 I am honored to introduce Joy Boyer, who is a program director in the NHGRI Division of Genomics and Society, who will moderate the first Q&A session for today. As a program director in the NHGRI Division of Genomics and Society, Joy oversees a portfolio of research, training, and career development grants related to the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomic research. Over to you, Joy. Thank you, Chris, and thanks to all the speakers today, and particularly our morning speakers, Marius, Michael, and Chris. I wanted to take just a few minutes. There's been just a very rich discussion in the Q&A. And a number of these questions are focused more on the ethical issues around eugenics than the historical issues per se. And I just wanted to say a few words to try to address these. The top question is asking about a GWAS study that was done on homosexual behavior. I'm assuming this is the Ghana et al paper that was published in Science. Whether that paper should be retracted, whether the authors should apologize for the paper. And I think this highlights the fact that eugenics is not just in our past. It's very much in our present. And I think there are awareness of the role it's played is important, but equally important is to ask questions like that. How is it playing out now in our lives? And I think there were a number of questions about where do you draw the line between eugenics and genetic counseling or gene therapy? And I think I can't answer those questions, but I think those are questions that we as a community and as humanity need to be addressing. So I thank you for those questions. I think the historians that we have on the panel right now would probably rather address more historical issues than focusing so much on the ethical issues. But at this point, I would open it up to the panelists if there are particular questions you would like to ask each other or if you would like to take on some of the more ethical issues and bringing eugenics into the present day, I think, is kind of the gist of so many of the questions. So I would open up the floor to the panelists at this point. Marius. Yes. Thank you, Joy, very much indeed, and thank you, Michael, for your wonderful presentation. And thank you, Chris, for sharing with me the panel. First thing I should like to say to compliment what you just said, Joy, is that while the conversation at the moment seems to be so locating in the present and it is driven by bioethical concerns, I think what we need to do at the same time is infuse a sense of historical reckoning and responsibility in our discussions so that we can understand better where certain ideas are coming from and how people can make an informed decision based on the particular situation, which is clearly eugenic, has a clear eugenic past, but probably, and in most cases, it's clearly the case, it's not known by the individual in case or by the society at large. So while we're pushing forward, it's basically a synergy between historical knowledge and scientific research and ethical concerns, as Michael pointed out so nice in his paper. Eugenics was not only created to justify a racially and socially exploitative system, it was also created to lock people into the bottom of it. It locked people of colour, it locked people with disability, it locked women, so it locked people with various sexual orientations. So all of these concerns remain very powerful and as you said, eugenics has come alive again during the pandemic, but then all of these issues that we addressed today, I suppose, can be rewritten to understand the implications today. Ultimately, the purpose is to understand better what happened in the past to come up with better solutions for the future and we cannot disentangle history from this and geneticists and bioethicists should know the importance and acknowledge the importance of the past in this respect as much as historians are trying so hard to go into the archives to recuperate the voice of the victims of sterilizations, for example, as Michael pointed out. So while some of the conversation today is extremely geared towards ethics and towards genetics and genomics, there is also something lurking in the back of that conversation that we historians have the responsibility to push forward and alert people who otherwise may be misinformed or may be simply misdirected. So we live in a very complex situation at the moment where we can see all of these ideas coming back and we can see some of the concerns that we thought we addressed in the past scientifically. Whether we're talking about abortion, we're talking about prenatal screening, we're talking about how do we care about someone with disability. All of these issues which were at the front and centre of debates on bioethics 20 years ago remain extremely present and I think the current pandemic only exacerbated the need to return to these issues and it explored them historically. And so we need to go back to what Michael suggested, we need to go back to those cases and learn from those as much as we need to go to the core of the scientific debate about human heredity and try to tease out those important lessons. Thank you, Marius. I think that's an excellent point and really speaks to the whole purpose of the meeting. Michael? I would just add that that's very well put, Marius, you said it brilliantly. I would just also reinforce the notion that we can't decouple the history from the current ethical debates and we can't think about making decisions about reproductive technologies and about abortion and other things without situating them in the social and cultural context within which they're made, which are deeply informed by that history, whether people are conscious of it or not. The histories that we're outlining here in our presentations should have created, in a sense, the context within which those decisions are being made. And so it's imperative to discuss them and think critically about them. Thank you, Michael. I think as Marius. Now, I just wanted to react to something Chris has pointed out in his presentation. Now, I think the difficulty for us, all of us, whether you are a historian or sociologist or a geneticist or a pastor in a church, I suppose the difficulty is that how do we come together to write a strategy for everyone, for everyone to use and return to time and time again as different issues regarding eugenics come up in their lives. They will be confronted with eugenics at some point in their lives. How are they prepared to engage with those issues? I