© 2008 • 490 pp., illus.
Hardcover • $55 • ISBN  978-087969756-3

In 1911, the influential geneticist Charles Davenport published Heredity in Relation to Eugenics, advancing his ideas of how genetics would improve society in the 20th century. It became a college textbook and a foundation for the widespread eugenics movement in the United States. Nearly 100 years later, many of the issues raised by Davenport are again being debated, in different guises. In this new volume, prominent academics discuss themes from Davenport’s book—human genetic variation, mental illness, nature vs. nurture, human evolution—in a contemporary context. Davenport’s original book is reprinted along with the essays. This book will be useful to historians of science as well as those interested in the social implications of human genetics research—past, present, and future.

Preface

Jan A. Witkowski and John R. Inglis, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Foreword

Matt Ridley, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Genes and Politics

James D. Watson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Charles Benedict Davenport, 1866–1944

Jan A. Witkowski, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

The Eugenic World of Charles Benedict Davenport

Elof A. Carlson, University at Stony Brook

Davenport’s Dream

Maynard V. Olson, University of Washington

Genetic Determinism and Evolutionary Ethics: A Mitochondrial Perspective

Douglas C. Wallace, University of California, Irvine

Psychiatric Genetics in an Era of Relative Enlightenment

Daniel R. Weinberger, National Institute of Mental Health, and David Goldman, National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Genes in Mind?

Lindsey Kent, St. Andrews University, and Simon Baron-Cohen, Cambridge University

Davenport and Heredity Counseling

Philip R. Reilly, Interleukin Genetics

Genetics and Equality

Ronald Dworkin, New York University School of Law

Genetics and Human Nature

Lewis Wolpert, University College London

A Reprint of Heredity in Relation to Eugenics

Charles Benedict Davenport (Published by Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1911)

Index