Matters of Health: Michael Lynch’s Reminder of Evolution’s Eugenics—Junk Science Matters

Michael Lynch’s recent finding that “novel means” of genetic intervention are required for the future genetic well-being of our species is a bit disturbing. After all, the last time evolutionists imposed “novel means” of genetic intervention we had everything from forced sterilization to institutionalization (read imprisonment). Nonetheless, Lynch informs us that the fundamental requirement for the maintenance of a species’ genetic integrity and long-term viability is that deleterious mutations must be balanced by the removal of such mutations by natural selection. And since Darwin’s dispensation of benevolence—otherwise known as death—is a less effective tool in our modern civilized society, and since our mutation load is unpredictable thus rendering genetic counseling ineffective, the result is that some “novel means” of genetic intervention are needed.

Lynch approvingly references evolutionist and eugenicist Hermann Muller from sixty years ago who “was well aware of the enormous social barriers to solving the mutation-accumulation problem, but he held out hope that ‘a rationally directed guidance of reproduction’ would eventually stabilize the situation.”

A rationally directed guidance of reproduction? This pathetically must have been the inspiration for Dr. Strangelove’s classic parody of the academic’s fantasy:

Muffley: Well, I, I would hate to have to decide...who stays up and...who goes down.

Dr. Strangelove: Well, that would not be necessary, Mr. President. It could easily be accomplished with a computer. And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a cross-section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do. Ha, ha. But ah, with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present Gross National Product within say, twenty years.

Muffley: Wouldn't this nucleus of survivors be so grief-stricken and anguished that they'd, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living?

Dr. Strangelove: When they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead! [involuntarily gives the Nazi salute and forces it down with his other hand]Ahhh!

Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious...service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

Like Kubrick’s classic character Dr. Strangelove, Muller, who once wrote a letter to Joseph Stalin imploring the communist dictator to implement the “conscious control of human biological evolution,” promoted a kindler and gentler eugenics.

Muller wanted Stalin to “guide human biological evolution along socially desirable lines” for human nature was not immutable and given the lofty advances of modern genetics such a program could bestow the gift of genius “upon practically every individual in the population” within just a few generations.

Of course “guidance” would have to be furnished to ensure the proper grouping of the most valuable genes “into as highly superior groupings as possible.”

And what type of man should be consciously selected? Well Charles Darwin, of course, would represent the perfect choice. Of course with Darwin long dead, leading evolutionists of the day would have to do. And if Stalin doubted any of this, Muller assured him that “Considering the enormous results achieved by natural biological evolution in the past, the potential value of a biological method of progression cannot be doubted.”

It is said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In the case of evolutionists such as Muller we would have to add a generous layer of junk science. It was this dangerous combination of presumption and ignorance that led to the twentieth century’s eugenics nightmare.

Consider, for example, Sir Francis Galton who was impressed with the work of his half-cousin, a man by the name of Charles Darwin. Galton reasoned that a race of highly-gifted men could be produced by arranged, “judicious” marriages. The notion of eugenics caught on and soon the sick, infirm and botched were targeted as a public enemy.

Blessed are the poor in spirit and the meek, explained Jesus, but that was then. As Nietzsche now explained:

Sick people are the greatest danger for healthy people. …

The invalids are the great danger to humanity: not the evil men, not the “predatory animals.” Those people who are, from the outset, failures, oppressed, broken— they are the ones, the weakest, who most undermine life among human beings, who in the most perilous way poison and question our trust in life, in humanity, in ourselves. Where can we escape it, that downcast glance with which people carry a deep sorrow, that reversed gaze of the man originally born to fail which betrays how such a man speaks to himself—that gaze which is a sigh. “I wish I could be someone else!”— that’s what this glance sighs. “But there is no hope here. I am who I am. How could I detach myself from myself? And yet—I’ve had enough of myself!”. . . On such a ground of contempt for oneself, a truly swampy ground, grows every weed, every poisonous growth, and all of them so small, so hidden, so dishonest, so sweet. Here the worms of angry and resentful feelings swarm; here the air stinks of secrets and duplicity; here are constantly spun the nets of the most malicious conspiracies—the plotting of suffering people against the successful and victorious; here the appearance of the victor is despised. And what dishonesty not to acknowledge this hatred as hatred! …

Take a look into the background of every family, every corporation, every community: everywhere you see the struggle of the sick against the healthy—a quiet struggle, for the most part …

From scientists such as Charles Davenport (Director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) to elites such as Theodore Roosevelt and Oliver Wendell Holmes, eugenics was well accepted, and all with the best of intentions no doubt. Even Clarence Darrow at one point urged that we “chloroform unfit children.”

Evolutionist Henry Goddard identified a particular family as having inferior genetics on one side, making for a classic case study of good genes versus bad genes. According to this phony evolutionary science, those on the “bad” side were diagnosed as “feeble-minded,” a vague category into which anyone on the wrong side of an evolutionist could be cast. Their penalties included forced sterilization and a life sentence in an institution.

Laws across America and even Supreme Court rulings turned against those who evolutionists pronounced to have the wrong genes. And evolutionist’s such as Goddard enjoyed success and reputation while their victims were mutilated and imprisoned.

Evolution is not just a silly idea advocated by academics. It is junk science at its worst. Religion drives science, and it matters.