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If I found out my parents believed in Eugenics I wouldn't talk to them

• mc32 6y ago
  But you don’t pretend you don’t know them or that they are not your parents. The great majority thought they were doing good. We know different today. We know now the new Soviet man is bullshit. Back then they believed in this.
  • mhh__ 6y ago
    So what? The point is that we don't name awards after them. They aren't erasing Millikan from the history books but rather choosing not to blindly use his name as a honour. My secondary school house was named after a slave trader, they recently changed it - good riddance. Of all the bad things modern reappraisal culture is leading to, this isn't one of them.
    • mc32 6y ago
      Buying and selling people is not the same. There is no science. It’s just brutality. Eugenicists were looking to better society, albeit absurdly. It was bullshit but back then it wasn’t. It’s like condemning shamen and medicine men and women. Sure it was bullshit, but they thought it was real and effective. We’re going to Mars. Maybe Elon will be first. Most everyone would be excited. Maybe some day in the future it’ll be the worst thing we ever did as a species. Do we vomit on them because now we know better?
      • pseudalopex 6y ago
        Caltech's president said Millikan lent his name to views discredited even at the time. Not honoring someone isn't vomiting on them.
  • pseudalopex 6y ago
    The press release calls him Caltech's founding president. They don't pretend they don't know him.