1963 Shockley: best humans having fewer children, while not-best

[davidford]

Robert Shockley who was one of the co-inventors of the transistor (Bell
Labs, 1947) was a rabid racist. Does that affect how transistors work?

No.

What was Shockley’s self-identified religious affiliation? Atheism? Darwinianity?

pbs.org/transistor/album1/shockley/shockley3.html
Pride before the fall
Arrogant, unwilling to listen, tactless and determined
he would never repeat the mistakes he made with
Brattain and Bardeen, Shockley’s innate paranoia
finally erupted. In September, 1957, less than a
year after Shockley won the Nobel Prize
==
In the ultimate irony, today’s transistors are based
on Shockley’s original field effect design. Shockley,
however, never manufactured any.
Race to disgrace
==
He began giving speeches on population problems,
an issue that had interested him since his wartime
trips to India. In May of 1963, he gave a speech at
Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota
suggesting that the people least competent to
survive in the world were the ones reproducing the
fastest, while the best of the human population was
using birth control and having fewer children. He
had slipped into eugenics.

 In an interview a year later with U.S. News & World 
 Report he fell into the trap of discussing race.  He 
 pointed out that African Americans as a group 
 scored 15 points lower on IQ tests, and suggested 
 the cause was hereditary.  

 Shockley found himself-- not unhappily-- in a swirl 
 of controversy.  Biologists and geneticists blasted his 
 theories, pointing out that eugenics was a rationale 
 used by the Nazis during World War II, and was an 
 idea that had a weak scientific foundation.  Shockley 
 was attacked in print, on television, and in scientific 
 journals.

 

[davidford]

“the people least competent to survive in the world were the ones reproducing the fastest”
Darwin: [Greg]“the careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits”
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135088486.532238.194930%40g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

“while the best of the human population was using birth control and having fewer children”
Darwin quoting Greg, URL above.
But especially compare:

Hitler
hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv2ch02.html
"A folk-State should in the first place raise matrimony
from the level of being a constant scandal to the
race. The State should consecrate it as an
institution which is called upon to produce creatures
made in the likeness of the Lord and not create
monsters that are a mixture of man and ape. The
protest which is put forward in the name of humanity
does not fit the mouth of a generation that makes it
possible for the most depraved degenerates to
propagate themselves, thereby imposing

 unspeakable suffering on their own products and 
 their contemporaries, while on the other hand 
 contraceptives are permitted and sold in every drug 
 store and even by street hawkers, so that babies 
 should not be born even among the healthiest of our 
 people.  In this present State of ours, whose function 
 it is to be the guardian of peace and good order, our 
 national bourgeoisie look upon it as a crime to make 
 procreation impossible for syphilitics and those who 
 suffer from tuberculosis or other hereditary 
 diseases, also cripples and imbeciles.  But the 
 practical prevention of procreation among millions of 
 our very best people is not considered as an evil, 

 nor does it offend against the noble morality of this 
 social class but rather encourages their short-
 sightedness and mental lethargy.  For otherwise 
 they would at least stir their brains to find an answer 
 to the question of how to create conditions for the 
 feeding and maintaining of those future beings who 
 will be the healthy representatives of our nation and 
 must also provide the conditions on which the 
 generation that is to follow them will have to support 
 itself and live."

Also compare Darwin in:
an exercise: parallels between 1871 Darwin & 1924/5 Hitler?
groups.google.com/groups?selm=1134448996.907734.300780%40g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com
4 more Hitler-Darwin parallels
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135092414.972723.104980%40g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

Hitler’s debt to American eugenicists
waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/HitlerDebtToAmerica.html

Hitler’s actions make sense given his atheism and eugenic, social Darwinist vision
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1134145559.645139.229550%40f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com

“He pointed out [in 1964] that African Americans as a group
scored 15 points lower on IQ tests, and suggested the cause was hereditary.”
1923 Holmes
groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-1133927305.339964.266320%40o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com

July 1947 indictment by Allies of SS Race and Settlement
Office leaders. Cited in
Black, Edwin. 2003. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s
Campaign to Create a Master Race (NY: Four Walls Eight Windows),
550pp., 405.
“Kidnapping the children of foreign nationals in order to
select for Germanization those who were considered of
‘racial value.’… Encouraging and compelling abortions
on Eastern workers… Preventing marriages and
hampering reproduction of enemy nationals.”

Haeckel on killing the disabled
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-3a8etdF65smnrU4%40individual.net

Darwin on selection of Spartan children
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135004225.246782.327080%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

> Robert Shockley who was one of the co-inventors of the transistor (Bell

Labs, 1947) was a rabid racist. Does that affect how transistors work?

