12 ms·

Cancelled by his college

83 points by 34679 5y ago

pitched 5y ago
"No one is safe from the future" and all that. It feels sad on one hand that someone's legacy can be brought down so quickly. On the other hand, our legacies don't belong to us anymore, after we leave. When it's up to our children to decide how to run the place, they also get to choose their own idols.
peter303 5y ago
Stanford University has been systematically erasing the names of early professors and missionaries from buildings and streets who were politically incorrect by current standards. They almost needed to rename the university itself due to the naughty speeches of Governor Leland Stanford. But fortunately they have a loophole since the University is named for his son who died as a teenager.
mbostleman 5y ago
Cancel culture vs eugenics. Oh the irony.
1270018080 5y ago
He was a eugenicist throughout his entire career. That's a good enough reason to not worship him.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  Are our only options to worship someone or erase them?
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Removing idols is not erasure.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    He wasn’t being worshipped and hasn’t been erased, so I’d say no.
  - geofft 5y ago
    The question here is about who gets a literal stained-glass window in their honor. If not having a stained-glass window means you're erased, then we'd better start making a whole lot more stained-glass windows.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      People who make significant contributions to science get stained-glass windows and such. If removing the ones for people we're trying to memory hole as being part our own histories isn't trying to erase them, what is it?
      - pvg 5y ago
        For the most part, they don't get 'stained-glass windows and such' and beside that, our capacity to remember people is independent of stained-glassed windows. It takes overly broad, maximalist interpretations to make this into much of an argument to begin with.
        AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > For the most part, they don't get 'stained-glass windows and such' Then why did this guy have one to begin with? > our capacity to remember people is independent of stained-glassed windows. Then why do we build them for people we do like? The problem is this: Having someone be simultaneously notable for something good and notable for something bad doesn't cancel out and make them notable for nothing. They did the good thing they did, which we should remember, and they did the bad thing they did, which we should also remember. But institutions have the incentive to present only the good in their histories. Which is how we forget our mistakes and make them again. You don't like this guy? Leave the window alone and build whatever the opposite of a window is to condemn his bad acts.
        notahacker 5y ago
        > You don't like this guy? Leave the window alone and build whatever the opposite of a window is to condemn his bad acts. Ironically, the article includes a photo of someone who has done just that: stencilled some critical graffiti. It's in the process of being erased. The author who is so keen to preserve the window doesn't seem to mind that opinion being cancelled. But probably neither windows nor graffiti are actually good ways to evaluate historical figures and their good and bad contributions to science.
  - 1270018080 5y ago
    No, those aren't the only two options. They removed the stain glass window worshiping him. Did you read the article? What do you think erasing means?
  - glenda 5y ago
    I tend to think what you’re reacting to is just history moving forward. Unfortunately not everyone will be remembered forever.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Removing a window isn't erasing anybody.
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  So was Margaret Sanger yet we still love our abortion clinics
  - 1270018080 5y ago
    I don't see any stained glass windows of Margaret Sanger anywhere. What is your point?
  - acdha 5y ago
    You’re confused on one point — she staunchly opposed abortion except to preserve the mother’s life (her support of birth control was to avoid needing one) — and Planned Parenthood isn’t shying away from acknowledging the bad parts of her legacy: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/planned-parenthoo... That seems to be the right way to handle this: the history is still there for anyone curious but nobody is saying she’s a role-model for the future.
emilfihlman 5y ago
It's one of the most awful things we nowadays do, erase and hide history because somone complains. I hope we stop before it's too late.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  I’m not arguing one way or the other, but how does a window teach history? If we’re comparing it to statues what do they teach? What do they symbolize? Are we required to keep them forever? Under what circumstances is it acceptable to change, replace or remove them?
- jrmg 5y ago
