(d) Even if the information it furnishes were more complete, human
genealogy would not justify the claims sometimes made for it as a
science, because, to use a biological phrase, "the matings are not
controlled." The results of a certain experiment are exhibited, but can
not be interpreted unless one knows what the results would have been,
had the preceding conditions been varied in this way or in that way.
These controlled experiments can be made in plant and animal breeding;
they have been made by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, for many
years. They can not be made in human society. It is, of course, not
desirable that they should be made; but the consequence is that the
biological meaning of human history, the real import of genealogy, can
not be known unless it is interpreted in the light of modern plant and
animal breeding. It is absolutely necessary that genealogy go into
partnership with genetics, the general science of heredity. If a spirit
of false pride leads genealogists to hold aloof from these experiments,
they will make slow progress. The interpretation of genealogy in the
light of modern research in heredity through the experimental breeding
of plants and animals is full of hope; without such light, it will be
discouragingly slow work.
Genealogists are usually proud of their pedigrees; they usually have a
right to be. But their pride should not lead them to scorn the pedigrees
of some of the peas, and corn, snapdragons and sugar beets, bulldogs and
Shorthorn cattle, with which geneticists have been working during the
last generation; for these humble pedigrees may throw more light on
their own than a century of research in purely human material.
The science of genealogy will not have full meaning and full value to
those who pursue it, unless they bring themselves to look on men and
women as organisms subject to the same laws of heredity and variation as
other living things. Biologists were not long ago told that it was
essential for them to learn to think like genealogists. For the purpose
of eugenics, neither science is complete without the other; and we
believe that it is not invidious to say that biologists have been
quicker to realize this than have genealogists. The Golden Age of
genealogy is yet to come.
(4) In addition to the correction of these faulty methods, there are
certain extensions of genealogical method which could advantageously be
made without great difficulty.
(a) More written records should be kept, and less dependence placed on
oral communication. The obsolescent family Bible, with its chronicle of
births, deaths and marriages, is an institution of too great value in
more ways than one, to be given up. The United States have not the
advantage of much of the machinery of State registration which aids
European genealogy, and while working for better registration of vital
statistics, it should be a matter of pride with every family to keep its
own archives.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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