No.

What was Shockley’s self-identified religious affiliation? Atheism? Darwinianity?

pbs.org/transistor/album1/shockley/shockley3.html
Pride before the fall
Arrogant, unwilling to listen, tactless and determined
he would never repeat the mistakes he made with
Brattain and Bardeen, Shockley’s innate paranoia
finally erupted. In September, 1957, less than a
year after Shockley won the Nobel Prize​

In the ultimate irony, today’s transistors are based
on Shockley’s original field effect design. Shockley,
however, never manufactured any.
Race to disgrace​

He began giving speeches on population problems,
an issue that had interested him since his wartime
trips to India. In May of 1963, he gave a speech at
Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota
suggesting that the people least competent to
survive in the world were the ones reproducing the
fastest, while the best of the human population was
using birth control and having fewer children. He
had slipped into eugenics.

That being the case, what were the reasons which led to his conclusions ?​

FWIW, his conclusion is not equivalent to espousing - or even formulating - a position in favour of eugenics. There is no necessary connection between his conclusion, and that position ##

In an interview a year later with U.S. News & World
Report he fell into the trap of discussing race. He
pointed out that African Americans as a group
scored 15 points lower on IQ tests, and suggested
the cause was hereditary.

The results of tests depend on the questions asked - to name only one of several possible influences on the results.​

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that African Americans are less intelligent than other groups in the general population of the USA - how many astro-physicists are outstanding athletes ? Being less intelligent does not make one any less valuable as a human being. Intelligence and intellectual ability are not the only human goods. ##

Shockley found himself-- not unhappily-- in a swirl
of controversy. Biologists and geneticists blasted his
theories, pointing out that eugenics was a rationale
used by the Nazis during World War II, and was an
idea that had a weak scientific foundation. Shockley
was attacked in print, on television, and in scientific
journals.

 

[davidford]

Gottle of Geer:

That being the case, what were the reasons which led to his conclusions ?

I don’t know. Probably he was reading the standard eugenics proponents, many of whom were biologists and geneticists.
Gottle of Geer:

Supposing, for the sake of argument, that African Americans are less intelligent than other groups in the general population of the USA - how many astro-physicists are outstanding athletes ? Being less intelligent does not make one any less valuable as a human being. Intelligence and intellectual ability are not the only human goods.

I’m aware of no “astro-physicists [that] are outstanding athletes.”

“Being less intelligent does not make one any less valuable as a human being.”
How about “being less” skilled in doing basic tasks-- could that “make one… less valuable as a human being”?

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
the atheism-adherents Watson and Crick
From
1979 Schaeffer & Koop on the a-moral implications of atheism
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0504061225.4c675814%40posting.google.com
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize
laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA,
granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a
publication of the American Medical Association.
Time later reported the interview to the general
public, quoting Watson as having said,
_ _ If a child were not declared alive until three days
_ _ after birth, then all parents could be allowed the
_ _ choice only a few are given under the present
_ _ system. The doctor could allow the child to die
_ _ if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery
_ _ and suffering. I believe this view is the only
_ _ rational, compassionate attitude to have.

In January 1978, Francis Crick, also a Nobel
laureate, was quoted in the Pacific News Service
as saying,
_ _ . . . no newborn infant should be declared human
_ _ until it has passed certain tests regarding its
_ _ genetic endowment and that if it fails these tests
_ _ it forfeits the right to live.

Haeckel on murdering the disabled
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-3a8etdF65smnrU4%40individual.net

Darwin on selection of Spartan children
groups.google.com/groups?selm=dford3-1135004225.246782.327080%40g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com

 

[DaveBj]

His conclusion is not surprising, even if his characterizations of “best” and [whatever] are insidious.

His “best” would = intelligent → educated → economically well off → lots of things/activities with which to occupy themselves → self-limiting number of children. This category (his category, not mine) might also run toward less religiously devout → use of ABC and abortion to limit the number of children.

His other category would = less intelligent → undereducated → economically badly off → few things/activities with which to occupy themselves, but one of those activities would be sex, leading to more children.

No way I’m identifying with his version of eugenics, but there could well be a basis in fact for his characterization. He does sound a bit like Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life, talking about the “garlic-eating rabble.” I identify more with the Baileys.

DaveBj

 

[Della]

This man’s arrogance and errors put me in mind of 1 Cor. 1:
[18] For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
[19] For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”
[20] Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
[21] For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.
[22] For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,
[23] but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles,
[24] but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
[25] For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
[26] For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth;
[27] but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong,
[28] God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are,
[29] so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
[30] He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption;
[31] therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.”

Apt, no?