Walter Cronkite interviews biologist James Bonner on Eugenics and selective breeding
21st Century Eugenics (1967)
The CBS series 21st Century aired a program titled, “The Mystery of Life” on February 26, 1967. The program looked at genetics and the future of humanity.
In this clip, host Walter Cronkite interviews biologist James Bonner. Bonner advocates a “large-scale program of [breeding] better people,” otherwise known as eugenics. Procreation by committee sounds like tons of fun!
Bonner: Each baby, when it’s born, must donate some of his sex cells, sperm or eggs, and these are put in a deep freeze and just kept. The person leads his life, and dies. And after he’s all dead and gone, so the heat of passion is taken out of the matter, a committee meets and studies his life.
Cronkite: So during his lifetime then, he hasn’t had any children?
Bonner: He’s been sterilized, and hasn’t had any children in the normal way. After he’s dead and gone, the committee meets and reviews his life and asks, ‘Would we like to have some more people like him?’ If the answer’s no they take out his sex cells of the deep freeze and throw them away. But if the answer’s yes then they use him to fertilize eggs similarly selected on the basis of review and validation of a person’s contributions during his lifetime. He just doesn’t get to brazenly go out and propagate his own genes without assuring himself and everyone else that they’re the best possible genes.
Get more on Eugenics is used in the 21st Century by watching Maafa21 (Clip Below)
