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I can appreciate your frustration, but when you look at the history of things like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or read a book like "The Immortal Life of Henriet

I can appreciate your frustration, but when you look at the history of things like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or read a book like "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" the distrust becomes more understandable. As per the RFS biotec comments (http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/ http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/), and given the expressed intent of certain groups to develop the ability to annihilate entire ethnic groups, the fears are not unfounded. Consider how many still fervantly endorse Darwinism. Consider this quote from his popular book (the title of which is often truncated): "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life" “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.”

swombat 12y ago
Quoting that without the historical follow-up (namely, the experience of eugenics in the first half of the 20th Century, culminating in the extermination of the Jews by Nazi Germany, which is widely regarded as one of the most shameful chapters in human history) is dishonest to say the least. Many great thinkers made errors in their thinking. You can take the good without taking the bad - and you certainly know that.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It took longer than that for the lesson to sink in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization And it hasn't completely stopped.
  - mlichtenstern 12y ago
    Very true...I've read quite a few new reports about it recently, particularly in prisons. I've also met and interviewed women who were given unnecessary hysterectomies. In one case, the woman saw her doctor on a news program saying that unmarried Black women should be sterilized. She immediately drove to his office and found it abandoned.
- makomk 12y ago
  The most awful ethical decisions in the Tuskegee syphilis study - repeatedly withholding a treatment that was by then known to be both effective and lifesaving and preventing the patients from accessing treatment programs that offered it - all happened after the actions of the Nazis were widely known and abhorred. The study continued for decades after the Nazis were defeated and we'd supposedly learned from the horrors they committed.
- mlichtenstern 12y ago
  Dishonest? I don't follow...much could be said about the rhetoric of eugenics leading up to and including the HHolocaust. Eugenics was merely a psuedu-scientific argument for sentiments that already existed. If I had continued yo elaborate on the topic, quotes by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) on "Blacks and Jews" among others would follow. It might be noted that 16 million Black offspring have been aborted since Roe Vs Wade and that abortion is the 2nd leading cause of death in the Black community - more than cancer and heart disease combined. But that would deviate from the topic of distrust surrounding Ebola. To Darwin's defense, he goes into depth about problems with his theory within the final chapters of the text and I have considered his wording and the quote I gave in context of his experience traveling with a slaver as well as the social-economic-political environment he was beholden to, and take it as a warning of what was to come.

swombat 12y ago

Quoting that without the historical follow-up (namely, the experience of eugenics in the first half of the 20th Century, culminating in the extermination of the Jews by Nazi Germany, which is widely regarded as one of the most shameful chapters in human history) is dishonest to say the least. Many great thinkers made errors in their thinking. You can take the good without taking the bad - and you certainly know that.

maxerickson 12y ago
It took longer than that for the lesson to sink in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization And it hasn't completely stopped.
- mlichtenstern 12y ago
  Very true...I've read quite a few new reports about it recently, particularly in prisons. I've also met and interviewed women who were given unnecessary hysterectomies. In one case, the woman saw her doctor on a news program saying that unmarried Black women should be sterilized. She immediately drove to his office and found it abandoned.
makomk 12y ago
The most awful ethical decisions in the Tuskegee syphilis study - repeatedly withholding a treatment that was by then known to be both effective and lifesaving and preventing the patients from accessing treatment programs that offered it - all happened after the actions of the Nazis were widely known and abhorred. The study continued for decades after the Nazis were defeated and we'd supposedly learned from the horrors they committed.
mlichtenstern 12y ago
Dishonest? I don't follow...much could be said about the rhetoric of eugenics leading up to and including the HHolocaust. Eugenics was merely a psuedu-scientific argument for sentiments that already existed. If I had continued yo elaborate on the topic, quotes by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) on "Blacks and Jews" among others would follow. It might be noted that 16 million Black offspring have been aborted since Roe Vs Wade and that abortion is the 2nd leading cause of death in the Black community - more than cancer and heart disease combined. But that would deviate from the topic of distrust surrounding Ebola. To Darwin's defense, he goes into depth about problems with his theory within the final chapters of the text and I have considered his wording and the quote I gave in context of his experience traveling with a slaver as well as the social-economic-political environment he was beholden to, and take it as a warning of what was to come.