Hacker News Reader

Comment by muglug | Hacker News Reader

The article has a lot of waffle, but it seems clear that even in the author's viewpoint, Fisher was a eugenecist, and argued for the cause even in the wake of WW2:

You can say "we should judge people by the standards of their time", but it seems that he fell short even by those standards.

View on HN

Just for reference the full quote is:

> (6) Fisher, in a testimonial for von Verschuer after the war, supported von Verschuer’s “wish to benefit the German racial stock, especially by the elimination of manifest defectives, such as those deficient mentally”. The wording is unfortunately brief, but Fisher the professor of genetics is referring to the future “stock” and the ultimate elimination from the population of the genes that cause the defect, as is clear from his earlier writing on the subject. To eliminate the defectives themselves would constitute murder.

Context is important. Cherry picking specific sections to make a point contrary to what is actually being said has a name, but it escapes me.

I'm always disappointed in cherry picking. On the other hand, without knowing anything else about that extended piece, it looks like the author is whitewashing and trying to brush something unpleasant about Fisher under the rug.

Genes aren't "deficient mentally" and it's hard to read that quote any other way than as advocating eugenics.

Reading the extended text makes me wonder about the whole story, but doesn't really convince me Fisher wasn't in favor of eugenics and all that entails. I wouldn't say I'm skeptical, but it would take more than that.

I think we should be able to compartmentalise and recognise it is possible to admire someone for one thing while condemning them for another.

The commemoration was for mathematical contributions, not humanitarian efforts.

I don't think it's that simple. When you award someone a prize, you are potentially giving that person a great deal of influence and credibility not only on issues regarding the specifics of the prize, but also general publicity.

That’s fine.

Another thing society needs to curb is getting celebs to comment on everything, so attention in one area doesn’t make one into an all-knowing life coach as it seems to work for some people.

But more broadly, if you are worried that giving someone’s attention will create a large following of, for instance eugenicists, then you are actually worried about the idea already having a large support, irrespective of the person who would receive an unrelated award.

There are good arguments to be made against eugenics programs, just make them instead of trying to disappear anyone that has ever seemed to support them.

Refusing to recognise someone’s brilliance because of political ideologies is something most people understand to be wrong and in my view just as likely, if not more, to create support for that political cause than to suppress it.

> You can say "we should judge people by the standards of their time", but it seems that he fell short even by those standards.

Just out of curiosity, what are notable examples of people saying “we should judge people by the standards of their time” in a reasonable way?

I most frequently hear it used for many of the “American forefathers” or other prominent people during that time to refer to their views on slavery and the treatment of indigenous people. In that case it’s clearly laughable, since A) there were prominent contemporary critics and B) a lot of those people spent considerable effort performing mental gymnastics in writing to defend these things, which one wouldn’t expect if they were simply unaware of any potential moral problems with their actions and views.

But were they morally and culturally equipped to recognize those issues as failures, or were they simply average people of their time, that spent time debating what was to them a fringe, extremist idea that made little sense? If the latter, can you condemn them for not being remarkable in this regard too, as they were on political, philosophical, scientific and patriotic issues? Can, indeed, any man be such a timeless conscience that is not only revolutionary to the their time, but to all future moral codes?

You are most probably not among the universally righteous minds of our times, you are just an average man of our time. I don't think that means, by default, that all your actions are not worthy of praise of that your failing by an undisclosed future moral crime (such as eating sentient animals) negate all your moral choices today.

In many cases they were highly educated who are widely accepted as significant thinkers and writers, and they wrote in depth about the arguments for and against slavery. So yeah, they’re on record as explicitly considering the arguments at the time and rejecting them.

And further, "standards of their time" has a particular frame. By the standards of enslaved people, slavery was terrible. When people say that slavery was not considered evil by the standards of the time they are saying by the standards of white people who benefited from a slavery-based economy.

This is quite a simplistic view. Slavery in its milder forms (buying and selling people along with land, restrictions on movement etc.) was widespread in Europe up until 19th century. There has not been a homogeneous class of “white people” who universally benefited from slavery. Secondly, there is a distinction between considering something “evil” and “unnatural”. My ancestors clearly hated the German landlords but, at the same time, clearly saw the situation as something quite natural. After all, it had been the fact of the matter for 600 years. This is further evidenced by the fact that it took more than a century of gradual awakening to actually realize an alternative social structure. So, by the standards of about 200 years ago slavery in these parts was certainly not seen as desirable by the slaves but quite certainly as something “normal”.

No, that's not what they are saying. Slavery predates written records and was perpetrated by many cultures. It continues to exist in Africa (Mali, Niger, Sudan, etc), in India (bonded labour), in the middle east (migrant workers) and other places. When one includes sexual slavery and trafficking, it's virtually everywhere.

> Just out of curiosity, what are notable examples of people saying “we should judge people by the standards of their time” in a reasonable way?

Do you consider eating meat at a restaurant to be a morally acceptable thing to do?

The meat you consume there is likely factory grown, which means that the animal lived in total misery until it was brutally murdered under extreme duress.

It's highly likely that people will consider treating animals like that to be immoral at some point. If you don't accept your quote as truth you'll also have to accept that your descends will consider you (and everyone else in our society) monstrous.

I absolutely accept that people in the future might consider things I have done to be monstrous.

Do you accept that at some point they might try to take away an honor from you because of it?

Personally, I'd say yes. I know enough to try to diminish my animal consumption, but for a variety of reasons I haven't eliminated it. If that is someday seen as monstrous enough that they want to revoke my awards and recognition, I'm actually all for it. It will be a better, kinder world than the one I live in.

I mean, that's one frequent US-based usage. But people use it in plenty of other contexts too.

E.g., reading (non-politics) authors from the past. Listening to music by musicians from the past. Just as a quick example, should you or should you not listen to Wagner is a question among Jews, because of his anti-semitic views. Personally I wouldn't let that stop me from listening to him, but people have different views on this kind of stuff.

one such example is the quote "an eye for an eye".

Today this sounds as condoning revenge or vigilantism, as opposed to forgiveness.

But in its historical context, it was in fact the opposite, since the norm at the time used to be to engage in vastly unequal retaliation (e.g. "your entire family for an eye").

> The wording is unfortunately brief, but Fisher the professor of genetics is referring to the future “stock” and the ultimate elimination from the population of the genes that cause the defect, as is clear from his earlier writing on the subject. To eliminate the defectives themselves would constitute murder.

If you are going to quote the article, maybe read it first. The author is quite clear that he believes this to be a misunderstanding given other writings by Fisher.

After reading that quote, I can sympathize with why the people behind the cancellation were concerned. However, I still think it's valuable to preserve the ugly parts of history in particular as waypoints.

One of the progressive HR departments I'm familiar with recently celebrated Messrs. Sanger and Anthony (Susan B.) either in full knowledge (presumably given they passed over celebrating others they found problematic) or totally ignorant of their histories (which given their sensitivity, seems unlikely). If the latter, then it looks like it could depend on the person whether they are "forgiven" for their sins. Sanger, for those unfamiliar, was a eugenicist.

Also, mr Sharpton is known for his past history of bigotry and the great majority of people pretend he never uttered bigoted words is not only on TV but is celebrated as a civil rights leader.

Do you eat meat? There's a chance that in the future people will have stopped eating meat, for it to be replaced with lab grown meat or whatever, and the very thought of eating another animal will appear to those people as completely disgusting and unforgivable (especially mass farmed meat for the 1st world, ie not for survival).

Seems unfair to judge people of the past in such a way?

edit: I see this idea has already been discussed below _- I should have done a search for "meat" before commenting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com