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Expertise and the “new science” of eugenics

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  • Eby, Margaret R.

Abstract

How are unsettled forms of expertise settled to the advantage of established, but insecure, professional authorities? This research draws on the emergence of eugenics as a “new science” during the first decades of the twentieth century, investigating how medicine came to provide disciplinary authority and organization to eugenic interventions. I do so by analyzing medical publications between 1907 and 1927 to trace physicians’ engagement with eugenic hypotheses, their original research pertaining to eugenics, and the growth of eugenics as an explanatory medical factor. First, I analyze the professional challenge eugenics presented to the rapidly transforming field of medicine and the domain of medical authority. Next, I show first how physicians cast eugenics as both a historical norm and a new science, reinforcing it as part of their domain while protecting their skepticism. Finally, I argue that medicine was able to legitimize unsettled science through a process of “expertise laundering” in which medicine dominated an interdisciplinary exchange of eugenic claims which obscured the unsettled science behind eugenics while bolstering its legitimacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Eby, Margaret R., 2025. "Expertise and the “new science” of eugenics," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 369(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:369:y:2025:i:c:s0277953625001583
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117829
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rebecca Sear, 2021. "Demography and the rise, apparent fall, and resurgence of eugenics," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(S1), pages 201-220, December.
    2. Jane Pryma, 2022. "Technologies of Expertise: Opioids and Pain Management’s Credibility Crisis," American Sociological Review, , vol. 87(1), pages 17-49, February.
    3. Morrison, S.M. & Fee, E., 2010. "The journal of the national medical association: A voice for civil rights and social justice," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 100(S1), pages 70-71.
    4. Nathaniel Comfort, 2018. "Genetic determinism rides again," Nature, Nature, vol. 561(7724), pages 461-463, September.
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