Eugenics: Science’s Greatest Scandal

Jointly presented by author and science journalist Angela Saini and reporter and disability campaigner, Adam Pearson, this series explores the history and modern versions of eugenics, the attempt to manipulate our genetic inheritance, to change human evolution and to breed a “better” human.
　　This series, will reveal the roots of Eugenics in the liberal, progressive world of Gower Street, Bloomsbury, London which held great sway in Britain and America and shaped the way our societies were structured and organised to this day.
　　There is an idea that 'genetic determinism' refuses to die and eugenics is making a comeback in academia, science, social policy and is being discussed at the highest levels. Scientists now possess a potential undreamt of by the eugenicists of old - the power to completely reshape the human genome and to transform the mechanisms of human evolution. Gene editing has opened up a whole new world of ethical quandaries and complex debate; it has huge medical benefits, but are we entering the era of the New Eugenics?
　　In part one, Adam and Angela will explore how eugenics originated in the progressive British establishment; how a utopian vision led to catastrophe - and reveal how a great deal of how we run our society today betrays the intellectual legacy of the eugenics movement.
　　In part two, Adam and Angela will show in the future, eugenics is not likely to be driven not by state control, but by market dynamics and individual choice. Money and consumer choices will drive astonishing and often unregulated advances in genetic editing - technology will irrevocably change the human genome; we are entering what some call the “Era of the New Eugenics”.