It seems, and it is, a colossal task to change average human nature one iota. Yet in the light of modern eugenics we could make a new human race in a hundred years if only people in positions of power and influence would wake up to the paramount importance of what eugenics means. And this could be done quietly and simply without violence to existing ideas of what is right and proper. It could be done by segregation of the sexes for defectives, feeble-minded, idiots, epileptics, insane, etc. By this kind of isolation, we can save the blood stream of our race from a tremendous amount of needless contamination. And it is being done. The growing tendency to put defectives in institutions, though originally with no such object, will have the effect of reducing the transmission of defects, especially when it is recognized that the sexes must be separated and that the inmates should be kept at the institution through the reproductive period of life.

Sterilization is also a means which may be advantageously applied in extreme cases. Sensible marriage laws if backed by an enlightened public opinion can add much.

via Eugenics.

It looks like this book was the source of the much-quoted story about the descendants of Jonathan Edwards:

Few people have any idea, unless they have looked into the pedigrees of some of these people, what awful contamination can be saved the race by a wise application of eugenics. There is a family called "the Jukes," all descended from a thriftless fisherman, born in 1720. About twelve hundred of these descendants have been traced in 75 years. Of these, 310 were professional paupers who spent an aggregate of 2,300 years in poorhouses, 50 were prostitutes, 7 murderers, 60 habitual thieves and 130 common criminals. Dugdale, who compiled these facts, estimated that the "Juke" family cost the Government over $1,000 for each member of the family. Similarly the "Tribe of Ishmael," numbering 1,692 individuals in six generations, has produced 121 known prostitutes and has bred hundreds of petty thieves, vagrants and murderers. [5] Compare the descendants of that family with the descendants of Jonathan Edwards, who was born in the same period (1 703) and who has had about the same number of descendants (1,394 traced up to 1900). Out of those descendants, something like half have been public men or men of great distinction and good influence in the world; 295 were college graduates, about 100 were clergymen or missionaries, over 100 were lawyers, 80 held public office, 75 were officers in the army or navy, 60 were eminent writers, 30 were judges, 13 were college presidents.

Locating this story in Fisher's context horrifies me. I'd like to know if Fisher was quoting someone else, or if the Edwards narrative was put together (researched?) to suit Fisher's conclusions.

The Immigration Act of 1924—with quotas based on the 1890 census—became law that May. Congress had been “hoodwinked” by the eugenicists, Representative Emanuel Celler complained, with the result that total immigration was cut in half, and immigration from targeted countries like Italy by as much as 90 percent. The law would later become a factor in preventing Jewish refugees from escaping Nazi persecution. In Germany, an imprisoned political extremist viewed these developments with satisfaction. Writing Mein Kampf in his cell, Adolf Hitler complained that naturalization in Germany was not all that different from “being admitted to membership of an automobile club,” and that “the child of any Jew, Pole, African, or Asian may automatically become a German citizen.” Now, though, “by excluding certain races” from the right to become American citizens, the United States had held up a shining example to the world. It was the sort of reform, Hitler wrote, “on which we wish to ground the People’s State.”

via Yale Alumni Magazine: God & White Men at Yale (May/June 2012).

We know better now, of course. And yet eugenic ideas still linger just beneath the skin, in what seem to be more innocent forms. We tend to think, for instance, that if we went to Yale, or better yet, went to Yale and married another Yalie, our children will be smart enough to go to Yale, too. The concept of regression toward the mean—invented, ironically, by Francis Galton, the original eugenicist—says, basically: don’t count on it. But outsiders still sometimes share our eugenic delusions. Would-be parents routinely place ads in college newspapers and online offering to pay top dollar to gamete donors who are slender, attractive, of the desired ethnic group, with killer SAT scores—and an Ivy League education.

Irving Fisher and the other Yale eugenicists would no doubt rejoice that the university’s germ plasm is still so highly valued—at up to ten times the price for other colleges. But if they looked more carefully at the evidence, they would discover that these highly desirable donors are now often the grandsons and granddaughters of the very immigrants they once worked so hard to eliminate.

Edward Wilson has made important discoveries of his own. His place in history is assured, and so is Hamilton’s. Please do read Wilson’s earlier books, including the monumental The Ants, written jointly with Bert Hölldobler (yet another world expert who will have no truck with group selection). As for the book under review, the theoretical errors I have explained are important, pervasive, and integral to its thesis in a way that renders it impossible to recommend. To borrow from Dorothy Parker, this is not a book to be tossed lightly aside. It should be thrown with great force. And sincere regret.

via The descent of Edward Wilson.

The best book about work and productivity I ever read wasn’t even about that, which is why you should read it if you care about this stuff. This is Water is short enough to be finished in 30 minutes, and the pedigree of its author ensures that you can read it in public without feeling like some sad-sack self-help junkie. I just re-read it myself, and here’s the gist: Life — the only one you get — consists of what you pay attention to. There is literally nothing else. via Confessions of a recovering lifehacker « John Pavlus.

And make no mistake about it, you are dumb.  You're a group of incredibly well-educated dumb people.  I was there.  We all were there.  You're barely functional.  There are some screw-ups headed your way.  I wish I could tell you that there was a trick to avoiding the screw-ups, but the screw-ups, they're a-coming for ya.  It's a combination of life being unpredictable, and you being super dumb.

via Remarks....

For years, Gac Filipaj mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash at Columbia University. A refugee from war-torn Yugoslavia, he eked out a living working for the Ivy League school. But Sunday was payback time: The 52-year-old janitor donned a cap and gown to graduate with a bachelor's degree in classics.

As a Columbia employee, he didn't have to pay for the classes he took. His favorite subject was the Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca, the janitor said during a break from his work at Lerner Hall, the student union building he cleans.

"I love Seneca's letters because they're written in the spirit in which I was educated in my family - not to look for fame and fortune, but to have a simple, honest, honorable life," he said.

His graduation with honors capped a dozen years of studies, including readings in ancient Latin and Greek.

via News from The Associated Press.