  This argument that we should keep statues (or windows) to remember history doesn’t seem to hold water to me. What are we remembering by keeping them? I don’t think that anyone argues that we should be _erecting_ statues to figures we don’t admire - who, if they’re intended as cautionary tales are surely _more_ worthwhile to think about. So it’s not just that they serve to help us remember figures from the past. So should we instead keep them to remember that the people _were_ once admired enough to get statues? That seems like a very odd second-order reason to keep something.
- Angostura 5y ago
  There's quite a gap between "erasing" someone and celebrating them. It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable for an organisation to decide that they no-longer want to celebrate someone.
jakelazaroff 5y ago
To be clear, "canceled" in this case means… removing a commemorative stained-glass window. No one has made a stained-glass window to commemorate me. Am I also being canceled?
1cvmask 5y ago
They actually cancel academics for saying the “wrong” thing. This is not even anything close to that. Having a window removed is not a big deal at all: But now the college Fisher loved has turned its back on him. It has removed from the Hall a stained-glass window commemorating him, one of a set of six installed to celebrate him, Crick, Venn, Chadwick and two other distinguished college figures, Sir Charles Sherrington and George Green. It has done so because of accusations that Fisher was a proponent of eugenics.
- notahacker 5y ago
  Ironically, whilst arguing that only crazy woke leftists could possibly see postwar enthusiasm for the race science of literal Nazis as a reason not to venerate a [very clever] eugenicist, the same "pushback against dangerous consensus" publication carries other columns twisting Popper's paradox of tolerance into a case for the Civil Service to purge anyone sufficiently left wing to criticise the government. Cancelling stained glass tributes to flawed geniuses is a tragedy, cancelling those who complain about the government they work for a necessity It's almost the reductio ad absurdum version of culture war bullshit.
  - Veen 5y ago
    > only crazy woke leftists could possibly see postwar enthusiasm for the race science of literal Nazis Let's not forget that eugenics was not an exclusively right-wing position. Many socialists were pro-eugenics: the Webbs, Shaw, C.P. Snow, Haldane, and many more. Eugenics was widely supported by many academics of all political stripes in the early 20th Century.
    - Dma54rhs 5y ago
      At some point eugenics was very much "progressive" way of thinking. People tend to forget that every old idea at some point was progressive and new, progress itself doesn't mean it will we judged right by future generations. Also its very much as alive right now - we abort the vast majority of fetuses with known birth defects, we just don't want to call it that. Doesn't matter your view of abortion but its difficult to argue against it.
muglug 5y ago
The article has a lot of waffle, but it seems clear that even in the author's viewpoint, Fisher was a eugenecist, and argued for the cause even in the wake of WW2: > (6) Fisher, in a testimonial for von Verschuer after the war, supported von Verschuer’s “wish to benefit the German racial stock, especially by the elimination of manifest defectives, such as those deficient mentally”. You can say "we should judge people by the standards of their time", but it seems that he fell short even by those standards.
- Swenrekcah 5y ago
  I think we should be able to compartmentalise and recognise it is possible to admire someone for one thing while condemning them for another. The commemoration was for mathematical contributions, not humanitarian efforts.
  - Kranar 5y ago
    I don't think it's that simple. When you award someone a prize, you are potentially giving that person a great deal of influence and credibility not only on issues regarding the specifics of the prize, but also general publicity.
    - Swenrekcah 5y ago
      That’s fine. Another thing society needs to curb is getting celebs to comment on everything, so attention in one area doesn’t make one into an all-knowing life coach as it seems to work for some people. But more broadly, if you are worried that giving someone’s attention will create a large following of, for instance eugenicists, then you are actually worried about the idea already having a large support, irrespective of the person who would receive an unrelated award. There are good arguments to be made against eugenics programs, just make them instead of trying to disappear anyone that has ever seemed to support them. Refusing to recognise someone’s brilliance because of political ideologies is something most people understand to be wrong and in my view just as likely, if not more, to create support for that political cause than to suppress it.
- 5y ago
toiletfuneral 5y ago
I guess since I'm not a student there this doesn't make me that mad. Why would i care? Did they remove his research & discoveries out of the libraries too?
The_rationalist 5y ago
Eugenism is one of the most useful things to do for humans hapiness given that 40% of happiness is derived from genetics.
cgrealy 5y ago
