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The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank :: 0812970527
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| Robert Graham, the oddball inventor and millionaire at the heart of David Plotz's book, The Genius Factory, is the archetype for the cliché, "more money than brains." It was Graham who reckoned America was going to hell in a hand basket and the best way to halt the trend was to impregnate women with sperm donated by Nobel Prize winners and other overachievers (providing they were smart and white). Forget for the moment the not-so-thinly-veiled racism powering the whole eugenics movement that served as the backbone of Graham's Repository for Germinal Choice. Graham's super-sperm idea also conveniently overlooked the fact that the women carrying the babies would also leave a genetic imprint while ignoring the nurture-versus-nature argument. Though Plotz addresses these concepts in his book, the real reason to recommend it is its characters, the sperm bank progeny Plotz unearths through intense and covert legwork. The book's humor is also a selling point: "In abstract, donating sperm seemed fundamentally silly. But actually doing it was seductive," Plotz writes. "I had been accepted by the ultraexclusive Fairfax Cryobak! My sperm was 'well above average'! My count was 105 million! What's yours, George Clooney?" Elsewhere, Plotz writes, "By late 1980, Graham found himself presiding over a Nobel Prize sperm bank that had no Nobel Prize donors, no Nobel sperm left in storage and no Nobel babies. None of the first three women who'd been inseminated with Nobel sperm had gotten pregnant. In fact, no one inseminated with the Nobel sperm ever got pregnant. The Nobel Prize sperm bank would never produce a single Nobel baby." No matter. Graham's experiment, which did produce dozens of non-Nobel babies, was a success in one regard: it made for a heck of a story. And in Plotz's capable hands, it also makes for a heck of a book. --Kim Hughes Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
I stumbled upon this book by chance and it is definitely a page turner. David Plotz started this whole series about "seed" at slate.com in 2001 before "The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" existed. After reading it, I find this book thought provoking and funny as Plotz takes you on a journey to "what if geniuses dominate the world, will it improve society?" and how heredity and environment shape who we are. It was an enjoyable book and I totally recommend it.
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Author: Guest
I'm an agronomist, here in Brazil.I read this book, available 100% on internet's site.This book is fun and easy to read.Another reviewer of this same book, claims that, this isn't a scientific book.In fact, any serious book, about eugenics, can be a scientific book.And this happens, because Eugenics isn't, never was and never will be a science.Like ecology today, Eugenics was a godless religion claiming to be a true science.Eugenics can be also described as a pseudo-science, a left's political movement or a protestant or jewish cult.
About one hundred years ago, famous americans, such as Theodore Roosevelt(USA's president), Taft(USA's president), Woodrow Wilson (USA's president), Herbert Hoover(USA's president), Orvile & Wilbur Wright(Wright Brothers), etc. were famous and deeply eugenicists(eugenists in England, New Zealand,etc.).
At that times, to an eugenicist was so "chic" as to be an environmentalist today.If today there's a widespread fear from "menaces to the nature", at that times, there was a widespread from "menaces to the race".Today eugenics is ecology.
If you go to see what happened America's "philanthropic" foundations then devoted to Eugenics,before World War II, you can see that 100% of them became neo-malthusianist and then environmentalists foundations.This happened in Carnegie Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation,etc.They exchanges his title, in last seventy years, from Eugenics to neo-malthusians and then to ecology.The goals, prejudices, etc. are the same as 100 years ago.Today Eugenics is ecology.
This isn't a book about old time eugenics.The subject of this book is, Dr. Robert Klark Graham, who invented a new kind of lens to glasses.Then, we don't know why,he became worried about mankind's "genetical decadency".Instead of claiming to be a neo-malthusianist or an environmentalist, he was more sincere claiming to be really, an eugenicist.Using his own money, he created a "genius Nobel Prize sperm bank".
Created in a time, when almost 100% of the World's eugenicists had disguised themselves as neo-malthusianists or environmentalists, Dr. Graham was more sincere.When his efforts became public, the media was in general, critic about that Nobel sperm bank, but Dr. Graham decided to continuos his efforts.And hundreds of women, decided to recipe the sperm from Nobel Prize winners donators.Dr. Graham only accepted woman, who were married and at good health.He didn'd accepted any lesbian or single woman.Every woman had to be married.Dr. Robert Klark Graham was committed to be, the begining of a new and better race.
A racist/eugenicist/neo-malthusianist/environmentalist has just two ways to follow, in his life, in the future.One is the pathetic way.The other is the madness/criminal way.Famous eugenicists from the past, such as Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Hitler and Mussolini went to the criminal/mad way of eugenics.
Dr. Graham went to the pathetic way of Eugenics.At first, even having some samples of Nobel Prize winners sperm, any of these samples made any pregnancy.The "Nobel Prize Sperm Bank" produced any Nobel's baby.The name itself was an absurd.After all, about 200 childeren were produced from this sperm bank.
