Editor:

I offer a sobering thought on the subject of the “consensus science” or “settled science” conclusions offered these days by the global-warming-is-a-world-crisis folks who won’t engage skeptics in proper dialog.

In the early 1920s enough scientists, politicians and celebrities became convinced that society had to be improved by “controlling” the number of people with certain disabilities (the inferior classes).

This movement was called Eugenics. The “disabilities” were feeblemindedness, epilepsy, mental defection, criminals, degenerates, immigrants (!) and the promiscuous (!).

Among the methods proposed to rid society of these people was forced sterilization. Other more hideous methods were not tried in the U.S. Consequently, 29 states passed laws legalizing this procedure. Thousands of Americans were forced to be sterilized in the next 50 years after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Virginia’s law on May 2, 1927 (Buck v. Bell – look it up); most took place in Virginia and California.

Hard to believe? If you look hard enough, you will find quotes of support for Eugenics of this period from such luminaries as first, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis (who sat on the U.S. Supreme Court that ruled in favor), Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, H.G. Wells, G.B. Shaw (“Eugenics will save mankind”) and Margaret Sanger (called these unfit people “human waste”)  Biographers of these celebrities are ashamed to recall these quotes in their writings.

To its credit, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which was the center of the now discredited 1920s “research” has said that the frightful history of Eugenics must not be repeated in the future as they go forward with their modern gene research.

Also look up the Virginia Governor Mark R. Warner’s official 2002 apology for Virginia’s part in the 1920s Eugenics movement.

Of course, the global warming scare is not the same as Eugenics – but similarities do exist in how the facts were argued. As several correspondents have pointed out, all that is required is open and frank discussion on all sides. If it is not forthcoming, and more political correctness sets in, we could see much damage and wasteful expenditure.

F. Ralph Shirak

Kennebunk