think we know that we could do a bit more to prepare those who aren't able to be prepared because they don't have the time to read or they don't all the books about this topic or the other topic, or they simply consider that to be an problematic issue. Now, we, the scholarly community, amongst many other responsibilities from civic and moral and scientific, we have also the responsibility to try to formulate a strategy. And this is something what Chris was pointing out in the discussion of is the fifth myth about the role of science here, role of science. We will take it very seriously because science can provide wonderful answers to great problems characterizing our societies from human genome to ecology and environmentalism, but at the same time, that comes with this extraordinary responsibility. And we are part of that. We are not detached. We are not free of responsibility. And that has to be addressed directly and heads on, I think. Yeah, thank you, Marius. I would also add quickly that I think the history can inform discussions about eugenics in other ways as well, including, and it was mentioned as one of the myths that was framed as, you know, did eugenics persist after the Nazis, after Nazi Germany? Of course, the answer is yes. And I think we can, if we look at the history and think critically about the history, we can see that eugenics extended beyond state coercion, beyond state control, beyond state sponsored programs and that, you know, it's much more diffuse and pervasive in society. And that's sort of one of the reasons why ideas about eugenics and actions that we might consider eugenics persist even in the 20th century. So I just wanted to add to Michael's great point, which is to say that I think one of the tasks of historians and of the scholarly community is to really address eugenics in its fullness so that we have a usable, workable definition, which embraces a number of modalities, practices, time periods and functions, and that at the same time with a general theory, with a general framework for eugenics, we do not lose the kind of context and historical specificity, which is so important. And this is the dynamic. This is the dilemma because eugenics is essentially a protean system of ideas and a protean structure of practices and has undergone countless reformations and much of the discussions of eugenics in the post after the Second World War are promoting practices by only defining eugenics one way. So we have to be very careful that we have a broad enough definition of eugenics, a broad enough account of the support of eugenics, a broad enough account of the expertise and ideas aligned with eugenics, while also not losing that kind of complexity and historical specificity and ethical exactitude that is really necessary to make comparisons and to confront these ideas and these practices in the present day. That's great. I'm going to take the moderator's prerogative and ask a question that I think is reflecting of some of the questions that have been raised in the Q&A. And that is how how do current geneticists deal with the subtle ways that eugenics ideas creep into science today? You know, a question was asked, should someone who presented a paper on the GWAS of homosexual behavior apologize for that publicly and retract the paper? And I think I would ask you just looking at this from a historical perspective, is is that kind of activity something that should be done? Is that useful? Is is addressing just one paper? What we need to do or do we need to really be looking at the broader issues, genetic determinism and or genetic exceptionalism and biological determinism that still permeate genetics and science as a whole? So I would turn that over to you. You want to go, Chris, want to go first? I was going to ask it, Marius, if you wanted to go for it. OK, I can do it. And also, right, also, Michael, you can because you a lot of these issues as well. So I was just going to make a really quick point that. You know, I think we need to move beyond what I would call etiquette, you know, beyond sort of superficial engagements and, you know, really engage in the difficult conversations around eugenics, like the ones we're having here today. Of course. Yeah, well, I'll let Marius jump in. Well, my take on it will be simply to reflect immediately on the possibility of these type of studies being very popular and ask myself, why is that popular? The scientists have been doing this kind of and quite prominent scientists. I mean, in some cases, we have very important names. Some of them were mentioned today. Others are mentioned in the scientific historical documents accompanying this symposium. And people can look up online for that. So the very prominent names here who are always sometimes, you know, referred in connection to eugenics. So we know these sort of things to happen, but I and my take here is simply as a as an intellectual historian dealing with the legacies of eugenics is to reflect immediately on how relevant that is and how important it is to people. Because if it is very important to some people and it has traction and echoes widely and it in a percolates through so many other issues, then I'm getting very worried. And then I need and I think one of the facets of our effort here or one of the aims of our collective effort here, we reacted to this. We were we are not only at the forefront of genomics, but also we want to be the vanguard of anti eugenics presence in science. And to do that, you react immediately with whatever you have to debunk this mantle and confront the type of lingering thoughts that continues to permeate certain scientific practices, whether we're talking about a particular group of people. And we've seen papers about, you know, the Ashkenazi Jews, or whether about the Roma people or about a particular collective or a particular community in Africa about, you know, various sexual orientated groups. These are recurrently happening. How do we react to that joy is one matters at the moment, because we know of scientists, we always, various scientists, we always continue to do that. And now with CRISPR and gene editing and various papers being published on even more genetic determinism and the possibility of suggesting to people that, you know, your destiny is in your genes. That has become such a powerful story that to engage with that forcefully requires an entire arsenal of arguments. So that particular paper you mentioned is, in my opinion, only one part of a very complex story, notwithstanding, you know, the