I am puzzled by the "oh no, this is erasing history" people. There are many people throughout history that are known and studied without being celebrated. Statues, windows, etc. are there to commemorate and celebrate people. If we decide that we shouldn't celebrate an individual (confederate generals for example), removing that statue is not the same as erasing them from history.
- Veen 5y ago
  > If we decide that we shouldn't celebrate an individual That's precisely what's at issue. Who decides who should be celebrated and who should not? What are the criteria for deciding? And what story are we telling about our history with those decisions.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    I didn’t think I’d have to type this tonight but: Let’s agree not to celebrate racists or other bigots?
    - Veen 5y ago
      That would leave approximately no one from more than a century ago and almost no one from the last century, especially if you're going to exclude anyone who might be considered a bigot by modern progressive standards.
      - akerl_ 5y ago
        Yes, I’m cool with that. We can remember these people existed and the things they did without celebrating them. Removing statues is an example of that.
        Veen 5y ago
        Are you really cool with that though? It implies no mathematician, scientist, artist, writer, athlete, politician, soldier, or activist should be celebrated or admired unless they exactly conform to the ideological purity standards of modern progressives? If you are cool with that, you and those who think like you are precisely why people get so agitated when statues are pulled down and windows hidden in basements.
g42gregory 5y ago
Interestingly, Margaret Sanger Awards were stopped quietly in 2015 but never given the negative press. For example, Wikipedia article is completely silent on that point [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger_Awards
- readflaggedcomm 5y ago
  She is a Democratic hero. There is nothing to cancel in her work which remains.
JakeAl 5y ago
All selective breeding is eugenics. If you believe in aborting babies with Down Syndrome, you're a eugenicist. If you believe in choosing a sperm donor based on genetic fitness, you're a eugenicist. If you selectively breed cattle, or your dog, you're a eugenicist. There are rare but debilitating genetic diseases that can arise from mixed race procreation as anyone who's watched Discovery Health may know. Before people judge, they should study the topic and motivation thoroughly. Eugenics does not means racist or genocide, nor does it mean a eugenicist is motivate by hatred or racism. The word for that is racist. There's a whole field of Genetic Counseling that exists for the purpose of eugenics and catering to the biological health of offspring that have emerged since our science has advanced enough to understand the role genes play in biological, physical and mental health. Read up on the topic. It's quite revealing.
- emmelaich 5y ago
  I think a lot of people are eugenicists, depending on the precise meaning. Is bemoaning the fertility of some disfavoured social or religious group eugenicist? If it is then a hell of a lot of people are eugenicist, and definitely not confined to the right.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  >All selective breeding is eugenics. If you believe in aborting babies with Down Syndrome, you're a eugenicist. If you believe in choosing a sperm donor based on genetic fitness, you're a eugenicist. If you selectively breed cattle, or your dog, you're a eugenicist. Dating & Mating is eugenics at a conscious & subconscious level.
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    Some things are considered okay if individuals do them voluntarily, and bad when governments send men with guns to enforce them. By the same logic, there is nothing wrong with censorship, because individuals also decide to not say certain things or not pay attention to certain things.
    - 5y ago
fmajid 5y ago
A better approach would be damnatio memoriae, as with the Venetian Doge Marin Falier, whose official portrait was covered with black velvet and a mention this was done for his crimes (attempting a coup).
actually_a_dog 5y ago
IMO, the accusations in the article really don't hold up under a broader examination of Fisher's views on eugenics and his work as a whole. Quotes in this comment come from Bodmer, W., Bailey, R.A., Charlesworth, B. et al. The outstanding scientist, R.A. Fisher: his views on eugenics and race. Heredity 126, 565–576 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-020-00394-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-020-00394-6 With full text available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-00394-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-00394-6 I highly recommend you read this paper if you're interested in a deep exploration of these topics. I've also paraphrased a few things here, but, go easy on me. This is a HN comment, ya know, not an academic paper. It's not my intention to plagiarize anyone here. :) --- FISHER THE EUGENICIST Fisher absolutely was a eugenicist, but not in the way in which that word is