was explicitly racist:

At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

And in light of subsequent events, its discussion of eugenics sounds chilling:

Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.

Eugenics and Sterilization in California

A release from the University of Michigan:

California should consider offering reparations to more than 800 survivors of the state's 20,000 forced sterilizations that took place between 1919 and 1952, say University of Michigan researchers.

Alexandra Minna Stern, U-M professor of American culture and director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and colleagues spent several years combing through thousands of records of sterilizations carried out in California psychiatric institutions—which disproportionately affected poor and minority patients in the state.

"Given the advanced age and declining numbers of sterilization survivors, time is of the essence for the state to seriously consider reparations," said Stern, who also co-directs the Reproductive Justice Faculty Program based at U-M's Institute for Research on Women and Gender.

Stern and her team recommend that California follow the examples of Virginia and North Carolina, states that recently set up funds to compensate survivors of forced sterilization programs.

"Recent efforts in these two states underscore the merit of compensating individuals who have experienced state-sanctioned reproductive justice," Stern said.

Stern team's previous research showed that Latinos were disproportionately sterilized for decades in California. Between 1907 and 1937, 32 states passed eugenic sterilization laws geared to prevent the "feeble-minded" and "insane" from procreating.

Sterilization laws had the effect of depriving individuals marginalized in the U.S. society of their reproductive rights, according to the researchers.

Stern has also provided historical expertise to "No Mas Bebés," a PBS documentary focusing on Mexican immigrant mothers who were sterilized while giving birth at Los Angeles County USC Medical Center in the late 1960s and 1970s.

Her current study appears in the American Journal of Public Health.

Eugenics was part and parcel of the Progressive Movement. 

Enhancements

Pew reports:

Cutting-edge biomedical technologies that could push the boundaries of human abilities may soon be available, making people’s minds sharper and their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before. But a new Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults shows that majorities greet the possibility of these breakthroughs with more wariness and worry than enthusiasm and hope.
...

When Americans are questioned about the prospect of these specific kinds of enhancements for healthy people, their views are cautious and often resistant:

• Majorities of U.S. adults say they would be “very” or “somewhat” worried about gene editing (68%), brain chips (69%) and synthetic blood (63%), while no more than half say they would be enthusiastic about each of these developments. Some people say they would be both enthusiastic and worried, but, overall, concern outpaces excitement.
• More say they would not want enhancements of their brains and their blood (66% and 63%, respectively) than say they would want them (32% and 35%). U.S. adults are closely split on the question of whether they would want gene editing to help prevent diseases for their babies (48% would, 50% would not).
• At least seven-in-ten adults predict each of these new technologies will become available before they have been fully tested or understood. Some 73% say this about gene editing, while an identical share says the same about synthetic blood; 74% says this about brain chip implants.
• Majorities say these enhancements could exacerbate the divide between haves and have-nots. For instance, 73% believe inequality will increase if brain chips become available because initially they will be obtainable only by the wealthy.
• In addition, many Americans think recipients of enhancements will feel superior to those who have not received them; 63% say this about synthetic blood transfusions in particular. By the same token, but more optimistically, half of Americans or more think recipients of enhancements will feel more confident about themselves.
• Substantial shares say they are not sure whether these interventions are morally acceptable. But among those who express an opinion, more people say brain and blood enhancements would be morally unacceptable than say they are acceptable.
• More adults say the downsides of brain and blood enhancements would outweigh the benefits for society than vice versa. Americans are a bit more positive about the possibility of gene editing to reduce disease; 36% think it will have more benefits than downsides, while 28% think it will have more downsides than benefits.
• Opinion is closely divided when it comes to the fundamental question of whether these potential developments are “meddling with nature” and cross a line that should not be crossed, or whether they are “no different” from other ways that humans have tried to better themselves over time.

The Scopes Trial

Many people know of the "Scopes Monkey Trial" through the play and movie "Inherit the Wind," which portrayed it as a battle between enlightenment and ignorance.  The trial involved A Civic Biology, a textbook by biologist George William Hunter.  In a profile of Hunter, who later taught at Pomona College, The Foothills Reader makes an important point:

One of the great misconceptions of the trial is that it simply pitted creationism against evolution, yet the actual trial forged an alliance of creationists and opponents of a then-popular and now discredited pseudo-scientific theory called eugenics, which bolstered white supremacy theories embraced by racist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.

That distinction was omitted from the play and subsequent film. Playwright Jerome Lawrence said he and writer Robert E. Lee fictionalized the events to mount a parable against McCarthyism. Many historians later suggested that the section on eugenics had been inserted by Hunter's editors.

Eugenics was a pet cause of the Progressive movement and was quite popular at the time. So was racism, and the book's discussion of evolution was explicitly racist:

At the present time there exist upon the earth five races or varieties of man, each very different from the other in instincts, social customs, and, to an extent, in structure. These are the Ethiopian or negro type, originating in Africa; the Malay or brown race, from the islands of the Pacific; the American Indian; the Mongolian or yellow race, including the natives of China, Japan, and the Eskimos; and finally, the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America.

And in light of subsequent events, its discussion of eugenics sounds chilling:

Hundreds of families such as those described above exist to-day, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts of this country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.

If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race. Remedies of this sort have been tried successfully in Europe and are now meeting with success in this country.