Dinosaur In a Haystack - A Website About Stephen Jay Gould's ...

and success, a position that Gould has opposed in many essays. Since the talented elitesare required to keep the civilization running, their reproductive failure leads to culturalcollapse.However, members of the lower classes may occasionally be born gifted enough to beable to rise through the social ranks. Historically, such overachievers came from smallerfamilies, which reinforced Fisher’s belief in his genetic correlation hypothesis. Thus,men (always only men) who were able to make this rise probably had reduced fertility,and thus marrying into the upper classes would only be of limited assistance. (Fisher’sbrand of eugenics favored interbreeding of the ruling class with talented outsiders. Thisis consistent with “Fisher’s fundamental theorem of natural selection,” the centerpiece ofhis book, which states that the rate that evolution can take place within a population isdirectly proportional to the genetic variance within that population.) However, he notes,many of these men end up marrying rich heiresses, in order to obtain the funds necessaryto continue their rise. But these women are, in general, the least fertile of all members ofthe upper class. This is because they come from lines with few siblings, and in particularno brothers – for if they had brothers, they would not be heiresses! Eugenics can helpout, Fisher argued, by making the case that the state should provide financial assistanceshould to these talented underclassmen, so that they would not have to marry infertileheiresses. He made no political headway with his ideas, although he did do his part – inhis mind – by raising six children. Nonetheless, all supporters of eugenics, Gouldconcludes, play into the hands of the social conservatives who favor blaming the victimand enjoy feeling self-righteous. Genetics should not be used to support a socialhierarchy.DIH 24. The Most Unkindest Cut of AllThis is the only essay Gould wrote in which he explicitly discusses Nazi Germany andthe Holocaust. He wrote it for the fiftieth anniversary of the Wannsee Protocol, whichwere written at the conference of that name that took place on January 20, 1942. It ishere that Heydrich, with Eichmann taking notes, formally presented “the final solution tothe Jewish question.” Gould describes the document, which is readily available online.It begins by discussing previous attempts to “rid” the Reich of Jews, noting that successhad been limited. It goes on to describe in some detail how the “final solution” wouldwork: the forcible relocation of Jews to work camps, where many would no doubt perish.(This was a smokescreen, Gould reminds us; the intention was always extermination.)Gould briefly discusses some of his childhood memories of the period. He acknowledgesthat he is not a poet, and furthermore spent those years as a child in Queens, so he hasnothing to add to this widely known part of the Wannsee protocol. There are other parts,however, which are less well known. These parts are important for context, and arerelated to Gould’s area of expertise: evolutionary theory. The Nazi mindset was that theproblems facing the Aryan race – such as the trauma of the First World War and thehumiliation and poverty of the peace that followed – were in large part the result of themixing of their pure blood with Jews. Thus, “the Jewish question” involved not onlywhat to do with “pure” Jews, but also with Reich citizens of mixed ancestry. (generally,29