56. Ibid., pp. 192–96.
57. The most famous example is Michael Crichton, but his arguments have been often repeated. See for example, Crichton, “Why Politicized Science Is Dangerous.” His book State of Fear was entirely based on the premise that climate science was the contemporary equivalent to eugenics. When Crichton first started making this claim, I was surprised that historians of eugenics were not stepping up to the plate to counter it. So I did, thus initiating the line of thinking that has led to this set of lectures. Oreskes, “Fear-Mongering Crichton Wrong on Science.” See also Ekwurzel, “Crichton Thriller: State of Fear.”
58. Buck v. Bell, 274 US. 4, 5, 9–10, 20, 76.
59. Buck v. Bell, 274 US.
60. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 111.
61. Some would argue that “soft” eugenics has never really gone away, for example, when parents use abortion to terminate the pregnancies of children carrying genetic diseases. I am not sure this is eugenics; there is a world of difference in my view between individuals making free choices about reproduction and the government enforcing such choices, but I also recognize that those worlds can collide. See, for example Duster, Backdoor to Eugenics. Comfort, The Science of Perfection, argues that not only did eugenics not go away, but it became the heart of American medicine.
62. Laughlin’s expertise is a bit hard to characterize. He was trained as a school teacher, and taught agriculture before moving to the Eugenics Record Office in 1910. He subsequently received a PhD in cytology, in 1917, and then, infamously, an honorary degree from the University of Heidelberg for his work on model sterilization laws, in 1936. See “Biography of Harry H. Laughlin.”
63. Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society. With Remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet and Other Writers.
64. Galton, Hereditary Genius.
65. Galton, Memories of My Life, p. 331.
66. Full disclosure: I am a member of the Save the Redwoods League.
67. “The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act).”
68. Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus, 162.; On Hitler, see Spiro, Defending the Master Race; Kuhl, The Nazi Connection.
69. Grant and Osborn, The Passing of the Great Race; or, the Racial Basis of European History. 4th Rev. Ed., with a Documentary Supplement, with Prefaces by Henry Fairfield Osborn, p. 49.
70. Although there were Lamarckian versions of eugenics, as well.
71. In 1921, the Station for Experimental Evolution and the ERO were combined into the Carnegie Department of Genetics, with Charles Davenport as its director. The ERO function was terminated in 1939. See Allen, “The Eugenics Record Office”; Witkowski and Inglis, “Davenport’s Dream,” and Witkowski, The Road to Discovery: A Short History of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
72. Davenport, Eugenics, the Science of Human Improvement by Better Breeding, p. 34.
73. The work was funded by Mrs. Mary Harriman, the widow of railroad magnate E. H. Harriman and mother of Averill, later governor of New York. Comfort, The Tangled Field, p. 79.
74. “The Immigration Act of 1924 (The Johnson-Reed Act).”
75. Historians have noted that Carrie’s daughter was not in fact feeble-minded; she died of colitis at the age of eight after doing well in school under the care of a foster family. See Gould, “Carrie Buck’s Daughter.” In 1978, in the case of Stump v. Sparkman, the Supreme Court affirmed the right of a judge to approve a mother’s request for the sterilization of a mildly mentally retarded fifteen-year-old girl. The girl later married; when she discovered she had been sterilized, she and her husband sued the state of Indiana. The case made it to the Supreme Court, who did not adjudicate the merits of the judge’s action but the conclusion that he was immune from prosecution because he was acting in a judicial capacity. Opponents of the decision argued this was incorrect because he had failed to follow basic due process, such as appointing a guardian for the girl. White, Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349.
76. Proctor, Racial Hygiene, p. 101.
77. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics.
78. In this sense we may see eugenics and the Limited Energy Theory as related, which leads to the question: did feminists oppose eugenics? This is a topic that invites further scrutiny. Margaret Sanger’s 1922 book, The Pivot of Civilization, appears to share many conventional eugenic attitudes of her time. See Sanger and Wells, The Pivot of Civilization. However, her biographer, Ellen Chesler, notes that Sanger has been often misquoted on eugenic matters, particularly by latter-day enemies of the organization she founded, Planned Parenthood. Chesler notes that Sanger opposed racial and ethnic stereotyping and “framed poverty as a matter of differential access to resources, including birth control, not as the immutable consequence of low inherent ability or intelligence or character.” See Chesler, Woman of Valor, p. 484. Prominent members of the Catholic Church, including Pope Pius XI, also opposed eugenics, as an inappropriate intervention in God’s plan, and argued that the source of degeneracy is not inheritance but sin. See Pope Pius XI, “Casti Connubii: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on Christian Marriage to the Venerable Brethren, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and Other Local Ordinaries Enjoying Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.”
