Engineering American society: the lesson of eugenics

We stand at the threshold of a new century, with the whole human genome stretched out before us. Messages from science, the popular media, and the stock market suggest a world of seemingly limitless opportunities to improve human health and productivity. But at the turn of the last century, science and society faced a similar rush to exploit human genetics. The story of eugenics--humankind's first venture into a 'gene age'--holds a cautionary lesson for our current preoccupation with genes.