typically colored by its association with the Nazis. His concept of eugenics was more along the lines of a set of methods by which a population could improve itself via controlled or regulated breeding. This concept, as espoused by Fisher, was certainly extremely classist, as he regarded people of high intelligence and leadership ability, whom he referred to as the "higher classes" as inherently more valuable than others, among which would fall people such as tradesmen and unskilled laborers ("lower classes"). And, he did support the Eugenics Society's position in favor of voluntary sterilization of "feebleminded" individuals as part of a way to realize his eugenic vision, and this was the view espoused in the 1934 Brock Report. FISHER AS RACIST The closest he ever comes to advocating any kind of racist idea is when he suggests in his comments on the 1952 UNESCO statement on "The Race Concept" that: > '...available scientific knowledge provides a firm basis for believing that the groups of mankind differ in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development,' seeing that such groups do differ undoubtedly in a very large number of their genes. It's not clear whether he intends the word "groups" to mean "races" in any sense in which we would think of it today. In any case, he does not go so far as to suggest that some "groups" may be generally superior to others. And, remember, he holds out eugenics as a way in which any population may "improve" itself, such as by increasing the overall intelligence level of the population by preventing people of lower intelligence from being born. This is the context in which we should take "his support for von Verschuer’s 'elimination of mental defectives to benefit the German racial stock,'" as noted in the posted article. (I'll return to von Verschuer in a moment.) He does, however, write in private correspondence: > I am sorry that there should be propaganda in favour of miscegenation in North America as I am sure it can do nothing but harm. Is it beyond human endeavour to give and justly administer equal rights to all citizens without fooling ourselves that these are equivalent items? Given the man was born in 1890, I think we can forgive him this belief, which was extremely common right up until the day he died in 1962. ASSOCIATION WITH VON VERSCHUER Now, as regarding von Verschuer and his association with Mengele, there is no evidence Fisher even knew of this association, or that von Verschuer approved in any way of Hitler's genocide against the Jewish people. Indeed: > Richard Goldschmidt, who had been forced to leave his position in Germany because he was Jewish, supported Verschuer as “a fine and sympathetic person” and “an exceptional scholar in his field and one of the most knowledgeable medical geneticists.” In fact, available evidence indicates that Fisher's relationship with von Verschuer was purely scientific, without any racist ideology whatsoever. SUMMARY / CONCLUSION So, in summary, looking at the 6 allegations mentioned in the article (paraphrased): (1) Fisher was a racist: True, but not in his professional work, and not apparently more so than most people were ~100 years ago. (2) He believed in forced sterilization: Patently false. He never advocated forced sterilization, only voluntary sterilization. (3) He was a co-author of the Brock Report of 1934 calling for the legalization of compulsory sterilization: The Brock Report, as a publication of the Eugenics Society, did not advocate compulsory sterilization, only voluntary sterilization. (4) He took a favorable view of Nazi eugenics: There is absolutely no evidence of this, and, in fact a good amount of evidence that he would not have been in favor of Nazi eugenics in any way whatsoever. (5) He corresponded with Otmar von Verschuer, a German geneticist and supervisor of Josef Mengele, efore and after the Second World War: True, but von Verschuer's connection to Mengele was not well known until after the war. And, even then, Fisher's contacts with von Verschuer were on a professional level, devoid of any sort of ideology, much less racist ideology. (6) He supported von Verschuer’s “elimination of mental defectives to benefit the German racial stock”: True, but, again, this must be viewed in the context of Fisher's view on eugenics as a whole, and his utter lack of support for forced sterilization. So, it seems that upon taking a broader view of Fisher's views on eugenics and his professional writings, none of the charges hold up.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bilirubin 5y ago
I thought it ironic that at the end of this article, the author lists the institutions that have taken years to consider this topic and claims they have rushed to judgment, assert his authority over theirs nakedly (and unpersuasively). But the article did remind me how fun the board game Sagrada is.
RickJWagner 5y ago
Eugenics proponents are finally being taken down. Perhaps the most prominent is Margaret Sanger, found of Planned Parenthood. Hillary Clinton tried to rehabilitate her, but this failed. I understand PP is now offering belated apologies and is slowly erasing references to it's founder.

