Episode 14: Medical Genetics & Eugenics: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Nathaniel Comfort, PhD, author of The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine and a forthcoming biography on James Watson, talks about medical genetics and eugenics as "two sides of the same coin," and cautions that there is no simple, bright line between the two pursuits.

KEY TOPICS

• Reading from The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine by Nathaniel Comfort, PhD
• How should clinicians and prospective parents think about the argument that there is no bright line between genetic interventions to relieve suffering v. human engineering or population improvement?
• What are the contingent problems created between distinguishing between genetic interventions for a fatal disease v. a non-fatal disease?
• How did the end of World War II and the dropping of the atomic bombs rejuvenate Americans' interest in science and genetic disease?
• How do we talk about genetics today in a way that embraces the actual complexity of the science?
• In the current moment of sea change, what is the cultural authority of science in the United States?
• Discussion of Dr. Comfort's new biography of James Watson, his enormous contributions to the field of human genetics and also his downfall.

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