Eugenics

One thing that is so excellent about these summer institute classes is the fact that I always come away with either a new understanding or a new appreciation for a period or event.

This summer it is the Scopes "Monkey" trial.

I recall watching Inherit the Wind as a child. Later I read the award winning play.

However, we have had some excellent lessons and discussions on the event. In fact, professor Kazin wrote a biography on William Jennings Bryan.

For those who are unfamiliar, the Scopes "Monkey" trail occurred in 1925. Scopes was a substitute science teacher who broke a Tennessee state law by teaching Darwin's theory of evolution to his high school class.

Well, that is loosely the story. In reality, a group of businessmen approached Scopes - knowing that a trail on the controversy would bring a horde of reporters and people onto the town (and the businesses) - convinced Scopes to state that he broke the law.

Immediately, it hit the press and became a larger issue. Instead of simply being an issue of a teacher breaking state law, it became a touchstone for the Creation vs. evolution issue.

The fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan swooped in to prosecute while the wily and brilliant Clarence Darrow offered to defend Scopes. In this light, it was almost God (Bryan was quite religious - if not a Presbyterian minister - and one of the most popular figures in the country) against the monkeys (Darrow was backed by the atheist and controversial H.L. Mencken).

Ultimately, Bryan won - Scopes did break the law - that is clear. But the cost of the victory was steep (Bryan would die five days later) because Bryan (in a brilliant move by the defense) was called to take the stand where for three days Darrow made him look like a small minded fool by illustrating the problems in taking parts of the Bible literally.

Bryan took the stand on the condition he could cross examine Darrow. However, when Darrow finished humiliating Bryan, and Bryan finally had his chance to try and get some revenge, Darrow simply pleaded guilty.

The point was made - Scopes did indeed break the law (and he had to pay the minimum fee for it), but the larger issue was that America (especially the educated urban section) was moving away from the provincial, humble, Bible Is All thinking to a more liberal way of thinking.

I always felt sorry to Bryan, who was a great man, and who had his own agenda (if you read his speeches, he makes it clear that God and evolution cannot exist together. Either you have to believe the Bible, which is true, or you have to deny the exist of God and accept evolution, which is entirely unproven. Boy, don't you think reasonable thinkers - or anyone with access to the fossil record - had a hay day with that one!), but was made to look like a crotchety old superstitious hayseed.

Of course, there were plenty of Americans who sided with Bryan and made Darrow out to be anything from the anti-Christ to an atheist content on brainwashing our children into becoming agnostics.

What I discovered as a result of the lectures was something I never really knew - and what goes against my gut instincts about how I feel about the case - was that the theory of evolution covered in the school textbook should not have been taught!

In this, the school district and state were right.

In the past, I always thought of them as ignorant for not wanting evolution taught.

But when you actually read the passages from the textbook that were taught, the issue was not about humans evolving from monkeys. The real issue was eugenics!

The textbook does not tackle the issue of humans evolving from monkeys as opposed to the book of Genesis. Instead - and much more shocking - the text suggests that certain humans - because of race or intelligence or whatnot (and you can imagine given whatever racial group is in power who these 'certain humans' would be) should not be allowed to breed or procreate because they have become parasites to the human race!


Here is the passages:

A Civic Biology (1914)

Parasitism and its cost to society -- Hundreds of families [described in prior section as having “mental and moral defects”] exist today, spreading disease, immorality, and crime to all parts o the country. The cost to society of such families is very severe. Just as certain animals or plants become parasitic on other plants or animals, these families have become parasitic on society. They not only do harm to others by corrupting, stealing, or spreading disease, but they are actually protected and cared for by the state out of public money. Largely for them the poorhouse and the asylum exist. They take from society, but they give nothing in return. They are true parasites.”

I find that more shocking and disturbing than anything about true evolution. Hitler anyone?

Now this might seem like a few nut jobs or crazies expounding harmless theories. But eugenics was taken very seriously. Why do you think IQ tests were invented? The eugenic proponents wanted a clear way to determine a persons intelligence (never mind that we now know their are multiple intelligences) as a way of weeding out the lesser of our species.

Thankfully, this nonsense has gone by the wayside - kind of like phrenology - but the fact that it existed and was taken quite seriously is scary as hell.

It was taken so seriously, in fact, that many states passed laws in which they were allowed to determine if a person should be sterilized or not. Furthermore, Oliver Wendell Holmes jr. famously decreed as a supreme court judge that one woman should be sterilized because she was 'determined' to be the third generation of imbecile in her family. Holmes famously stated, "Three generations of imbeciles is enough" before ruling to have her sterilized. The girl in question was so young that she didn't understand what happened.

But the fact that this occurred is terrifying.