83 points by 34679 5y ago

"No one is safe from the future" and all that. It feels sad on one hand that someone's legacy can be brought down so quickly. On the other hand, our legacies don't belong to us anymore, after we leave. When it's up to our children to decide how to run the place, they also get to choose their own idols.

peter303 5y ago

Stanford University has been systematically erasing the names of early professors and missionaries from buildings and streets who were politically incorrect by current standards. They almost needed to rename the university itself due to the naughty speeches of Governor Leland Stanford. But fortunately they have a loophole since the University is named for his son who died as a teenager.

mbostleman 5y ago

Cancel culture vs eugenics. Oh the irony.

1270018080 5y ago

He was a eugenicist throughout his entire career. That's a good enough reason to not worship him.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
Are our only options to worship someone or erase them?
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Removing idols is not erasure.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  He wasn’t being worshipped and hasn’t been erased, so I’d say no.
- geofft 5y ago
  The question here is about who gets a literal stained-glass window in their honor. If not having a stained-glass window means you're erased, then we'd better start making a whole lot more stained-glass windows.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    People who make significant contributions to science get stained-glass windows and such. If removing the ones for people we're trying to memory hole as being part our own histories isn't trying to erase them, what is it?
    - pvg 5y ago
      For the most part, they don't get 'stained-glass windows and such' and beside that, our capacity to remember people is independent of stained-glassed windows. It takes overly broad, maximalist interpretations to make this into much of an argument to begin with.
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > For the most part, they don't get 'stained-glass windows and such' Then why did this guy have one to begin with? > our capacity to remember people is independent of stained-glassed windows. Then why do we build them for people we do like? The problem is this: Having someone be simultaneously notable for something good and notable for something bad doesn't cancel out and make them notable for nothing. They did the good thing they did, which we should remember, and they did the bad thing they did, which we should also remember. But institutions have the incentive to present only the good in their histories. Which is how we forget our mistakes and make them again. You don't like this guy? Leave the window alone and build whatever the opposite of a window is to condemn his bad acts.
        notahacker 5y ago
        > You don't like this guy? Leave the window alone and build whatever the opposite of a window is to condemn his bad acts. Ironically, the article includes a photo of someone who has done just that: stencilled some critical graffiti. It's in the process of being erased. The author who is so keen to preserve the window doesn't seem to mind that opinion being cancelled. But probably neither windows nor graffiti are actually good ways to evaluate historical figures and their good and bad contributions to science.
- 1270018080 5y ago
  No, those aren't the only two options. They removed the stain glass window worshiping him. Did you read the article? What do you think erasing means?
- glenda 5y ago
  I tend to think what you’re reacting to is just history moving forward. Unfortunately not everyone will be remembered forever.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  Removing a window isn't erasing anybody.
jimmygrapes 5y ago
So was Margaret Sanger yet we still love our abortion clinics
- 1270018080 5y ago
  I don't see any stained glass windows of Margaret Sanger anywhere. What is your point?
- acdha 5y ago
  You’re confused on one point — she staunchly opposed abortion except to preserve the mother’s life (her support of birth control was to avoid needing one) — and Planned Parenthood isn’t shying away from acknowledging the bad parts of her legacy: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/planned-parenthood-margaret-sanger.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/opinion/planned-parenthoo... That seems to be the right way to handle this: the history is still there for anyone curious but nobody is saying she’s a role-model for the future.

emilfihlman 5y ago

It's one of the most awful things we nowadays do, erase and hide history because somone complains. I hope we stop before it's too late.

alphabettsy 5y ago
I’m not arguing one way or the other, but how does a window teach history? If we’re comparing it to statues what do they teach? What do they symbolize? Are we required to keep them forever? Under what circumstances is it acceptable to change, replace or remove them?
jrmg 5y ago
This argument that we should keep statues (or windows) to remember history doesn’t seem to hold water to me. What are we remembering by keeping them? I don’t think that anyone argues that we should be _erecting_ statues to figures we don’t admire - who, if they’re intended as cautionary tales are surely _more_ worthwhile to think about. So it’s not just that they serve to help us remember figures from the past. So should we instead keep them to remember that the people _were_ once admired enough to get statues? That seems like a very odd second-order reason to keep something.
Angostura 5y ago
There's quite a gap between "erasing" someone and celebrating them. It seems to me to be perfectly reasonable for an organisation to decide that they no-longer want to celebrate someone.

jakelazaroff 5y ago

To be clear, "canceled" in this case means… removing a commemorative stained-glass window. No one has made a stained-glass window to commemorate me. Am I also being canceled?

