Saini 3

take your books home for spring break

how did scientists respond in Nazi Germany?

What material can be used for medical research?

• is it ethical to use data from Nazi experiments?
  
• Tuskegee syphilis experiment

p. 41: "Science is always shaped by the time and the place it is carried out. And ultimately it is at the mercy of the personal political beliefs of those carrying it out."

Did you get a different impression of Galton from this book than from Larson?
Notice how close this is to the statement that was controversial on twitter a few weeks ago
IBM

Eugenics

• started out as get the best people to have more children and stop the "unfit" from having children
• birth control methods: condoms have a long history, diaphragms and cervical caps came into use in the 19th century, sterilization (tubal ligation or vasectomy) in the early 20th century, the birth control pill in the early 1960s
  
• but it gets worse when you apply it to races and decide a whole race is inferior and should cease to exist
  
• why pay attention to hair and skin color? "These particular features matter only because they have political meaning attached to them." (p. 48)
• Madison Grant, The Passing of the Great Race is a key example: he even tried to claim that Jesus was Nordic
• the idea of a superior race became much clearer
• when actually all races have wide variation and race isn't a clear genetic thing
  

what might a scientist conclude from this?

• watch out for your own biases
• include people with different perspectives

how can science better self-correct when it falls inevitably into being affected by society