79. Crichton, State of Fear; Dykes, “Late Author Michael Crichton Warned of Global Warming’s Dangerous Parallels to Eugenics.”
80. I say short answer because one could argue that the meanings of the word eugenics were multiple (as Kevles suggests) and changed over time, but even allowing for that, it is very clear that important social scientists and geneticists rejected the central claims of the eugenics movement, and did so quite explicitly.
81. Allen, Eugenics and Modern Biology: Critiques of Eugenics, 1910–1945.
82. Boas, “Eugenics,” p. 471.
83. Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life.
84. Bowman-Kruhm, Margaret Mead, p. 140.
85. Paul argues that this was more true in Europe, particularly Scandinavia, where populations tended to be more homogenous than in the United States, but her own work, and Kevles’s, shows that a great deal of attention in the United States involved immigrant populations that, by today’s standards, would be considered “white,” such as Irish and Italian immigrants. For a recent discussion of eugenics targeted at African Americans, see Roberts, Killing the Black Body.
86. This is not to say that only socialist geneticists objected to eugenics, but rather that socialists were conspicuous in their objections, which were tied to their politics. For an example of a non-socialist American geneticist who also argued for a better understanding of the interaction of inheritance and environment, see Jennings, “Heredity and Environment.”
87. Oreskes, “Objectivity or Heroism?”
88. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 167.
89. Ibid., p. 134.
90. Muller et al., “Social Biology and Population Improvement.” That this question was being posed and in this way is revelatory about the state of the world at that time—not just in Germany—but the answer is revelatory as well.
91. In the end, every field is “special.” Expertise does not travel well across disciplinary boundaries.
92. Muller et al., “Social Biology and Population Improvement.” See also Darwin, “The Geneticists’ Manifesto.” The signatories included Huxley and Haldane.
93. Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 261.
94. Muller et al., “Social Biology and Population Improvement, ” p. 521.
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.
97. One of Muller’s cosigners was the great Julian Huxley, one of the founders of the modern evolutionary synthesis—the successful joining of the Darwinian theory of selection with quantitative genetics. Like Muller, Huxley accepted the basic premise of eugenics, although he thought it more accurate to consider “ethnic” rather than “racial” groups as the appropriate unit of study. He also criticized negative eugenics such as invol
untary sterilization. Yet he supported voluntary sterilization and birth control aimed at encouraging the “elimination of the few lowest and degenerate types,” and in the 1960s, worried that many heralded humanitarian benefits of modern medicine and improvements in food supply were keeping alive individuals who would otherwise have died. This, he felt, clearly pushed against the natural tendencies that acted to improve the fitness of humans. While he was not clear on how it should be done, Huxley believed that humans needed to find a way to counter this dysgenic effect, and put genetic evolution back on track: As he put it: “we must manage to put it back on its age-old course of positive improvement.” Kevles, In the Name of Eugenics, p. 261.
98. Allen, Eugenics and Modern Biology, p. 315. See also Spencer and Paul, “The Failure of a Scientific Critique,” and Did Eugenics Rest on an Elementary Mistake?
99. Jennings, The Biological Basis of Human Nature. See also Jennings, “Heredity and Environment,” Scientific Monthly, 1924. On Jennings’s context, and other Americans who also criticized eugenics, see Allen, Eugenics and Modern Biology: Critiques of Eugenics, 1910–1945. Allen also discusses the interesting objections of American journalist Walter Lippmann.
