While reading pages 2 and 3 of John Taylor Gatto’s Weapons of Mass Instruction I found myself looking to find answers to the following questions:
Question #1: Did an Eastern European scientist named Max Muller win a Nobel Prize for scheming to use X-rays to override normal genetic laws?
Question #2: Did the mad scientist’s Geneticists’ Manifesto (that called for state action to separate worthwhile breeding stock from the great mass of evolutionary dead end material) garner signatures of support from leading American and British biologists?
Question #1 Research Results: See my previous blog post.
Question #2 Research Results:
Verified: The Ethics of Human Gene Therapy (p.108) provides the following historical and biographical background:
The first statement to outline three spheres for possible human genetic enhancement was drafted by classical geneticist Hermann J. Muller during the Seventh International Congress of Genetics held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in August 1939.
At the congress the participants were challenged by Science Service to respond to the following question: How could the world’s population be improved most effectively genetically?” The reply to this question, signed by 23 scientists, was popularly known as the “Geneticists’ Manifesto.” [An odd disclaimer immediately follows.] The manifesto by no means adopted the perspective of biological determinism. Rather, it accented both social and genetic changes that could enhance human well-being.
Red Flag #1: The verbal sleight of hand in the disclaimer indicates that there is something to hide. It is nonsensical to claim that Muller was “by no means” advocating biological determinism when this assertion is followed by the claim that Muller wanted to genetically modify human beings. Noting that Muller desired to complement genetic modification with the imposition of global changes in social order does little to soften the literate reader’s view of the sickness in Muller’s mind.