Eugenics & CRISPR Flashcards
Phrenology
A pseudoscience, the study of the shape and size of the head as a method of knowing character and mental ability.
Eugenics
“Good birth”, the belief of producing more people with desirable genetics. (In Great Depression time believing more white native borns to combat influx of immigrants / Nazi Germany Aryan race).
Feeblemindedness
People that are unable to make rational decisions or have low intelligence. Might have a societal and economic danger from these offspring/workers. The fear that the inferior will outweigh the good.
Sterilization
Making someone unable to have offspring. Eugenicists trying to prevent inferior genetics from being passed on (such as a report from Harry Laughlin).
Francis Galton
Introduced psychometrics, study of measurements of the body and head relative to mental ability. Tried proving his intelligence through a pedigree chart to Darwin, saying genius is hereditary and wrote books about these topics. Introduced Eugenics term.
Charles Darwin
Transformed the world of science with his studies in nature, biology, etc. Comparatively to his intelligence, his physical genetics were not superior with his ailments and flatulence.
Theodore Roosevelt
Race Suicide speech, infertility may be a misfortune but not having good American borns is a crime.
Bollinger Baby
Dr. Haiselden delivered a baby in 1915, but expressed to the parents that due to the brain being not completely formed and having disabilities, there should be no medical intervention. Parents agreed but the public was horrified, even Helen Keller supported the doctor’s decision.
Carrie Buck v Bell
Buck was raped and had a child out of wedlock, which caused her to be seen as promiscuous and inferior. Oliver Wendell Holmes defended her in court (badly, as he was a eugenicist). The Court agreed that she should be deemed as feebleminded and institutionalized, giving Virginia the authority of sterilization.
Eugenics Development
After the eugenics seen in Nazi Germany, USA tried dissociating the name but keeping the content. After WW2, there was promoting ‘voluntary sterilization’, which was a positive spin while trying to maintain the goal of eugenics.
Fannie Lou Hamer
A civil rights leader who was a victim of being forced into sterilization. Many states had laws allowing compulsory sterilization, where people were forced into in through asylums or were tricked by doctors into signed papers for it.
Madrigal v Quilligan
Women didn’t know they were signing sterilization forms even right before labor. Poor black women were a major target, especially if they were illiterate.
CRISPR
“Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat”. Originally identified in bacteria as a defense against viruses. Uses a protein called Cas9 (CRISPR Associated) for genome engineering.
Cas9
An enzyme derived from the CRISPR-Cas immune system. Cas9 uses gRNA to find a complementary DNA sequence and cuts both strands. It is often described as molecular scissors.
gRNA
A 2-piece molecule fused of crRNA (portion of transcribed CRISPR RNA) and tracRNA (trans-activating RNA) which the Cas9 protein binds to for its task.
Josiah Zayner
A biohacker celebrity who worked for NASA (synthetic biologist) but disliked how drug development and testing was. He sells DIY CRISPR kits and more on his website ODIN for aspiring biohackers to do on their own. Injected himself with CRISPR DNA 0n Facebook Live.