100. Jennings, Human Nature, pp. 178–79.
101. Ibid.
102. Ibid., pp. 203–6.
103. Ibid., p. 206.
104. Ibid., p. 208.
105. Ibid., pp. 228–29.
106. Allen, Eugenics and Modern Biology.
107. Ibid., p.322.
108. See for example Paul, Spencer, et. al. Eugenics at the Edges of Empire.
109. Allen, Eugenics and Modern Biology, p. 324, makes an important additional point about this: much of the scientific critique was published in scientific journals or expressed privately (e.g., in letters) and therefore not known to the general public. He writes “In this way, the general public clearly got the impression that eugenics had the stamp of approval of the scientific/genetics community.” He concludes that it is important, therefore, in contemporary debates, for experts to expose fallacies in public scientific claims, so the public can know of and understand the relevant critiques. I agree, and would add that it is also important for scientists to affirm in public the consensus on matters like vaccination safety when public discourse implies otherwise.
110. Skovlund et al., “Association of Hormonal Contraception with Depression.”
111. Bakalar, “Contraceptives Tied to Depression Risk.”
112. McDermott, “Can Birth Control Cause Depression?”
113. Tello, “Can Hormonal Birth Control Trigger Depression?” The issue of self-reporting is complex. On the role of patients in the AIDs crisis, see Epstein, Impure Science. My argument here is not that patients are necessarily correct in their judgments, but that patient reports are one form of evidence to which doctors and researchers would do well to attend.
114. A good starting point on the evidence surrounding autism and vaccines is Mnookin, The Panic Virus.
115. Tello, “Can Hormonal Birth Control Trigger Depression?”
116. For more about quantitative statistics in science, see Porter, Trust in Numbers; Daston and Galison, Objectivity.
117. On the prevalence of misdiagnosis, see Kirch and Schafii, “Misdiagnosis at a University Hospital in 4 Medical Eras”; On the effect of marketing on prescriptions see Iizuka and Jin, “The Effect of Prescription Drug Advertising on Doctor Visits.”
118. Jones, Mosher, and Daniels, “Current Contraceptive Use in the United States, 2006–10, and Changes in Patterns of Use since 1995.” The critical review can be found here: Schaffir, Worly, and Gur, “Combined Hormonal Contraception and Its Effects on Mood.”
119. Christin-Maitre, “History of Oral Contraceptive Drugs and Their Use Worldwide.”
120. Seaman and Dreyfus, The Doctor’s Case against the Pill, p. 210.
121. Recently, a major study (again, in Denmark!) concluded that hormonal contraception use by women is associated with a doubled risk of suicide. Skovlund et al., “Association of Hormonal Contraception with Depression.”
122. Thompson, “A Brief History of Birth Control in the U.S.”
123. Seaman and Dreyfus, The Doctor’s Case against the Pill, p. 213.
124. Ibid., 214.
125. Ibid., p. 223.
126. Oreskes, “The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change.”
127. Cook et al., “Quantifying the Consensus”; Cook et al., “Consensus on Consensus.”
128. Behre et al., “Efficacy and Safety of an Injectable Combination Hormonal Contraceptive for Men.”
129. Ibid. The study concluded: “The study regimen led to near-complete and reversible suppression of spermatogenesis. The contraceptive efficacy was relatively good compared with other reversible methods available for men. The frequencies of mild to moderate mood disorders were relatively high.” Media reports include: CNN, “Male Birth Control Shot Found Effective, but Side Effects Cut Study Short”; “Male Birth Control Study Killed after Men Report Side Effects”; Watkins, “Why the Male ‘Pill’ Is Still So Hard to Swallow.”
130. Moses-Kolko et al., “Age, Sex, and Reproductive Hormone Effects on Brain Serotonin-1A and Serotonin-2A Receptor Binding in a Healthy Population”; Toufexis et al., “Stress and the Reproductive Axis.”
131. Mayo Clinic Staff, “Antidepressants”; Oláh, “The Use of Fluoxetine (Prozac) in Premenstrual Syndrome”; Cherney and Watson, “Managing Antidepressant Sexual Side Effects.”
132. Balon, “SSRI-Associated Sexual Dysfunction”; Rosen, Lane, and Menza, “Effects of SSRIs on Sexual Function.”
133. Rosen, Lane, and Menza, “Effects of SSRIs on Sexual Function”; Block, “Antidepressant Killing Your Libido?”
134. Skovlund et al., “Association of Hormonal Contraception with Depression.”
135. On this, see Ziliak and McCloskey, Cult of Statistical Significance, and Krosnick, this volume.
136. Oreskes and Conway, Merchants of Doubt, p. 141.
137. Bill Bechtel writes that scientists, particularly in the life sciences, often use mechanism to explain natural phenomena, but the role of mechanism in scientific methodologies has not been adequately explored in the philosophy of science, which has focused on deductive methods. Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms; Bechtel, Mental Mechanisms. See also the work of Carl Craver: Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms; Machamer, Darden, and Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms.”