1cvmask 5y ago

They actually cancel academics for saying the “wrong” thing. This is not even anything close to that. Having a window removed is not a big deal at all: But now the college Fisher loved has turned its back on him. It has removed from the Hall a stained-glass window commemorating him, one of a set of six installed to celebrate him, Crick, Venn, Chadwick and two other distinguished college figures, Sir Charles Sherrington and George Green. It has done so because of accusations that Fisher was a proponent of eugenics.

notahacker 5y ago
Ironically, whilst arguing that only crazy woke leftists could possibly see postwar enthusiasm for the race science of literal Nazis as a reason not to venerate a [very clever] eugenicist, the same "pushback against dangerous consensus" publication carries other columns twisting Popper's paradox of tolerance into a case for the Civil Service to purge anyone sufficiently left wing to criticise the government. Cancelling stained glass tributes to flawed geniuses is a tragedy, cancelling those who complain about the government they work for a necessity It's almost the reductio ad absurdum version of culture war bullshit.
- Veen 5y ago
  > only crazy woke leftists could possibly see postwar enthusiasm for the race science of literal Nazis Let's not forget that eugenics was not an exclusively right-wing position. Many socialists were pro-eugenics: the Webbs, Shaw, C.P. Snow, Haldane, and many more. Eugenics was widely supported by many academics of all political stripes in the early 20th Century.
  - Dma54rhs 5y ago
    At some point eugenics was very much "progressive" way of thinking. People tend to forget that every old idea at some point was progressive and new, progress itself doesn't mean it will we judged right by future generations. Also its very much as alive right now - we abort the vast majority of fetuses with known birth defects, we just don't want to call it that. Doesn't matter your view of abortion but its difficult to argue against it.

muglug 5y ago

The article has a lot of waffle, but it seems clear that even in the author's viewpoint, Fisher was a eugenecist, and argued for the cause even in the wake of WW2: > (6) Fisher, in a testimonial for von Verschuer after the war, supported von Verschuer’s “wish to benefit the German racial stock, especially by the elimination of manifest defectives, such as those deficient mentally”. You can say "we should judge people by the standards of their time", but it seems that he fell short even by those standards.

Swenrekcah 5y ago
I think we should be able to compartmentalise and recognise it is possible to admire someone for one thing while condemning them for another. The commemoration was for mathematical contributions, not humanitarian efforts.
- Kranar 5y ago
  I don't think it's that simple. When you award someone a prize, you are potentially giving that person a great deal of influence and credibility not only on issues regarding the specifics of the prize, but also general publicity.
  - Swenrekcah 5y ago
    That’s fine. Another thing society needs to curb is getting celebs to comment on everything, so attention in one area doesn’t make one into an all-knowing life coach as it seems to work for some people. But more broadly, if you are worried that giving someone’s attention will create a large following of, for instance eugenicists, then you are actually worried about the idea already having a large support, irrespective of the person who would receive an unrelated award. There are good arguments to be made against eugenics programs, just make them instead of trying to disappear anyone that has ever seemed to support them. Refusing to recognise someone’s brilliance because of political ideologies is something most people understand to be wrong and in my view just as likely, if not more, to create support for that political cause than to suppress it.
5y ago

toiletfuneral 5y ago

I guess since I'm not a student there this doesn't make me that mad. Why would i care? Did they remove his research & discoveries out of the libraries too?

The_rationalist 5y ago

Eugenism is one of the most useful things to do for humans hapiness given that 40% of happiness is derived from genetics.

cgrealy 5y ago

I am puzzled by the "oh no, this is erasing history" people. There are many people throughout history that are known and studied without being celebrated. Statues, windows, etc. are there to commemorate and celebrate people. If we decide that we shouldn't celebrate an individual (confederate generals for example), removing that statue is not the same as erasing them from history.

