"I say this with pain. In the last century the whole world was scandalized about what the Nazis did to purify the race. Today we do the same, but now with white gloves."
-Pope Francis, June 17, 2018
The ability to alter future generations
causes controversy. |
"The ethical dilemma of designer babies." Oct. 2015.
TED Conferences |
“This kind of introduction of that sort of manipulation can be seen as a continuation in a history of eugenic thinking that seeks to get rid of undesirable traits and promote what is thought of as desirable.”
-Elizabeth Donaldson, Personal Interview (2019)
" [CRISPR] is a technology, and with any technology, you can use it wisely or you can abuse it, and that goes across any technology. It's how you use the technology."
-Michael Hadjiargyrou, Personal Interview (2019)
“I don’t think it has been a transparent process. We only found out about it after it happened, and after the children were even born. I personally don’t think it was medically necessary.”
-Dr. David Baltimore, 2018
“ ...We know enough to urge us to provide the intellect of man with higher and purer sources than the muddy streams of the past. It is our duty… to improve the original inborn ability of man...there is no surer way of improving civilization then by improving man’s own nature."
-Edward Lee Thorndike, Human Learning (1931)
Triumph |
Tragedy |
Through struggles of the Eugenics Movement came triumphs in advancements of genetic engineering and development of CRISPR.
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Tragically, thousands were sterilized, and Nazis also employed eugenics, carrying the movement to its “end.”
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"Genetics was corrupted in the 1920s by the confusion of folk knowledge with scientific inference...outsiders who recognized it were shunned...The fairly obvious lesson to be learned is that... science...needs to be subjected to considerably higher standards of scrutiny..." "The main difficulty is one of definition... Accurate work in heredity can only be obtained when the diagnosis of the element (trait) is known." |
“There is today one state, in which at least weak beginnings toward a better conception [of citizenship] are noticeable. Of course, it is not our model German Republic, but the United States.” "I have studied with great interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction by people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or be injurious to the racial stock." |
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