Draper’s Millions: The Philanthropic Wellspring of Modern Race Science
By Angela Saini,
Undark
| 12. 16. 2022
In 1961, a new journal of ethnology and anthropology appeared on academic bookshelves. Nearly every page betrayed an obsession with racial differences.
“The few worthwhile contributions cannot justify the publication of the rest of the journal,” wrote the English anthropologist G. Ainsworth Harrison, spotting error after error. “None of the authors rigorously and objectively appraises the limitations of the tests he uses.” One article made the bizarre claim that Egypt — a country described as being made up of racial “hybrids” — was more “disease-ridden” as a result. “What is particularly insidious in a supposedly scientific journal is the use of words with overtones of moral judgment,” Harrison concluded.
What he didn’t know was that this was entirely by design. The journal had been founded by a tight web of far-right thinkers intent on blocking racial integration in the United States, ending immigration from everywhere but Western Europe, and promoting eugenic policies that would encourage only those they believed were the fittest to survive and reproduce. They were relying on the naivete of fellow researchers, using academia as cover so...
Related Articles
By Justin McCurry, The Guardian | 07.03.2024
Photo by Roméo A. on Unsplash
Japan’s supreme court has ordered the government to pay damages to dozens of people who were forcibly sterilised under a now-defunct eugenics law, saying the practice had violated their constitutional rights.
Wednesday’s ruling by...
By Katie LaGrone, WPTV | 06.28.2024
Image by National Cancer Institute from Unsplash
TAMPA, Fla. — A Tampa jury recently found the now-defunct Lung Institute in Tampa guilty of engaging in “deceptive or unfair practices” while it offered customers “valueless” stem cell therapy to treat incurable...
By Gilma Avalos, NBC | 07.03.2024
Image by Josh Appel from Unsplash
The dream of becoming parents is turning into a nightmare for hundreds of people caught up in a surrogacy money scandal.
Some of the individuals are facing infertility or medical challenges, seeing surrogacy as...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 07.11.2024
Louise Perry’s recent article in The Spectator cautions against “The quiet return of eugenics,” a threat she locates in preimplantation genetic testing for polygenic disorders. The technology is billed as a way for parents undergoing IVF to select which embryo to implant based on information about each embryo’s genetic risk factors and traits. These reports, she says, give parents “a very full picture of the adult that embryo could become”––from their child’s risk of developing different diseases to their “likely...