138. Saint Louis, “Feeling Guilty about Not Flossing?”
139. “Haven’t Flossed Lately?”
140. Greenberg, “Science Says Flossing Doesn’t Work. You’re Welcome.”
141. Clarke-Billings, “After Generations of Dentists’ Advice, Has the Flossing Myth Been Shattered?”
142. Donn, “Medical Benefits of Dental Floss Unproven.”
143. “Sink Your Teeth into This Debate over Flossing.”
144. Donn, “Medical Benefits of Dental Floss Unproven.” What none of these reports pointed out is all the other important uses of dental floss, including escaping from prison: “Inmate Recalls How He Flossed Way To Freedom.” See also “Haven’t Flossed Lately?”
145. “Everything You Believed about Flossing Is a Lie.”
146. Rubin, “At a Loss over Dental Floss.”
147. O’Connell, “The Great Dental Floss Scam.”
148. Rubin, “At a Loss over Dental Floss.”
149. Take Care Staff, “How a Journalist Debunked a Decades Old Health Tip.”
150. Ibid.
151. Hare, “How an AP Reporter Took down Flossing.”
152. Ghani, “The Deceit of the Dental Health Industry and Some Potent Alternatives.” Nutrition certainly plays a role, as do genetics. But the question was whether or not flossing helps, so in this case these other factors are not at issue.
153. Donn, “Medical Benefits of Dental Floss Unproven.”
154. Ibid.
155. Ibid. See also Resnick, “If You Don’t Floss Daily, You Don’t Ne
ed to Feel Guilty.”
156. Harrar, “Should You Bother to Floss Your Teeth?”
157. Hare, “How an AP Reporter Took down Flossing.”
158. “About Us | Cochrane.”
159. Sambunjak et al., “Flossing for the Management of Periodontal Diseases and Dental Caries in Adults.”
160. Ibid.
161. Although the effect size was small: “the SMD being −0.36 (95% CI −0.66 to −0.05) at 1 month, SMD −0.41 (95% CI −0.68 to −0.14) at 3 months and SMD −0.72 (95% CI −1.09 to −0.35) at 6 months.”
162. The Silness-Löe index is an index of oral hygiene based on plaque accumulation. Moslehzadeh, “Silness-Löe Index.” SMD refers to size effect.
163. Levine, “The Last Word on Flossing Is Two Words: Pascal’s Wager.”
164. Bakalar, “Gum Disease Tied to Cancer Risk in Older Women”; Smyth, “Gum Disease Sufferers 70% More Likely to Get Dementia.” The comments following this article are notably hostile and negative; there appears to be a huge amount of resistance to accepting these findings. It would be worthwhile to investigate why readers of the Times are so hostile to the idea that flossing is so important!
165. Saint Louis, “Feeling Guilty about Not Flossing?” For more on dentists’ defense of flossing, see Selleck, “National Media’s Spotlight on Flossing Enables Dental Professionals to Shine.”
166. Nancy Cartwright has argued that randomized controlled trials are not always the best tool for evaluating medical efficacy: Cartwright, “Are RCTs the Gold Standard?”; Cartwright, “A Philosopher’s View of the Long Road from RCTs to Effectiveness.”
167. Cartwright and Hardie, Evidence-Based Policy.
168. This point was made by Shmerling, “Tossing Flossing?”
169. Harrar, “Should You Bother to Floss Your Teeth?”
170. Rubin, “At a Loss over Dental Floss.” See also “The Medical Benefit of Daily Flossing Called into Question.”
171. Bechtel, Mental Mechanisms; Bechtel, Discovering Cell Mechanisms; Craver and Darden, In Search of Mechanisms; Machamer, Darden, and Craver, “Thinking about Mechanisms.”
172. Saint Louis, “Feeling Guilty about Not Flossing?”
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