Grannies and Eugenics: The Cruelty of Ignorance

Racism and the "Raging Grannies"

In July, the Public Service Board (PSB) held a meeting in Brattleboro. At that meeting, one of the "Raging Grannies" handed a copy of the document below to everyone in the crowd. (Double-clicking on the image will enlarge it.)

This is a quote from Alice Stewart, born in 1906, a pioneer against misuse of radiation. She sees mutations caused by radiation as the worst scenario possible. Mutations (any mutations, she doesn't mention radiation in this quote) lead to

It's the genetic damage, the possibility of sowing bad seeds into the gene pool from which future generations are drawn. There will be a buildup of defective genes into the population. It won't be noticed until it is too late. Then, we'll never root it out, never get rid of it. It will be totally irrevocable.

Stewart was an early pioneer in radiation research. She was born in 1906, and spent her youth and young adulthood during the heyday of eugenics. Her quote above is a clear statement of the all-too-common Eugenics view, which was widely held in the early to middle of the 20th century.

(In order to not get sidetracked, I plan another post about Alice Stewart and genetics in general.)

The Eugenics View

According to eugenics, any negative change to a gene would propagate through the population, driving down the level of human beings. The eugenics model for the spread of negative genes is exactly as Stewart states it above. (Of course, the top people in society had the privilege of deciding what a negative gene was and who belongs to a lower level of humans.)

As science, this is complete bunk. We know a great deal about how genes propagate in populations. Eugenics is wrong. Eugenics is just a stupid incorrect model, based on fear and prejudice, and pushed for a political agenda. After WWII, eugenics went out of fashion, having reached its zenith under Hitler.

By the way. Hitler didn't go after the Jews first. He went after the retarded, the ones with "defective genes" that had to be "rooted out." Hitler started with eugenics, sterilizing and euthanizing retarded German children. With this success behind him, he later expanded his reach.

America, Forced Sterilization, and Buck vs. Bell

Wouldn't it be nice if it was just evil Mr. Hitler who followed Eugenics? It wasn't. America and Britain were at the forefront of the movement. People in America sterilized the retarded at a great rate: 20,000 sterilizations in California alone. Buck vs. Bell was a Supreme Court case in 1927 about whether the retarded could be sterilized by the state. The answer: They could be sterilized without their consent. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Justice of the Supreme Court, wrote in his opinion on Buck vs. Bell: "Three generations of imbeciles is enough."

According to the Wikipedia article about this case, the woman who was sterilized was an avid reader, and her only daughter (a girl who died young of measles) was an honor student. When you are sterilizing imbeciles, I gather you also get to choose who is an imbecile.

There's an extremely disturbing video of the Buck vs. Bell case, with footage from 1927. I decided not to embed it. I'll add a picture of Frances Galton, the father of Eugenics instead. Handsome guy, yes? Let's have some eye-candy.

I Speak at the Meeting. People Boo.

Back to Alice Stewart and the PSB meeting. At meeting where this yellow sheet was handed out, we could sign up to give two minute opinions about Vermont Yankee. I spoke briefly about Yankee. Then I objected to being handed racist eugenics material at a public meeting about a power plant.

I was roundly booed as I spoke. People hissed that I should learn some history. They shouted that Alice Stewart was not a racist. It was all very upsetting. The opponents of the plant simply could not see this handout for what it was.

Ignorance is Ignorance. Ignorance is Cruelty.

I'll write a in another post about how our knowledge of genetics has grown. Right now, I just want to say that in their eagerness to show what immense, irreparable harm nuclear plants do, the Grannies ignore modern biology. They have chosen eugenics as the biological model that better suits their needs to bash the power plant. They have gone too far for me.

Let me address the Grannies here. Stop handing that Alice Stewart statement out. Okay? Stop using those eugenics arguments. Can't you read that statement? Can't you read how the same words are about Defending the White Race and rooting out defects? Just stop it. Bash nuclear power some other way. As I said above: Eugenics is wrong. Eugenics is just a stupid incorrect model, based on fear and prejudice, and pushed for a political agenda.

And be a little humble, my friends. We are all carrying less-than-perfect genes, and the more we learn about genetics, the more we begin to know about our own genes. People have genes that carry higher risks of breast cancer, alcoholism, autism, you name it. You begin talking about "never being able to root out bad genes," and you are forgetting the part about genetic heritage that can be described as "for whom the bell tolls."

It tolls for thee. And for me. And for all of us.

Photograph of Francis Galton, the Father of Eugenics, from Wikimedia.