Backdoor to Eugenics [Paperback]

Troy Duster (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0415901553 | ISBN-13: 978-0415901550 | Publication Date: May 24, 1990 | Edition: 1st

The enormous advances in recent biomedical genetics have blinded us to their socially dangerous spin-offs. In "Backdoor to Eugenics", Troy Duster grapples with the social and political implications of the new genetic technologies. He sees the promise of the new technologies for lessening human suffering but warns against the appropriators who ominously substitute genetic answers to problems linked to identifiable groups such as Jews, Scandinavians, African-Americans, Italians and Arabs. This development has fuelled the kind of old-line thinking about race and ethnicity that was popular at the turn of the century, but temporarily buried after World War II. The author documents an increasing propensity to see crime, mental illness, and even intelligence as expressions of genetic predisposition. He shows how we are ignoring evidence for the causes of problems thereby weakening our ability to address and solve them. It is ironic that today's technology has identified select social groups as being at higher risk for specific genetic disorders. Thus we may be unwittingly opening and accepting eugenics by the backdoor in efforts to control an ever widening band of "genetic defects" and "genetic disorders". Duster urges us not to sell the new genetics technologies short, but also not to inflate what can be done with them.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

[A] lucid landmark..
–The Nation

The timely appearance of Duster's updated classic provides us with the background to deal with the recent reemergence of race as an issue in genetics and medicine. It is essential reading for those who analyze the social and ethical implications of genetics as well as for the practitioners of genetics themselves.
–Jon Beckwith, author of Making Genes, Making Waves: A Social Activist in Science

[A]n arresting commentary on social and ethical issues in modern human genetics....Now updated with reflections on the employment of human molecular genetics in such sensitive areas as crime and behavior, Duster's book speaks all the more pertinently and provocatively to the hazards arising from the misuse of genetic theory and information.
–Daniel J. Kevles, author of In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity

Backdoor to Eugenics remains essential reading. Eugenic thinking continues to influence welfare reform, criminal justice, and public health policies, perpetuating the dual myths that race is a genetic trait and that problems stemming from racial inequality can be fixed biologically. Duster reveals how this dangerous ideology permeates contemporary policies and definitively refutes it.
–Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty

Critical reading for all varieties of biologists as well as the rest of us in the age of post-genomics. Duster eloquently and disturbingly demonstrates the need for us all to be citizens in the shaping of our technofutures, which may otherwise become our past.
–Joan H. Fujimura, author of Crafting Science: A Sociohistory of the Quest for the Genetics of Cancer --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 201 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1st edition (May 24, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415901553
• ISBN-13: 978-0415901550
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,579,922 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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