Interviewee: James Watson. Many Americans accepted eugenics social policy as a rational solution to the problem of what to do with the "unfit." Here James Watson discusses the failure of eugenics to identify genetic differences between people they considered "fit" and "unfit." (DNAi Location: Chronicle > Threat of the unfit > Epilogue > Progressive eugenics)

These ideas were considered highly progressive, prominent individuals like Theodore Roosevelt thought eugenics was great. And because at that time they didn't really know how to handle the unfit, they were in poorhouses, homes for mentally disabled children. No one liked these, and if somehow the unfit could vanish, society would be much happier.

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