Eugenics: past, present, and the future.

During the past 20 years there has been a resurgence of interest in the history of the eugenics movements, particularly those of the United States and Germany. Unfortunately, most of these accounts have been published in nonmedical and nongenetic journals, so they are not readily available to geneticists or physicians. The authors of this article are concerned about the lack of information that geneticists, physicians, and students have concerning the origin and progress of these movements. This article provides a short history of the American and German eugenics programs and concludes with a review of their possible relations to our current practices. It is hoped that this will encourage institutions to include, in master's Ph.D., and M.D. programs in human genetics, lectures, seminars, and journal clubs on the topic of eugenics.     

Language,culture, and mind: trends and standards in the latest pendulum swing. Daniel Everett,Language: the cultural tool. London: Profile, 2012.

The study of language in relation to anthropological questions has deep and varied roots, from Humboldt and Boas, Malinowski and Vygotsky, Sapir and Whorf, Wittgenstein and Austin, through to the linguistic anthropologists of now. A recent book by the linguist Daniel Everett, Language: the cultural tool (2012), aims to bring some of the issues to a popular audience, with a focus on the idea that language is a tool for social action. I argue in this essay that the book does not represent the state of the art in this field, falling short on three central desiderata of a good account for the social functions of language and its relation to culture. I frame these desiderata in terms of three questions, here termed the cognition question, the causality question, and the culture question. I look at the relevance of this work for socio‐cultural anthropology, in the context of a major interdisciplinary pendulum swing that is incipient in the study of language today, a swing away from formalist, innatist perspectives, and towards functionalist, empiricist perspectives. The role of human diversity and culture is foregrounded in all of this work. To that extent, Everett's book is representative, but the quality of his argument is neither strong in itself nor representative of a movement that ought to be of special interest to socio‐cultural anthropologists.     

Science,medicine, and the future. Non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus: the gathering storm.

A massive increase in the global prevalence of non-insulin dependent diabetes is likely to occur as "Westernisation" of dietary habits and patterns of physical activity becomes more widespread. Advances in molecular and cellular science may provide some useful insights and therapeutic tools to assist in the fight against the severe consequences of this epidemic. These will include the better identification of specific aetiological subtypes of the disease; the identification of new drugs through the better understanding of the biology of insulin secretion and action; and the targeting of therapies to specific subtypes of the disease. In addition, knowledge of the precise mode of action and antidiabetes drugs may facilitate the design of more effective non-pharmacological manipulations; the genetic identification of "high risk" asymptomatic people may allow us to target screening and preventive strategies more effectively; and investigations into the mechanisms that underlie the link between low birth weight and later diabetes should provide new routes towards treatment and prevention. Barriers to the implementation of the global measures required to stem the predicted flood of non-insulin dependent diabetes may prove insuperable, but if we are to have any success, then close collaboration between clinicians, epidemiologists, public health physicians, and laboratory scientists will be essential.