The sperm bank itself, families and children are the subject of this book.The families to example, had terrible increased numbers of divorces.I only found a great problem in the book:the amount of children focused in this book is small, because was very difficult to found they.
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Author: Guest
Starting off with the premise that this book is a review of the lives of the 200 children born of Nobel prize winning sperm donors is completely misleading to the reader. It has been a long time since I actually felt lied to in the preamble to purchasing a book. Readers should know that no children are born of Nobel prize winners, no examination of the lives of 200 sperm donors from the bank is undertaken and no scientific information on genetics are even discussed throughout the whole book. In fact, even the data collection of the few lives the author does research seems adhoc at best.
What this book is about is a look at some kids who find their true fathers through the help of the author, but more so through a Canadian director researching the same topic for a movie documentary. The author seems to ride on the coattails of this director in finding out a lot of his information. All the while he makes enormously ridiculous comments and judgments about the supposed Nobel prize winning sperm bank and genetics. He never once looks at the topic with an open mind, that maybe, just maybe extremely bright parents might be more likely to have extremely bright children.
He does some good research in unraveling the Nobel sperm bank and the people behind it. But it seems he relies on old interviews and tv show spots from the 70s and 80s, a time when these topics of genetics and race and IQ were strictly taboo.
The book feels to me that it was trying to use the hype around a Nobel prize winning sperm bank to create a marketing buzz when infact this book is nothing but a review of what could be any sperm bank and any children born of it. Quite disappointing.
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Author: Guest
There have been short stories that, with the application of some creative imagination and creativity have been successfully transformed into feature-length films. The less successful attempts have resulted from films that simply `stretched' the short story with extended screen shots, lengthy silences and empty (not plot-advancing) dialogue. It is the second example that is most akin to this book. This being the case, I will not dignify it with a lengthy review - but will, instead, come quickly and briefly to the point. This book is a deception - a title "The Genius Factory, etc ..." - like a false front on a Hollywood set building. It might have been more accurately titled something like A Moderately Brief but Resoundingly Boring History of Attempts at Human Artificial Insemination: Both Successful and Unsuccessful.
The notion of "Eugenics" and it's swollen popularity, for both humane and evil motives, in the early and mid 20th century is an interesting one and well worth study and reportage. Likewise, the efforts of "Dr." Robert Graham (an Optometrist) to create a sperm bank contributed to only by Nobel Laureates in order to improve what he saw as the degenerating quality of the human species is, again, fascinating and perhaps even important. Sadly (and surprisingly) this book renders that issue in relatively brief form while dwelling for chapter after chapter on arguably related, but clearly less interesting, information about the history of human A.I. and the author's subjective experiences in looking into (and `experiencing' both it's products and some of it's required activities.
What began as a few magazine-type articles in "Slate" have been expanded here to Feature Length - but not by the addition of interesting and relevant new data - but by an expanded spewing of word, historical references, and personal irrelevancies.
I would estimate that no more than one-third of the text deal with the subject suggested by the title in a meaningful way. The rest is schlock filler.
If I could reclaim the hours I spend listening to this book (yes, I listened to the recorded version) I would.
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Author: Guest
David Plotz, writer for SLATE magazine, stumbled on an odd bit of history - a plan to improve society through "fine breeding." The stories he tells are sometimes funny, many times sad, but the overall book is hurt by political correctness & his mixing up of various thoughts on eugenics: A Nazi-like master race, a desire to improve the human race through better genes, the universal desire of parents for their kids to excel ("My son is an honor student at Podunk High") All parents, the author included, want "smart" kids and will go out of their way to ensure that.
As the father of adopted children, I can testify that genes seem to be the dominant factor (nature over nurture) as it relates to the outcome of my own children. The author states that studies show that "overall", high-IQ parents have high-IQ kids (no surprise). Sadly, the reverse is also true.
We meet the main character, Robert Graham, a creative inventor and advocate of societal improvement through better genes. He yearned for an ATLAS SHRUGGED world in which the ablest would rule. What he advocated was strikingly similar to those who think academically-trained intellectuals should make decisions on what is best for us. Both, of course, are wrong.
It was the participation of William Shockley, Noble prize winner, inventor and believer in racial IQ variances, that brought attention to the scheme. The author managed to contact some of the children, donors and recipients and relate how the reality of the results differed greatly from the hopes. We realize that children from this setup will likely do better simply because their moms cared enough in the first place to invest the time and energy in finding a suitable donor. The same can be said about private schools. It is not the school but the fact that the parents are willing to sacrifice and work for their child that makes the difference.
The author repeats himself by following the journeys of the various kids and parents, almost as if he has run out of words and can only report activity. A good book but one that could have been richer and better.
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