Veen 5y ago
> If we decide that we shouldn't celebrate an individual That's precisely what's at issue. Who decides who should be celebrated and who should not? What are the criteria for deciding? And what story are we telling about our history with those decisions.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  I didn’t think I’d have to type this tonight but: Let’s agree not to celebrate racists or other bigots?
  - Veen 5y ago
    That would leave approximately no one from more than a century ago and almost no one from the last century, especially if you're going to exclude anyone who might be considered a bigot by modern progressive standards.
    - akerl_ 5y ago
      Yes, I’m cool with that. We can remember these people existed and the things they did without celebrating them. Removing statues is an example of that.
      - Veen 5y ago
        Are you really cool with that though? It implies no mathematician, scientist, artist, writer, athlete, politician, soldier, or activist should be celebrated or admired unless they exactly conform to the ideological purity standards of modern progressives? If you are cool with that, you and those who think like you are precisely why people get so agitated when statues are pulled down and windows hidden in basements.

g42gregory 5y ago

Interestingly, Margaret Sanger Awards were stopped quietly in 2015 but never given the negative press. For example, Wikipedia article is completely silent on that point [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger_Awards https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger_Awards

readflaggedcomm 5y ago
She is a Democratic hero. There is nothing to cancel in her work which remains.

JakeAl 5y ago

All selective breeding is eugenics. If you believe in aborting babies with Down Syndrome, you're a eugenicist. If you believe in choosing a sperm donor based on genetic fitness, you're a eugenicist. If you selectively breed cattle, or your dog, you're a eugenicist. There are rare but debilitating genetic diseases that can arise from mixed race procreation as anyone who's watched Discovery Health may know. Before people judge, they should study the topic and motivation thoroughly. Eugenics does not means racist or genocide, nor does it mean a eugenicist is motivate by hatred or racism. The word for that is racist. There's a whole field of Genetic Counseling that exists for the purpose of eugenics and catering to the biological health of offspring that have emerged since our science has advanced enough to understand the role genes play in biological, physical and mental health. Read up on the topic. It's quite revealing.

emmelaich 5y ago
I think a lot of people are eugenicists, depending on the precise meaning. Is bemoaning the fertility of some disfavoured social or religious group eugenicist? If it is then a hell of a lot of people are eugenicist, and definitely not confined to the right.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
>All selective breeding is eugenics. If you believe in aborting babies with Down Syndrome, you're a eugenicist. If you believe in choosing a sperm donor based on genetic fitness, you're a eugenicist. If you selectively breed cattle, or your dog, you're a eugenicist. Dating & Mating is eugenics at a conscious & subconscious level.
- Viliam1234 5y ago
  Some things are considered okay if individuals do them voluntarily, and bad when governments send men with guns to enforce them. By the same logic, there is nothing wrong with censorship, because individuals also decide to not say certain things or not pay attention to certain things.
  - 5y ago

fmajid 5y ago

A better approach would be damnatio memoriae, as with the Venetian Doge Marin Falier, whose official portrait was covered with black velvet and a mention this was done for his crimes (attempting a coup).

