Eugenics in the 1920s and 30s

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pre-world war two eugenics well say in the 1910s and 20s was largely a liberal cause absolutely yeah we're gonna re-engineer society not only socially politically and economically but genetically. It wasn't only it got turned into its vialist form in in the holocaust where it was primarily exterminating people rather than allowing certain particular individuals to breed, even though lower classes were inherently quite obviously inferior. In the UK one of our most famous advocates of uh female contour of use of contraception was also she wanted to apply it because she wanted to the lower classes to stop breeding by 30s she was writing letters to nazis.

Shermer and Cobb discuss: objections to genetic engineering (political, religious, cultural) • selective breeding • recombinant DNA • the ethics of genetics • patenting life • gene therapy • gene editing • CRISPR • literature and films on the dangers of genetic engineering • bioweapons • 3 Laws of Behavior Genetics and what people fear about it.

Matthew Cobb is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester. He is the author of six books: The Idea of the Brain: A History; Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code; Generation; The Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis; Eleven Days in August: The Liberation of Paris in 1944; and Smell: A Very Short Introduction. He lives in England.