The FutureThe KnackWhite and NerdyEugenicsDiscriminationEugenics Records OfficeNazisRememberIdentical TwinsHappinessHuntingtons DiseaseTay-Sachssickle cell anemiaWhat is Next?The FutureThe KnackWhite and NerdyEugenics•Eugenicists came to believe that the problems of the world, alcoholism, poverty, prostitution, criminality, feeblemindedness, chess playing ability, tendency to commit industrial sabotage were all associated with one or another rather penetrant Mendelian alleleDiscrimination•Using IQ tests, which were implemented in great numbers and throughout the society in the 1920s, a well known geneticist named Goddard discovered that 80% of Jewish, Hungarian and Polish immigrants, as well as Italian and Russian immigrants were mentally defective or feebleminded, and that these traits, these mental defects in 80% of these groups were transmitted as regularly and as surely as the color of hair or eyes.Eugenics Records Office•In the 1920s there was a Eugenics Record Office in this country which existed for the next twenty years•J.H. Kellogg founded a Race Betterment Association whose intent was to better the gene pool of the American population through selective breeding. By 1928 there were 376 college courses taught across this country on the subject of eugenics, i.e., how to improve the human race by beginning to breed more fit individuals.Nazis•400,000 people had been sterilized in Germany because for one or another reason they were regarded as somehow defective.•By 1940 thirty states had compulsory sterilization laws in this country, i.e., people who were deemed to be genetically less gifted were sterilized against their will. 60,000 of those sterilizations were performed in this country.Remember•If you don’t remember the past you are doomed to repeat it•We have much better scientific understanding of genetics now, so what will we do with it.Identical Twins•There was a chance meeting in 1979 between a steelworker named Jim Lewis and a clerical worker named Jim Springer. They both lived in Ohio. They were separated five weeks after birth and they were raised 80 miles apart in different towns in Ohio. And at the age of 39 they discovered themselves through some chance meeting. •both had dark hair, they both stood six feet tall and they both weighed 180 pounds. •They both spoke with the same inflections, They walked with the same gait. They made the same gestures. •They both loved stockcar racing. They both hated baseball. They both married women named Linda. They were both divorced and in their second marriages both of them married women named Betty.•They both drove Chevrolets. They drank Miller Lite. They both chain smoked Salems. They vacationed on the same half-mile of beach in Florida.• They both had elevated blood pressure, severe migraines, both had undergone vasectomies, they both bit their nails, and their heart rates, their brainwaves and their IQs were so similar that you couldn't tell whether it was the same person or two separate people being studiedHappiness•if you study identical twins, is about 80% heritable it turns out and depends little on one's wealth, achievement or marital status.Huntingtons Disease•If you have the Huntingtons SNP, there is a 100% chance you will come down with it by the age of 50.Tay-Sachs•Leads to death in the first years of life•Silent heterozygous•Test orthodox Jews for marriage counselingsickle cell anemia•Heterozygous confers immunity to malaria•Homozygous is debiliting•Routinely genotyped people in Greece•Records became public•Heterozygous people could only marry each otherWhat is
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