Feinberg Lecture: Unnatural Selection: Eugenics, Race, and Ideas of Biological Value
Please join our distinguished guests: Richard Lewontin, Alexander Agassiz Research Professor, Harvard University; Diane Paul, Associate of Zoology, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University; and Laura Lovett, Associate Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst for the 2008-09 Feinberg Lecture Series: Unnatural Selection: Eugenics, Race, and Ideas of Biological Value.
This panel will consider attempts by eugenicists in this country and elsewhere to place value on biological or supposed biological differences. Early twentieth-century programs to sterilize the "unfit" in this country are now the subjects of official apologies in several states. Yet the spread of genetic testing, new reproductive technologies, and inexpensive DNA sequencing threatens to allow a resurgence of "selective" reproduction in many countries. This panel will address the history of eugenics, its intersections with scientific racism, and its possible resurgence today with the Human Genome Projects.
This event is free and open to the public.
