Season 2
Episode 9: Breeding “Better” Humans & Other Dangerous Ideas Driving American Politics
Angela Saini
Episode Summary
Award-winning science journalist and author, Angela Saini, talks about our cultural, historic, and scientific understandings of race, gender, and sex, which are all delineators that figure prominently in eugenic ideas about human worth and worthiness and how these ideas are driving American politics today.
KEY TOPICS
The ideology of eugenics is fundamentally driven by a pursuit that can seem deceptively desirable: the “improvement of the human species.” What does it really mean to “improve” people?
How does the pursuit of perfection drive eugenic thinking?
How are you thinking about efforts today to scrub scientific research of engagement with gender and race?
Across human history how have people thought about biological sex gender and social roles?
What did DNA testing bring to the conversation about how patriarchy spread?
What do you think medical and genetics professionals should really be paying attention to in terms of how science, in particular genetics, is being discussed today culturally and politically?
How does taking a long view of human history inform how you're thinking about the political moment we're living through right now?
Do you think the left / progressives have a cohesive story that people want to hear?
Resources
Angela Saini. The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule. Beacon Press, 2023.
Angela Saini. Superior: The Return of Race Science. Beacon Press, 2020.
Angela Saini. Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong. Beacon Press, 2017.
“ Eugenics: Science's Greatest Scandal,” BBC Four. 2019-2020.
“The Misinformation Virus,” BBC Four. 2019.
Work of Anne Fausto-Sterling see: https://www.annefaustosterling.com/.
Pamela Toler. Women Warriors. Beacon Press, 2019.
Profile of Marija Gimbutas: https://www.opusarchives.org/marija-gimbutas-collection/