actually_a_dog 5y ago

IMO, the accusations in the article really don't hold up under a broader examination of Fisher's views on eugenics and his work as a whole. Quotes in this comment come from Bodmer, W., Bailey, R.A., Charlesworth, B. et al. The outstanding scientist, R.A. Fisher: his views on eugenics and race. Heredity 126, 565–576 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-020-00394-6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-020-00394-6 With full text available at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-00394-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-020-00394-6 I highly recommend you read this paper if you're interested in a deep exploration of these topics. I've also paraphrased a few things here, but, go easy on me. This is a HN comment, ya know, not an academic paper. It's not my intention to plagiarize anyone here. :) --- FISHER THE EUGENICIST Fisher absolutely was a eugenicist, but not in the way in which that word is typically colored by its association with the Nazis. His concept of eugenics was more along the lines of a set of methods by which a population could improve itself via controlled or regulated breeding. This concept, as espoused by Fisher, was certainly extremely classist, as he regarded people of high intelligence and leadership ability, whom he referred to as the "higher classes" as inherently more valuable than others, among which would fall people such as tradesmen and unskilled laborers ("lower classes"). And, he did support the Eugenics Society's position in favor of voluntary sterilization of "feebleminded" individuals as part of a way to realize his eugenic vision, and this was the view espoused in the 1934 Brock Report. FISHER AS RACIST The closest he ever comes to advocating any kind of racist idea is when he suggests in his comments on the 1952 UNESCO statement on "The Race Concept" that: > '...available scientific knowledge provides a firm basis for believing that the groups of mankind differ in their innate capacity for intellectual and emotional development,' seeing that such groups do differ undoubtedly in a very large number of their genes. It's not clear whether he intends the word "groups" to mean "races" in any sense in which we would think of it today. In any case, he does not go so far as to suggest that some "groups" may be generally superior to others. And, remember, he holds out eugenics as a way in which any population may "improve" itself, such as by increasing the overall intelligence level of the population by preventing people of lower intelligence from being born. This is the context in which we should take "his support for von Verschuer’s 'elimination of mental defectives to benefit the German racial stock,'" as noted in the posted article. (I'll return to von Verschuer in a moment.) He does, however, write in private correspondence: > I am sorry that there should be propaganda in favour of miscegenation in North America as I am sure it can do nothing but harm. Is it beyond human endeavour to give and justly administer equal rights to all citizens without fooling ourselves that these are equivalent items? Given the man was born in 1890, I think we can forgive him this belief, which was extremely common right up until the day he died in 1962. ASSOCIATION WITH VON VERSCHUER Now, as regarding von Verschuer and his association with Mengele, there is no evidence Fisher even knew of this association, or that von Verschuer approved in any way of Hitler's genocide against the Jewish people. Indeed: > Richard Goldschmidt, who had been forced to leave his position in Germany because he was Jewish, supported Verschuer as “a fine and sympathetic person” and “an exceptional scholar in his field and one of the most knowledgeable medical geneticists.” In fact, available evidence indicates that Fisher's relationship with von Verschuer was purely scientific, without any racist ideology whatsoever. SUMMARY / CONCLUSION So, in summary, looking at the 6 allegations mentioned in the article (paraphrased): (1) Fisher was a racist: True, but not in his professional work, and not apparently more so than most people were ~100 years ago. (2) He believed in forced sterilization: Patently false. He never advocated forced sterilization, only voluntary sterilization. (3) He was a co-author of the Brock Report of 1934 calling for the legalization of compulsory sterilization: The Brock Report, as a publication of the Eugenics Society, did not advocate compulsory sterilization, only voluntary sterilization. (4) He took a favorable view of Nazi eugenics: There is absolutely no evidence of this, and, in fact a good amount of evidence that he would not have been in favor of Nazi eugenics in any way whatsoever. (5) He corresponded with Otmar von Verschuer, a German geneticist and supervisor of Josef Mengele, efore and after the Second World War: True, but von Verschuer's connection to Mengele was not well known until after the war. And, even then, Fisher's contacts with von Verschuer were on a professional level, devoid of any sort of ideology, much less racist ideology. (6) He supported von Verschuer’s “elimination of mental defectives to benefit the German racial stock”: True, but, again, this must be viewed in the context of Fisher's view on eugenics as a whole, and his utter lack of support for forced sterilization. So, it seems that upon taking a broader view of Fisher's views on eugenics and his professional writings, none of the charges hold up.

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bilirubin 5y ago

I thought it ironic that at the end of this article, the author lists the institutions that have taken years to consider this topic and claims they have rushed to judgment, assert his authority over theirs nakedly (and unpersuasively). But the article did remind me how fun the board game Sagrada is.

RickJWagner 5y ago

Eugenics proponents are finally being taken down. Perhaps the most prominent is Margaret Sanger, found of Planned Parenthood. Hillary Clinton tried to rehabilitate her, but this failed. I understand PP is now offering belated apologies and is slowly erasing references to it's founder.