30. Garland E. Allen, "Science Misapplied: the Eugenics Age Revisited," Tech. Rev., 99(6), 23-31 (Aug/Sep 96).
This Newsletter has recounted the sorry story of the eugenics movement, which came to full development in the United States and then was transplanted to Germany, where it served as the basis for Nazi ideas on the unfitness of several components of society (see p. 13, Winter 1995 issue). The author of this new and very complete retelling of the eugenics tale sees a parallel between economic and social conditions in the United States today and in the Germany of he Weimar and Nazi periods. He is disturbed by the increasing tendency to ascribe a genetic basis to complex social behaviors -- from criminal and violent acts through alcoholism to such harmless traits as shyness and impulsivity. He sees this genetic determinism becoming as rampant today, in both scientific and lay circles, as it was in Weimar Germany in the 1920s.
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