criticism it received, I think, from our point of view, from what we're discussing today and tomorrow, is that how we react to that type of argument is what we need to proceed and reflect individually and collectively. And I think we did provide the three of us today this morning. We provided some indication where or to which direction we may take this conversation. I hope there will be others who can, you know, help us work with us and suggest better ways of dealing with these issues. I just wanted to add to what Mari is saying, which I fully agree with and to also emphasize the second part of your question statement, Joy, which is to say that these these issues, it's not one particular paper, but these kinds of issues are all part of wider discussions about genetic exceptionalism that genetic determinism. These are conversations that the LC research community has had for more than 30 years, that the bioethics community has also had, you know, for more than 30 years. I think at root, the we just need to have a wider series of conversations, which lead to wider cultural changes about how we talk about genetics and how we talk about genes and how we talk about it basically the how we pathologize any perceivable difference all of it and how we normalize and ableize various individuals, various bodies at various groups. And I think this is all it's not simply one paper. This paper is is needs to be discussed among a variety of dialogues which take into account, I think, and which try to move forward just very basic educational principles which emphasize pluralism and which emphasize participation and which emphasize and which as much as possible avoid what I call an ontological dehumanization of groups and people. Yeah, I think this is the key word. Sorry to jump in dehumanization, Chris. I mean, ultimately, you need to you need to say it out loud, all human life in all forms is valuable and there's no there's no absolutely nothing convincing scientific and moral and religious to determine that some people are less worthy than others. I think that has to be stated very clearly. And as Chris put it out there, ultimately. Regrettably, many of this eugenic behavior or much of this eugenic behavior that we see today remains embedded in certain trajectories of thoughts that have to be expunged. And we have to excise that kind of thinking, not only from the government action, not only from the type of conversation we have publicly, but ultimately also from the way research is being conducted and the way scientific communities uncontrollably sometimes and uncritically continue certain patterns of behavior and thought because they never look back at their discipline and react critically towards the foundation of their own discipline and has to be pushed forward with as much conviction as possible. I think. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to turn to some of the questions that have come in from the meeting participants. The first one is from Sarah Chestnut. And she suggests that she'd be interested in hearing more about how eugenics played a role in America's mass in incarceration complex. So, Chris, did you want to answer that? I see you're unmuted. Oh, I think this is actually more of a Michael question, although it depends on, yeah. So, Michael, do you mind perhaps starting our discussion of this? Sure. I mean, I think that I spoke to it a bit in the video or in my presentation. I, you know, I. Certainly incarcerated populations, even very recently, have been targeted for for sterilization or surreptitious sterilization and things like Norplant in the 1990s were popular for a while among people who were interested in limiting the reproduction of people receiving or receiving benefits and things. So there's there's a number of ways in which eugenic ideas have been kind of racialized and modernized and have been where have worked their way into the social welfare system and into. Incarceration, incarcerate the carceral settings. You know, and I mean, as I stated in the talk, there's, you know, kind of the one of the really direct results of eugenics, I think, was that the massive institutionalization of a broad range of people in the first 50 years or 60 years of the 20th century. And so. Yeah, I would just leave it there for now. If somebody else wants to. Marius. Yeah, very briefly, I would like to ask something and thank you for the question. I think the first thing to be said is that eugenics provided a very interesting justification for incarceration, not just in America, but everywhere by simply suggesting that we can separate criminals from the rest of society. And by doing that, we protect, we protect the majority of the people, we protect the society from its criminals, asocials, these genetic elements. So eugenics is perpetually put forward these ideas of, you know, protecting society from, you know, they did the same with the feeble minded people. They did the same with the criminals. So from early on, there is a very interesting connection between eugenics and incarceration as a practice and then between eugenics and legal legal sciences. So obviously, to find the legal foundation, how that incarceration becomes possible. And that's a very interesting interplay between eugenics and legal systems, not just in the United States of America, but across the world. In connection to that comes the second point. Most of the early cases, as we know, of both sterilization and incarceration of criminals happens within the discussion about penal colonies, incarceration and prisons. So it's very interesting, particularly in the American context, we have a wealth of historical information that could be very useful to those of us looking back, trying to see how, you know, America became basically in a paraphrase in Karl Marxi in a very weird way, the prison of people. It has the largest incarceration system in the world. If I'm not mistaken, maybe I am mistaken, but last time I checked. So how did we get to this point? And eugenics and here, of course, is the term is applied to legal reformers, legal experts, superintendents, people who run prisons and people who wrote the legal foundations of various directions in our system. They all believed that they can do something about about these people. So yeah, eugenics played a very important role. And this is only based barely scratch the surface of this very important history. Michael obviously knows much more about it, but there will be a very short answer to a very complex and important question. I think an equally