The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine PDF

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Almost daily we hear news stories, advertisements, and scientific reports that promise genetic medicine will make us live longer, enable doctors to identify and treat diseases before they start, and individualize our medical care. But surprisingly, a century ago eugenicists were making the same promises. The Science of Human Perfection traces the history of the promises of medical genetics and of the medical dimension of eugenics. The book also considers social and ethical issues that cast troublesome shadows over these fields.

 

Keeping his focus on America, science historian Nathaniel Comfort introduces the community of scientists, physicians, and public health workers who have contributed to the development of medical genetics from the nineteenth century to today. He argues that medical genetics is closely related to eugenics, and indeed the two cannot be fully understood separately. He also carefully examines how the desire to relieve suffering and to improve ourselves genetically, though noble, may be subverted. History makes clear that as patients and consumers we must take ownership of genetic medicine, using it intelligently, knowledgeably, and skeptically, lest pernicious interests trump our own.

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• File Size: 1270 KB
• Print Length: 336 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1 edition (September 25, 2012)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B009B5ST5S
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray:
  Not Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #432,955 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #49 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Basic Science > Genetics
• #49 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Medical eBooks > Basic Science > Genetics

The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine PDF

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I had no grand expectations for this book on the history of medical genetics, an area which I knew nothing about and wasn't particularly interested in. Nathaniel Comfort got me interested very quickly. I don't typically put much in Amazon book reviews regarding the book's actual content, because I don't want to give too much of the book away. However, for this book, I must make an exception, because its construction, philosophy, and historiography are fascinating, and are necessary to the explanation of what is fascinating about the book.

The book's philosophy is an intriguing one, which shows a strong historical vein that runs through both eugenics AND medical genetics. Such a thesis can prove dangerous very quickly, as one might imagine, but Comfort is very careful about how he does this, avoiding normativity to lay out the facts and draw upon isomorphisms between the disciplines, and grounding both in an historical tension that exists between Garrodian theory and Galtonian theory. This is a heterodox and original take on genetics, the thesis being that there is struggle between the biometrics and population of Galton, on the one hand, and the biochemical and individual (i.e. particular organism), on the other. From this philosophical starting point, Comfort traces an history that sees Johns Hopkins University as central, in many respects, to the formal codification and professionalization of the discipline of medical genetics. Comfort considers the politics, economics, social aspects, institutional formation, and prevailing scientific themes.

Maybe the only complaint I have is how little there is in the way of actual science in the book, but that increases the accessibility of the work, I think.