"Global Warming" had a precursor in capturing the hearts and minds of the world. Michael Crichton, in his novel "State of Fear," brilliantly juxtaposes the world's current political embrace of "global warming" with the popular embrace of the "science" of eugenics a century ago. For nearly 50 years, from the late 1800s through the first half of the 20th century, there grew a common political acceptance by the world's thinkers, political leaders and media elite that the "science" of eugenics was settled science. There were a few lonely voices trying to be heard in the wilderness in opposition to this bogus science, but they were ridiculed or ignored.what is so idiotic about congressman linder's (and author michael critcton's) theory is that the science behind eugenics (i.e. genetics) is still sound. if anything, it has gotten more accepted over the last century. eugenics wasn't rejected because it was based on bad science, it was rejected because it was based on bad ethics.
unlike global warming, "eugenics" wasn't a science. it was a prescription of how to build a "better" society that used science as a justification. that's why it began with the prefix "eu" (i.e. greek for "good"). it was a theory about ethics (a theory about what is good), not about the state of the world (a theory about what is).
sure, eugenics drew on science as one of its bases. but that doesn't make it a science any more than the anti-nuclear power movement, which it is based on a scientific understanding of the effects of nuclear power plants on the environment, is a science. nor is the animal rights movements a science even though some of its precepts are based on the understanding of animal cognition. the issues raised by those two movements can be debated independently from the underlying science, although sometimes new scientific data can also be relevant to the ethical discussion.
genetics is just genetics. it doesn't lead inevitably to eugenics and genetics managed to survive even after eugenics was discredited. likewise global warming is just global warming. it describes a process and ascribes a cause to that process. it's not an ethic like eugenics is, even though it might inform us to conclude that some behaviors are more desirable than others.
(adapted from a comment i wrote over at oolius' site)
