Control by Adam Rutherford Book Review

Released: 3rd February 2022

Genre: Non-Fiction, Science, Historical, Society

Number of Pages: 254

The use of science towards immoral goals has been a contentious but regular fixture for humanity; when it comes to ethics, few pursuits are as damning as eugenics. Through a blend of history, science and sociology, Adam Rutherford’s Control analyses eugenics in a detailed and highly succinct manner, the UCL professor examining multiple topics and blending them together.

Split into two parts, the book looks through the history of the study and why it still matters today. In many ways, more often for ill, eugenics has steered our species in sinister directions from colonialism to the Nazis in World War Two. Through the use of historical figures . The tone is consistently unfiltered and honest, aiming to home in on key events and how they shaped the western world. For example Francis Galton and his book “Hereditary Genius”; the way Galton ranked and classed differing races by superiority would be considered both ignorant and racist by modern standards, but at the time of its publishing in the 1800s, it obtained broader recognition from the masses.

This mainstreaming of eugenics creates a bigger picture, a timeline of how deceitful ideas became a guiding focus of governments and tyrants. Control doesn’t shy away from darker events such as forced sterilisation, making it a difficult read at times. The recent science behind the human genome is particularly important as we now have access to technologies that can alter or “correct” defects in DNA. What does this mean for eugenics in the modern day? Despite the horrors of the 1940s, we’re still a long way from abandoning this genocidal idea and Rutherford encourages us to question what form it could take in the 21st Century.

Recommended?

YES: Through a compact and well realised argument, Control charts the rise and fall of eugenics in human history, highlighting its damage and its potential for evil. Rutherford discusses the issue confidently, tying his perspective closely to modern science. Could the infamous, unethical concept rear its ugly head again? These implications are the final morsel of an already intriguing book.