WHAT IF WE COULD biologically weed out all of society's ills? At the turn of the 20th century, mainstream academics believed that if certain people didn't reproduce in the United States, the genetic "stock" of the population could remain pure, thus leading to a perfect civilization. Sociologist Herbert Adolphus Miller wrote about the field, dubbed eugenics, in the April 1914 issue of Popular Science: "The rapidity with which it has spread is little short of wonderful, and its value cannot be overestimated." These ideals led to immigration and sterilization policies that targeted poor, disabled, and dark-skinned individuals-all pinned to veiy scant science. Eugenics leaders used rank and power to push their movement, but their methods weren't backed by any lab- or field-based evidence, says Miriam Rich, a lecturer in the history of medicine at Yale. "It's offering this very reductive biological solution to complex social, political, and economic problems." DNA research has since shown all that breeding can-and cannot-influence. We know that diversity creates resilience, and that the narrowing of a gene pool can flood a population with mutations and result in disorders like the protruding Habsburg jaw in incestuous Spanish royals. We also know that biological building blocks make up only a fraction of the human condition, a fact Miller conceded in 1914: "If a perfect eugenic system were in vogue," he wrote, "practically every social problem which we are now trying to solve would still remain." No amount of reproductive cherry-picking can change that.
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