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Eugenics journal,
1929 |
Heyday
of eugenics |
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| Eugenics took
popular hold after the turn of the 20th century,
flourishing for several decades. During its heyday, social
prejudice suffused human genetics, often attributing
to genetics social differences that were actually rooted
in race and class. After World War II, however, biologists
in the United States and Britain fought -- by and large
successfully -- to emancipate human genetics from such
biases in order to establish it as a solid field of
science that would explain the complexities of human heredity
and assist medicine by illuminating the relationship of
genetics to disease. |
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Genetic
inheritance
chart for eye
color trait
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During the past 50 years, molecular geneticists have
located, isolated, manipulated, and analyzed thousands
of human genes, including many implicated in diseases
and other conditions. Their work has been greatly accelerated
by the Human Genome Project, which began in the
late 1980s and which in 2001 completed a first draft
of the entire sequence of DNA
in the human genome.
In the long run, human genetic knowledge will very
likely lead to therapies and cures for many diseases.
But some fear that the techniques of gene therapy,
embryo selection, and the engineering of sperm could
all become tools of a kind of human genetic manipulation
that would be offensive to humane and egalitarian values.
The manipulation could discriminate against socially
costly or devalued groups and individuals.
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