short answer to this complex question is another is just reminding everyone of another tenant of the eugenic mindset, which is to say that there are easy solutions to complex social problems. And I think that's something to really emphasize. I also think there's a broader question, which I'm not expert enough to answer about the pattern of justice in the United States, often sometimes being modeled on on retribution as justice rather than remunerative justice. So I think that's also something to keep in mind most broadly. And I think, too, I would just briefly add, and of course, you can't make a one to one correlation. People didn't leave institutions and enter jails and prisons. But as the institutionalization accelerated in the last second half of the 20th century, massive incarceration increased and and jails and prisons in places like Chicago and L.A. and New York, you know, have it's been found that anywhere between 40 and 60 percent of the incarcerated people in those settings have some sort of mental health problem or condition. And so, as I said, while you can't make a simple one to one sort of correlation of moving people out of one institution into another, you know, I think part of the more complex legacies of eugenics is the rise of mass incarceration and the movement of mental health care for certain segments of the population into those carceral settings as and I think which is sort of underlined by what Marius said about the justifications, you know, for removing so-called criminal types from society that has a very long history in the United States. Another question from Derek Schultz. Was there a complete consensus among eugenicists regarding what traits were desirable for the human race and who was unfit? Yeah, another another brilliant question. Thank you very much. Wow. No, that's the short answer. And we might be puzzled because, of course, when we hear someone talking by eugenics, the first impression regrettably, the first impression we get is it was an homogeneous movement and everybody more or less agreed about either positive or negative methods of improving the human race and improvement in in quotation marks and race. So but it wasn't like that. Not only did they diverge radically over ideological, political, religious beliefs, but they also disagreed over which are the traits that constitute there were there were some basic things they agreed on, things related to social standing, intellectual achievement, of course, the color of the skin. We have not perhaps enough insisting on this aspect. It was always, of course, the white people who without explicit reference to some of them. But there was always the the prototype, the eugenic idea, what was always the white male and then, of course, the white woman, the white female. So you had all of this. There are some basic criteria what constituted the traits worthy of reproduction and worth worthy of pursuing from a journey point of view, as much as there were basic concerns about the negative traits, what constitute the unfit and Michael and Chris mentioned already, we talked about feeble mindedness, we talked about criminality. We mentioned a socials, alcoholics. So they did they did create a list. There is a list of things you are there are desires and things or a list of traits which were undesired. And but there was there was disagreement in some cases, very significant one. The moment when, for example, and I don't want to monopolize this conversation, I'll be very quick in the footnote, the moment when genetics in a way clearly wants to separate from from eugenics. This is the crux of their disagreement, which are the traits because, of course, the eugenicists of all fashion eugenicists who didn't have much knowledge of genetics would have a very different list about what is worthy, more culturally and socially and religiously biased towards what constitutes a worthy person, whilst that someone with a good knowledge of genetics would actually be very easily would be very easy for for that person to debunk the old fashioned eugenic arguments about worthiness and underworthiness. However, they they did agree on some basic things. And so that's something we need to keep in mind that a, it wasn't without disagreement. And B, what they agreed upon was regrettably more important than what they disagreed upon. Yeah, that's very well put, and I would just quickly add, I know we're out of time, but I would quickly add that and Comfort has written about this and called it medical eugenics. But I think that and I made the point in my talk briefly that the creation of those tools and statistics and laboratory tests and intelligence tests and psychiatric and psychological evaluations are part of what revealed so-called defectiveness to eugenicists. And and so that was one way that they reached a sort of loose kind of consensus about who would be considered defective. And also, I think I would just briefly add to that they had complex understandings of race so that, you know, Jewish people or Southern Eastern Europeans could be considered of a different race and genetically unfit, you know. And so there weren't there wasn't a simple sort of black, white, you know, dichotomy within eugenics. I would just add also, because we're out of time, I think the the bewildering variety of traits, many of which are nonsensical that eugenicists use is part of the the malicious power of eugenics, its adaptability. And I think, given that as well, the idea that at the core of all of these discussion of traits is this idea, this mistaken idea that differences pathology, and that's really what what grounded all of these discussions. And, you know, and as Mike points out very well, you know, this is also a big discussion, a core discussion about ability and disability, which is at the root of many of these discussions and which allows eugenics to to continually manifest itself in differing ideas and practices and to continue and to discontinue with with little interruption in many cases. That's what I will add. Thank you, Chris, Marius and Michael. This has been a terrific start to the meeting. And thank you to all the participants for your questions. I have a feeling that these are going to be questions that are going to be discussed and it explored throughout the next two days. So again, thank you, everyone. And I'm going to turn it over to Chris, I think, to tell us what we're doing now. So there will be a break until one o'clock in the afternoon Eastern Standard Time. So we will break for about one hour. Thank you.