ipl-logo

What Is Nathaniel Comfort's The Perfect Scientific Impulse?

1506 Words7 Pages

The Perfect “Scientific” Impulse

Nathaniel Comfort portrays the evolution of genetic medicine from the 19th century to the present. Scientists, statisticians and other distinguished individuals contributed to the idea of eugenics and its relation to genetic medicine. Three central concepts that support the central idea of the story include: positive and negative eugenics, genetic medicine and the eugenic impulse.

Comfort’s argument focuses on the idea that medical genetics and eugenics have one major aspect in common, THE EUGENIC IMPULSE. Society looks down upon eugenics; however, medical genetics is glorified and seen as a scientific accomplishment. Comfort emphasizes that in reality, the two coexist. The following quote from …show more content…

Eugenicists were focusing on undetected genes being spread across people. Preventive medicine was the topic of discussion; negative eugenics was emphasizing the question of who should be able to reproduce? Genetic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, mental conditions and others were coming into question. The relevance of genetic medicine is now apparent in today’s age as when we go to the doctor, the forms that we have to fill out entail family history. As discussed earlier, Garrod focused on the importance of family history when he tracked the baby’s family and today family history or genetic medicine has become an essential part in patient diagnosis.

Another major concept that was starting to make a push during this period was that in order to practice positive eugenics, negative eugenics also had to be practiced. Muller along with other eugenicists including: Frederick Osborn, William Allan and others believed that the prevention of defective conditions was essential and the base of the movement. They knew the benefits of negative eugenics, including its social acceptability and technological feasibility. Geneticists and scientists now understood the importance of genes and their different …show more content…

Human happiness is dependent on so many different factors yet we try to define it. Like Comfort said, knowing our full molecular explanation, genes, brain chemistry, personality and other elements will not define us as individuals and determine how we nurture. The eugenic impulse and eager to determine our heredity will limit us from potential successes and failures that shape who we are, as individuals. People want to live longer, be smarter, and want to limit disease. Is it fair to discriminate against certain individuals with certain diseases? In my opinion, our genetic makeup and the environment determine who we will become. The eugenic impulse combined with genetic medicine takes away from the originality and the diversity of the

Show More
Related
1317 Words | 6 Pages

He was also the author of updated eugenic family studies, The Jukes in 1915, and The Nam Family: A Study in Cacogenics (1912). Estabrook’s research emphasized the role of genetic susceptibility over environment in the creation of degenerate populations. His studies framed the degenerate behavior of his subjects as justification for stringent reproductive controls including institutional segregation and sterilization. To understand the sociological dimensions of the study,

Read More
928 Words | 4 Pages

After the fall of the Nazis in the 1940s, eugenics continued to impact the lives of those in the United States negatively up until the 1970s. It was not due to the need to be “superior”, but to be able to control reproduction by increasing the top members and decreasing the lower members. The movement took place mainly in the East Coast during the Progressive Era, reaching its climax in the 1920s and 1930s with immigration control, marriage laws, and sterilization of those who were considered dangerous to the society. Due to the Nazis, their rise to power, and the horrifying Holocaust, it had formed the movements in the United States.

Read More
1273 Words | 6 Pages

There are cases when law abiding and mentally healthy parents have children who become criminals or mentally ill. In addition, Bethenia Owens-Adair thought that genetics explained everything about the mental and physical state of a child born into a family. In the early to mid 1900’s, most of those who supported Owens-Adair’s idea of Eugenics were not educated

Read More
700 Words | 3 Pages

Research Paper Rough Draft- Eugenics The amazing thing about the world today is the rapidly changing society, and the contemporary technology. Something that scientist have been working to perfect for many years is the modernization of eugenics. It is changing the way people are born by selecting specific traits for an individual to be smarter, stronger, more attractive and many other traits. Many parents of the new generation are willing to try the science of eugenics for their child to be customized to them.

Read More
1622 Words | 7 Pages

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, eugenics is: “a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed”. ("Definition of Eugenics by Merriam-Webster") The most common example of this concept would be the Holocaust, which was the extermination of Jewish people and others deemed “unfit” for society in World War Ⅱ. But little do many know, the Nazi’s were not the only people practicing eugenics in the early 1900’s, eugenics was being practiced in the United States long before the Holocaust. The American Eugenics Society aimed to educate American people on the science of Eugenics.

Read More
897 Words | 4 Pages

It is impressive that this idea originated from a period of time where there was little knowledge about genes. In conclusion, the idea of eugenics develops during the progressive era and it affect many people during this period of time. This idea of eugenics was where more progress occurs in science. Well not all about the idea of eugenics is bad is has some good points like it can reduce number of babies born with some mental illness or some with really bad illness.

