Week2

The following passage in _Controlling Human Heredity_ by Diane B. Paul was the inspiration for my question:

"Darwin at most flirted with eugenics. But his work provided the context that made Galton's views on heredity compelling. The claim that social failures result from bad blood engendered such alarm in the late nineteenth century because of its link to Darwin's theory of natural selection. Eugenics was transformed from abstract idea to social movement when it became attached to widespread assumptions about evolutionary progress and decline" (Paul 36).

Discussion Question: Without Darwin's theory of natural selection, how different would the course of history be in regards to Hitler's eugenics assertions and the inhumanity of the Holocaust?

Here are my thoughts regarding the exposition to Mendel's Dwarf:

The novel opens at an address to the members of the Mendel Symposium given by Doctor Benedict Lambert, who we quickly learn is a dwarf. The author gives a very interesting response to the applause Dr. Lambert receives at the conclusion of his address.

"They would applaud anything that I did, you see-it's a way of assuaging that insidious sensation of guilt that they all feel."

Due to the nature of Doctor Lambert's research and his genetic disorder, is it plausible to say that he feels like he is only receiving this type of attention because he's a dwarf and people take pity on him. As Mawer put it "Theirs is the guilt of the survivor."

My question comes from the Controlling Human Heredity book about Galton on page 30. The book says that Galton considered the parental/social influences of a person's success in fields such as science or literature, but then Galton dismisses these ideas. So did Galton believe that only genetic inheritance determines a person's intelligence? I would think that the success of the parents would still have a significant influence on their child's education and success.

If Darwin and Galton did not publish their more radical explinations and solutions for negative breeding, or didn't publish their ideas at all; would society have even acknowledged Wallace's proposals? Or since he was from a lower class, would the ideas of evolution die all together? --- Darwin was always conflicted with his ideas and theories, but chose not to publish until he felt there was some certainty. Wallace chose to publish as and when he pleased, it is evident by his self contradiction that he too was conflicted. With all these ideas being considered during the 19th century what did the interested bystander think of the ideas of evolution and how would one accept these ideas that so disagreed with the church? [] []

My question is from the Controlling Human Heredity reading and I was wondering as to why Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace didn't just collaborate more on the research they had been doing at the time instead of just constantly switching their views after reading what new things the other one had discovered about genetics/heredity? This confused me and I was wondering if maybe it was because of some other differences keeping them from collaborating that I just didn't catch onto.

In the reading i had read that Darwin started to feel that such characteristics of animals for instance that would make them more vulnerable as prey (like brightly colored feathers) must be due to sexual selection and not natural selection.

My question is what would cause darwin to change his view from thinking that these characteristics were due to sexual selection instead of natural selection.

My question this week was inspired by the realization during lecture today that of all the bell curves and statistics that the people making the bell curves and speaking about eugenics,placed the writers of the information as the highest quality, whether it be that they represented the norm (as in the case of race) or if they represented the outliers to the right of the bell curve (as in the case of wealth).

So my question is were there ever any conflicts about which traits were the desirable ones? Such that different groups of people published conflicting data in regards to the direction of eugenics. And if and when this happened, what happened and how was it dealt with?

For one of my other classes I am reading a book dealing with moral issues, moral development, and the differences between men and women. Because of certain relationships and gender identifications women tend to grow up valuing relationships and people more than men when put in certain situations. I can't help but wonder about the way things might have been had women played a more prominent role in the early scientific discoveries. We discussed the differences between some important men and their thoughts on eugenics. What do you think an essay on eugenics from that time would be like as written by a woman? Based on the semi-theories of differences in development, do you think the field may have taken a completely different turn had the main minds belonged to women or would it have been similar? [] []

[] In relation to the "Alfred Russel Wallace:Selection and Socialism" section in Controlling Human Heredity; in his "attempt to resolve the long-standing dispute between monogenists and polygenists origins...", would the map showing the distribution of hominid populations support the monogenist or polygenist theory? And although this map shows that homo sapiens have come from a common ancestor, homo ergaster, how does this relate to the typical evolution over time that it was in a simple line pattern as we evolved from homo erectus and other more primitive hominids as below?

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My question isn't really related to the readings, but its a question that is kinda bothering me:

Mendel studied physics and lived in a monastery, so why did he decide to study plants, and what inspired his hypothesis?

The article "Mendel in America: Theory and Practice, 1900-1919" shows that a lot of the recognition of Mendel's work can be attributed to the agricultural industry. Had it not been for the need to diversify the American agricultural industry due to the overproduction of wheat, would so much have been learned about genetics and hybridization so quickly?

I have a question regarding the reading on Mendel’s 9 lives. I was confused by the importance of Mendel’s views on Darwinism (How is it relevant to today?). Say that the theory that he committed scientific fraud is true, would there be such a large change in modern biology?