The Eugenic Mind Project

The Eugenic Mind Project PDF Author: Robert A. Wilson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542706
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
An examination of eugenic thinking past and present, from forced sterilization to prenatal screening, drawing on experience with those who survived eugenics. Part science and part social movement, eugenics emerged in the late nineteenth century as a tool for human improvement. In response to perceived threats of criminality, moral degeneration, feeble-mindedness, and "the rising tide of color," eugenic laws and social policies aimed to better the human race by regulating reproductive choice through science and technology. In this book, Rob Wilson examines eugenic thought and practice--from forced sterilization to prenatal screening--drawing on his experience working with eugenics survivors. Using the social sciences' standpoint theory as a framework to understand the intersection of eugenics, disability, social inclusiveness, and human variation, Wilson focuses on those who have lived through a eugenic past and those confronted by the legacy of eugenic thinking today. By doing so, he brings eugenics from the distant past to the ongoing present. Wilson discusses such topics as the conceptualization of eugenic traits; the formulation of laws regulating immigration and marriage and requiring sexual sterilization; the depiction of the targets of eugenics as "subhuman"; the systematic construction of a concept of normality; the eugenic logic in prenatal screening and contemporary bioethics; and the incorporation of eugenics and disability into standpoint theory.

The Eugenic Mind Project

The Eugenic Mind Project PDF Author: Robert A. Wilson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542706
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Get Book Here

Book Description
An examination of eugenic thinking past and present, from forced sterilization to prenatal screening, drawing on experience with those who survived eugenics. Part science and part social movement, eugenics emerged in the late nineteenth century as a tool for human improvement. In response to perceived threats of criminality, moral degeneration, feeble-mindedness, and "the rising tide of color," eugenic laws and social policies aimed to better the human race by regulating reproductive choice through science and technology. In this book, Rob Wilson examines eugenic thought and practice--from forced sterilization to prenatal screening--drawing on his experience working with eugenics survivors. Using the social sciences' standpoint theory as a framework to understand the intersection of eugenics, disability, social inclusiveness, and human variation, Wilson focuses on those who have lived through a eugenic past and those confronted by the legacy of eugenic thinking today. By doing so, he brings eugenics from the distant past to the ongoing present. Wilson discusses such topics as the conceptualization of eugenic traits; the formulation of laws regulating immigration and marriage and requiring sexual sterilization; the depiction of the targets of eugenics as "subhuman"; the systematic construction of a concept of normality; the eugenic logic in prenatal screening and contemporary bioethics; and the incorporation of eugenics and disability into standpoint theory.

Parallel Minds

Parallel Minds PDF Author: Laura Tripaldi
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1913029514
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Book Description
Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species.

Eugenic Nation

Eugenic Nation PDF Author: Alexandra Minna Stern
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520285069
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
"With an emphasis on the American West, Eugenic Nation explores the long and unsettled history of eugenics in the United States. This expanded second edition includes shocking details that demonstrate that the story is far from over. Alexandra Minna Stern explores the unauthorized sterilization of female inmates in California state prisons and ongoing reparations for North Carolina victims of sterilization, as well as the topics of race-based intelligence tests, school segregation, the U.S. Border Patrol, tropical medicine, the environmental movement, and opposition to better breeding. Radically new and relevant, this edition draws from recently uncovered historical records to demonstrate patterns of racial bias in California's sterilization program and to recover personal experiences of reproductive injustice. Stern connects the eugenic past to the genomic present with attention to the ethical and social implications of emerging genetic technologies"--Provided by publisher.

The Market in Mind

The Market in Mind PDF Author: Mark Dennis Robinson
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262536870
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
A critical examination of translational medicine, when private risk is transferred to the public sector and university research teams become tech startups for global investors. A global shift has secretly transformed science and medicine. Starting in 2003, biomedical research in the West has been reshaped by the emergence of translational science and medicine—the idea that the aim of research is to translate findings as quickly as possible into medical products. In The Market in Mind, Mark Dennis Robinson charts this shift, arguing that the new research paradigm has turned university research teams into small biotechnology startups and their industry partners into early-stage investment firms. There is also a larger, surprising consequence from this shift: according to Robinson, translational science and medicine enable biopharmaceutical firms, as part of a broader financial strategy, to outsource the riskiest parts of research to nonprofit universities. Robinson examines the implications of this new configuration. What happens, for example, when universities absorb unknown levels of risk? Robinson argues that in the years since the global financial crisis translational science and medicine has brought about “the financialization of health.” Robinson explores such topics as shareholder anxiety and industry retreat from Alzheimer's and depression research; how laboratory research is understood as health innovation even when there is no product; the emergence of investor networking events as crucial for viewing science in a market context; and the place of patients in research decisions. Although translational medicine justifies itself by the goal of relieving patients' suffering, Robinson finds patients' voices largely marginalized in translational neuroscience.

Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy

Margaret Sanger's Eugenic Legacy PDF Author: Angela Franks
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786454040
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
Margaret Sanger, the American birth-control and population-control advocate who founded Planned Parenthood, stands like a giant among her contemporaries. With her dominating yet winning personality, she helped generate shifts of opinion on issues that were not even publicly discussed prior to her activism, while her leadership was arguably the single most important factor in achieving social and legislative victories that set the parameters for today's political discussion of family-planning funding, population-control aid, and even sex education. This work addresses Sanger's ideas concerning birth control, eugenics, population control, and sterilization against the backdrop of the larger eugenic context.

Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics

Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics PDF Author: Frank W. Stahnisch
Publisher: Athabasca University Press
ISBN: 1771992654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
From 1928 to 1972, the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act, Canada’s lengthiest eugenic policy, shaped social discourses and medical practice in the province. Sterilization programs—particularly involuntary sterilization programs—were responding both nationally and internationally to social anxieties produced by the perceived connection between mental degeneration and heredity. Psychiatry and the Legacies of Eugenics illustrates how the emerging field of psychiatry and its concerns about inheritable conditions was heavily influenced by eugenic thought and contributed to the longevity of sterilization practices in Western Canada. Using institutional case studies, biographical accounts, and media developments from Western Canada and Europe, contributors trace the impact of eugenics on nursing practices, politics, and social attitudes, while investigating the ways in which eugenics discourses persisted unexpectedly and remained mostly unexamined in psychiatric practice. This volume further extends historical analysis into considerations of contemporary policy and human rights issues through a discussion of disability studies as well as compensation claims for victims of sterilization. In impressive detail, contributors shed new light on the medical and political influences of eugenics on psychiatry at a key moment in the field’s development. With contributions by Ashley Barlow, W. Mikkel Dack, Diana Mansell, Guel A. Russell, Celeste Tuong Vy Sharpe, Henderikus J. Stam, Douglas Wahlsten, Paul J. Weindling, Robert A. Wilson, Gregor Wolbring, and Marc Workman.

Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective

Eugenics, Genetics, and Disability in Historical and Contemporary Perspective PDF Author: Gerald O'Brien
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197611230
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
"Over the course of the past few decades there have been two important developments within American society that have had profound impact on both the disability and social work communities. First, genetic research, as well as policy and practice innovations based on this research, has expanded greatly over the past few decades. This is indicated, for example, by the mapping of the human genome in 2003, an expansion of prenatal genetic testing and counseling options, efforts to tailor drug regimens based on one's genetic make-up, popular genetic ancestry and medical testing services, and potential in-roads to genetic engineering, along with a host of other bio-genetic research innovations. The second important development has been the growth of the disability rights movement, which in many ways parallels the civil rights campaigns of other "minority" groups. Importantly, the coexistence of these two developments poses intriguing challenges for social work that the profession has yet to address in a meaningful way. Moreover, coming to term with these issues is especially important for social work professionals in our crucial role as advocates for marginalized or de-valued populations"--

Blueprint, with a new afterword

Blueprint, with a new afterword PDF Author: Robert Plomin
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262357763
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
A top behavioral geneticist makes the case that DNA inherited from our parents at the moment of conception can predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses. In Blueprint, behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin describes how the DNA revolution has made DNA personal by giving us the power to predict our psychological strengths and weaknesses from birth. A century of genetic research shows that DNA differences inherited from our parents are the consistent lifelong sources of our psychological individuality—the blueprint that makes us who we are. Plomin reports that genetics explains more about the psychological differences among people than all other factors combined. Nature, not nurture, is what makes us who we are. Plomin explores the implications of these findings, drawing some provocative conclusions—among them that parenting styles don't really affect children's outcomes once genetics is taken into effect. This book offers readers a unique insider's view of the exciting synergies that came from combining genetics and psychology. The paperback edition has a new afterword by the author.

Eugenics

Eugenics PDF Author: Philippa Levine
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199385904
Category : Eugenics
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
A concise and gripping account of eugenics from its origins in the twentieth century and beyond.

War Against the Weak

War Against the Weak PDF Author: Edwin Black
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 9781568583211
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 550

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Book Description
An investigative journalist peels back the lid on a shameful century of mass sterilization and human breeding programs in the U.S. that began in 1904 with a large-scale eugenics movement, a movement that has been reborn in the modern era with the rise of genetics and human engineering. Reprint.