Read More
1369 Words | 6 Pages

Times magazine had its first issue published in 1923, and the audience of the magazine was fairly restricted for the 1929 article “Genetics” as the magazine was still building its image, and genetics itself was a new field of science and did not have many followers. In retrospect, the increase in audience can be seen along with the accessibility of information. The increasing availability of information has resulted in a proportional increase in audience. With the help of technology scientific information is uniformly reached to a huge audience. It is evident through the mention of American organizations like “American Museum of Natural History”, “American Eugenics Society” all throughout the 1929 article that the article only focused on the American community and was limited to the population of a specific geography.

Read More
1287 Words | 6 Pages

This explains how doctors, could be amongst the most willing to aid Hitler’s eugenic cause by killing those who they deemed unfit, as the doctors believed they were doing great moral good. The morality on which Hitler and his supporters were grounded allowed for the monstrosities that took place during the war. On July 14th 1933 the Nazi party issued the "Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases"(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2015)), though the Weimar republic had made plans for sterilisation one year before (Bishop, Laura and Szobota, Lola (2015)). The new plans for sterilisation were more absolute “It was seen as important for the health of a nation to eradicate feeblemindedness (and) physical deformity” (The Hastings Centre, (2014)). In 1935 Marriage laws were introduced to “enforce a healthy German stock”

Read More
1245 Words | 5 Pages

A wise man named Bert Lance once said, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Lucky, the breeding of all living things isn’t broken. The whole point of a randomly selected genome is for individuality and mistakes. Another wise person by the name of Ellen Degeneres said this: “Flaw make us human.” Selecting the way that somebody will look like, be like, or be for is really hazardous for everybody.

Read More
712 Words | 3 Pages

Urte Petraityte History 20 Andrew Frantz Section 31 3 February 2016 Delegate Paper #1 After the first world war economies started slowing down, soldiers came home and a new way of living had to be created to accommodate the post war changes in society. More people were living in the cities than ever before, the birth rate of the elite was rapidly declining while the lower class began to over populate. The government believed it was their duty to get involved which they did by creating the concept of Eugenics.

Read More
722 Words | 3 Pages

Though eugenics may begin with good intentions, through events such as The Holocaust, one can see how quickly the good intentions can be twisted and turned into something vile and inhumane. It really boils down to the fact that yes, the human race is imperfect. But in that imperfection beauty is found in the diversity as well as progress. If humans were all perfect specimens, there would be no reason to dream or hope for a better tomorrow. The dreamers are the ones who advance society and always have been.

Read More
1229 Words | 5 Pages

Eugenics The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by Francis Galton. He defined it as the study of “the conditions under which men of a high type are produced” and also as “the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race”. However, it is not just a field of study and, could be taken as a social movement or policy as well. “Eugenics” may refer to the theory that infers hereditable intelligence and fortune which are possessed by the wealthy, successful and intelligent were made as a result of their good selective breeding, and that the lower classes would remain so because they continued to breed with other poor people from lower social classes or casts. Eugenics could be popular amongst people with a vested

Read More
631 Words | 3 Pages

You and I are different, we have lived different lives, and we likely have different tastes and preferences, different eye color, height, weight and overall complexion, yet we have a lot in common. We both have had our genes selected for. Our genes have gained us the right to live on this earth at the current time. Our genetic makeup has allowed our ancestors to survive and reproduce allowing our genes to make us who we are today. If our ancestors lacked the proper genes for survival they would’ve perished and our genes would’ve been lost in history.

Read More
1370 Words | 6 Pages

Editing of the human genome in the past has been only a sight seen in dystopia works such as Brave New World. Now, genetic enhancement is a prevalent today and people are beginning to realize the issues that can arise from creating these designer babies. Gene editing can be helpful to eradicate life changing disabilities. Yet, the term disability does not correctly label these differently abled people, as the idea of what is considered disabled has changed overtime. To fully understand the consequences and implications of genetic selection and enhancement of human embryos, society must mature and declare lines of what is and is not ethically moral.

Read More
725 Words | 3 Pages

At the point of publication Galton had been a medical student, a naturalist, anthropologist and an explorer but from 1865 onwards Galton dedicated his life to the study of Eugenics. In 1869 Galton published his own controversial work Hereditary Genius. This work has been cited by some to be the starting point of the Nature versus Nurture debate. In some of the opening pages of the book Galton states it’s purpose

Read More

More about What Is Nathaniel Comfort's The Perfect Scientific Impulse?

Related Topics

Open Document