Remodelling the Boundaries of Normality: Lionel S. Penrose and Population Surveys of Mental Ability (2013)
When it comes to critics of eugenics from within the biological sciences, few are as renowned and respected as the British medical geneticist Lionel Sharpless Penrose (1898--1972). It was not simply that he was severe and incisive in his criticism -- this was a characteristic he shared with the left-wing biologists J. B. S. Haldane and Lancelot Hogben. Penrose is considered unique in terms of the depth and consistency of his censure. While others may have tempered their criticisms by declaring a determination to distinguish a true eugenics from false, to place it on a sure scientific footing, Penrose identifies the very idea of eugenics to be fatally flawed. He is celebrated for his critique; Deborah Thom and Mary Jennings see Penrose serving as `almost the Galileo of genetics, establishing “true science” in the face of the religiosity of the eugenicists'. In more measured terms, Diane Paul sees his position to be `a major exception' among mid-century biologists. One of the aims of this essay is to complicate this story -- but not, as has been so popular in recent years, by attempting to uncover an underlying sympathy for eugenics by another of its famed critics. The power and importance of Penrose's critique will be emphasized as it is further explored.
...MoreBook Gausemeier, Bernd; Müller-Wille, Staffan; Ramsden, Edmund (2013) Human Heredity in the Twentieth Century.
Similar Citations
Article
Valles, Sean A.;
(2012)
Lionel Penrose and the Concept of Normal Variation in Human Intelligence
Article
Ramsden, Edmund;
(2009)
Confronting the Stigma of Eugenics: Genetics, Demography and the Problems of Population
Article
Watt, David C.;
(1998)
Lionel Penrose, F.R.S. (1898-1972) and eugenics
Chapter
Cottebrune, Anne;
(2013)
The Emergence of Genetic Counselling in the Federal Republic of Germany: Continuity and Change in the Narratives of Human Geneticists, c.1968--80
Article
Pettit, Michael;
(2013)
Becoming Glandular: Endocrinology, Mass Culture and Experimental Lives in the Interwar Age
Article
Bangham, Jenny;
Chadarevian, Soraya de;
(2014)
Human Heredity after 1945: Moving Populations Centre Stage
Article
Chadarevian, Soraya de;
(2014)
Chromosome Surveys of Human Populations: Between Epidemiology and Anthropology
Book
Dowbiggin, Ian Robert;
(2008)
The Sterilization Movement and Global Fertility in the Twentieth Century
Article
Ramsden, Edmund;
(2014)
Surveying the Meritocracy: The Problems of Intelligence and Mobility in the Studies of the Population Investigation Committee
Article
Reggiani, Andrés Horacio;
(2002)
Alexis Carrel Unkown: Eugenics and Population Research under Vichy
Article
Filippo Maria Sposini;
(2020)
Just the Basic Facts: The Certification of Insanity in the Era of the Form K
Article
Evans, Bonnie;
(2014)
The Foundations of Autism: The Law Concerning Psychotic, Schizophrenic, and Autistic Children in 1950s and 1960s Britain
Book
Mai, Christoph;
(1997)
Humangenetik im Dienste der “Rassenhygiene”: Zwillingsforschung in Deutschland bis 1945
Book
Kröner, Hans-Peter;
(1998)
Von der Rassenhygiene zur Humangenetik: Das Kaiser-Wilhelm-Institut für Anthropologie, menschliche Erblehre und Eugenik nach dem Kriege
Book
Weiss, Sheila Faith;
(2010)
The Nazi Symbiosis: Human Genetics and Politics in the Third Reich
Book
Bashford, Alison;
Levine, Philippa;
(2010)
The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics
Book
Lombardo, Paul A.;
(2011)
A Century of Eugenics in America: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era
Article
Doetz, Susanne;
(2012)
Widerspruch und Eigen-Sinn zwangssterilisierter Frauen
Thesis
Dorr, Gregory Michael;
(2000)
Segregation's science: The American eugenics movement and Virginia, 1900-1980
Article
Lipphardt, Veronika;
(2014)
“Geographical Distribution Patterns of Various Genes”: Genetic Studies of Human Variation after 1945
American Historical Review
Bulletin of the History of Medicine
French Historical Studies
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Medizin, Gesellschaft, und Geschichte
Be the first to comment!