Author: J. B. S. Haldane
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317355466
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186
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Book Description
This book, first published in 1938, is based on the Muirhead Lectures given at Birmingham University in February and March of 1937. The first half of this book is mainly devoted to an exposition of the principles of genetics, whilst the second half deals with more controversial topics, with the text providing an insight into the ideology of the time. This title will be of interest to students of politics and history.
Author: M. Meloni
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137377720
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 295
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Book Description
This book explores the socio-political implications of human heredity from the second half of the nineteenth century to the present postgenomic moment. It addresses three main phases in the politicization of heredity: the peak of radical eugenics (1900-1945), characterized by an aggressive ethos of supporting the transformation of human society via biological knowledge; the repositioning, after 1945, of biological thinking into a liberal-democratic, human rights framework; and the present postgenomic crisis in which the genome can no longer be understood as insulated from environmental signals. In Political Biology, Maurizio Meloni argues that thanks to the ascendancy of epigenetics we may be witnessing a return to soft heredity - the idea that these signals can cause changes in biology that are themselves transferable to succeeding generations. This book will be of great interest to scholars across science and technology studies, the philosophy and history of science, and political and social theory.
Author: Diane B. Paul
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791438213
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 238
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Book Description
Explores the political forces underlying shifts in thinking about the respective influence of heredity and environment in shaping human behavior, and the feasibility and morality of eugenics.
Author: John Waller
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198790457
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 177
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Book Description
John Waller describes the changing ideas concerning heredity from antiquity to the modern biological understanding, considering both the efforts over the centuries to identify the physiological mechanisms involved and how views of heredity have been used to justify or condemn inequalities of class, gender, and race.
Author: Staffan Müller-Wille
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262134764
Category : Heredity
Languages : en
Pages : 511
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Book Description
The cultural history of heredity: scholars from a range of disciplines discuss the evolution of the concept of heredity, from the Early Modern understanding of the act of "generation" to its later nineteenth-century definition as the transmission of characteristics across generations. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the biological makeup of an organism was ascribed to an individual instance of "generation"--involving conception, pregnancy, embryonic development, parturition, lactation, and even astral influences and maternal mood--rather than the biological transmission of traits and characteristics. Discussions of heredity and inheritance took place largely in the legal and political sphere. In Heredity Produced, scholars from a broad range of disciplines explore the development of the concept of heredity from the early modern period to the era of Darwin and Mendel. The contributors examine the evolution of the concept in disparate cultural realms--including law, medicine, and natural history--and show that it did not coalesce into a more general understanding of heredity until the mid-nineteenth century. They consider inheritance and kinship in a legal context; the classification of certain diseases as hereditary; the study of botany; animal and plant breeding and hybridization for desirable characteristics; theories of generation and evolution; and anthropology and its study of physical differences among humans, particularly skin color. The editors argue that only when people, animals, and plants became more mobile--and were separated from their natural habitats through exploration, colonialism, and other causes--could scientists distinguish between inherited and environmentally induced traits and develop a coherent theory of heredity. Contributors David Sabean, Silvia De Renzi, Ulrike Vedder, Carlos López Beltrán, Phillip K. Wilson, Laure Cartron, Staffan Müller-Wille, Marc J. Ratcliff, Roger Wood, Mary Terrall, Peter McLaughlin, François Duchesneau, Ohad Parnes, Renato Mazzolini, Paul White, Nicolas Pethes, Stefan Willer, Helmuth Müller-Sievers
Author: Amir Teicher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110849949X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
Will revolutionize reader's understanding of the principles of modern genetics, Nazi racial policies and the relationship between them.
Author: Sheila Faith Weiss
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226891798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
The Faustian bargain—in which an individual or group collaborates with an evil entity in order to obtain knowledge, power, or material gain—is perhaps best exemplified by the alliance between world-renowned human geneticists and the Nazi state. Under the swastika, German scientists descended into the moral abyss, perpetrating heinous medical crimes at Auschwitz and at euthanasia hospitals. But why did biomedical researchers accept such a bargain? The Nazi Symbiosis offers a nuanced account of the myriad ways human heredity and Nazi politics reinforced each other before and during the Third Reich. Exploring the ethical and professional consequences for the scientists involved as well as the political ramifications for Nazi racial policies, Sheila Faith Weiss places genetics and eugenics in their larger international context. In questioning whether the motives that propelled German geneticists were different from the compromises that researchers from other countries and eras face, Weiss extends her argument into our modern moment, as we confront the promises and perils of genomic medicine today.
Author: Staffan Müller-Wille
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226545709
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339
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Book Description
Heredity: knowledge and power -- Generation, reproduction, evolution -- Heredity in separate domains -- First syntheses -- Heredity, race, and eugenics -- Disciplining heredity -- Heredity and molecular biology -- Gene technology, genomics, postgenomics: attempt at an outlook.
Author: Samanth Subramanian
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 9386797534
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 525
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Book Description
J.B.S. Haldane, scientist extraordinaire—born in Britain yet spiritually bound to India—remains one of the most enigmatic geniuses of the modern era. Here is a man who saw action in two world wars, engaged in the most radical politics of his day, conducted groundbreaking scientific research, and wrote with flair and conviction—yet Haldane’s universe remains shrouded in mystery. Award-winning author Samanth Subramanian’s latest offering undoes this travesty. Besides shedding light on Haldane’s contributions to genetics and evolutionary biology—he was the first to calculate the rate at which mutations occur and accumulate in genes—the book illuminates Haldane’s inner world—his towering intellect, his radical vision of society, his provocative philosophy, and his attempts a wrestling with the essential moral questions that scientific progress must raise. Equally, the book dwells on Haldane’s years in India—his journey to the nation; his affiliation with the Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta; his attachment to the Genetics and Biometry Laboratory in Bhubaneshwar (where he died). Dronamraju’s description of Haldane as ‘the last man who knew everything’ was, at its simplest, an acknowledgement of his command over multiple subjects. But it was also an astute observation that Haldane’s era was the last time when the realms of scientific knowledge were limited enough for a single person to apprehend in near-entirety. To know everything was to see the forces of the world unified and to conceive of life in its full complexity. A Dominant Character will give readers a taste of that heady sensation.
Author: Hans-Walter Schmuhl
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402066007
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 476
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Book Description
When the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics opened its doors in 1927, it could rely on wide political approval. In 1933 the institute and its founding director Eugen Fischer came under pressure to adjust, which they were able to ward off through Selbstgleichschaltung (auto-coordination). The Third Reich brought about a mutual beneficial servicing of science and politics. With their research into hereditary health and racial policies the institute’s employees provided the Brownshirt rulers with legitimating grounds. This volume traces the history of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics between democracy and dictatorship. Attention is turned to the haunting transformation of the research program, the institute’s integration into the national and international science panorama, and its relationship to the ruling power. The volume also confronts the institute’s interconnection to the political crimes of Nazi Germany terminating in bestial medical crimes.
