Talk:Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley was a Natural sciences good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
February 6, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

Biography: Military / Science and Academia

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Failed GA[edit]

This article failed to become a good article due to lack of references. --Pagrashtak 03:53, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For consistency, there should be a photo for Julian in the main article, like there is for Andrew. In fact there is none for Aldous?!

Phrenology[edit]

Was it not Julian Huxley, who was a total racist and phrenologist? --Nemesis1981 20:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you tell us. How was he racist and what was his interest in phrenology, and what are your sources? --Dannyno 13:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. It was not Julian, who was a phrenologist, but he is in the family tradition. I will write more on him soon, with all relevant sources. --Nemesis1981 20:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eugenetics secion

"Lysenkoism was dangerous because it stopped the artificial selection of crops on Darwinian principles, which eventually led to famine." If you follow the link on Lysenkoism the article seems to imply that Lysenkoism was in response to the famine and found its support in part as being a response to famine not so much as a contributing factor. This makes this sentence ambiguous - is it Lysenkoism or artificial selection "which eventually led to famine?" I don't have the background or knowledge to alter this in the article, but am bringing it up for someone who does. —Emnipass 15:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)Emnipass[reply]

The Huxley's family tree and other members, notably Francis Huxley[edit]

There is a book called The Huxleys, by Ronald W. Clark that is all about this family, with a lot of information, and photos. I would like to add this information, with some help. I would also like to add another generation, including Francis, a well-known living anthropologist and author. Whom should I contact about this? --Daniel Schwab

Disambiguation[edit]

Do we really need the disambig link to a rugby player? It is very obtrusive, and interferes with the important intro text. I'm going to vanish it if no reply soon! Macdonald-ross 12:41, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photos[edit]

I'm going to organise some photos of Julian Hux pre-1938 -- hence out of copyright -- from some of the biogs listed on the page. There's some tremendous post-WWII photos of Julian and Aldous: pity we can't use them! Macdonald-ross 14:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now done. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:00, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Eugenics V-P and Pres[edit]

These positions are not paid appointments, and carry no executive power; therefore I'm taking them out of the intro and leaving them in the eugenics section. OK? Macdonald-ross (talk) 16:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GCHQ?[edit]

This must be shorthand for 'British Intelligence' in 1916. --Steve (talk) 07:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It was someone's 'helpful' link! In WP, helpful but ignorant changes can be greater hazard than vandalism. This one slipped in under the radar; thanks for alerting us. Macdonald-ross (talk) 08:22, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Julian Huxley was an eugenicist[edit]

Julian Huxley, an eugenicist and signatorie of the Eugenics manifesto on September,1939.He was also a racist and a supporter of eugenics sterilization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agre22 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This blog-like post adds nothing. The article contains an accurate and well-referenced account of JSH's eugenics beliefs and his anti-racist efforts for UNESCO. Macdonald-ross (talk) 06:49, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is clearly biased. Mentions on eugenics and racism are left to the very end of the text, leaving an impression of perfection on Huxley. That is made even worse by the fact that no comments on his racism are present on the introductory text. I will try and work that out. 200.180.231.36 (talk) 00:16, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Everything in the article is supported by references to reliable sources. Huxley's association with eugenics has its place in the article. However, his lasting importance as a biological scientist is correctly given precedence, and this is supported by his biographers. He was not a racist; his eugenics referred to "the lowest classes in society", which is not the same thing as racism. Whilst Director of UNESCO, as the text says:

"After the Second World War he was instrumental in producing the UNESCO statement The Race Question,[71] which asserted that:

"A race, from the biological standpoint, may therefore be defined as one of the group of populations constituting the species Homo sapiens"... "Now what has the scientist to say about the groups of mankind which may be recognized at the present time? Human races can be and have been differently classified by different anthropologists, but at the present time most anthropologists agree on classifying the greater part of present-day mankind into three major divisions, as follows: The Mongoloid Division; The Negroid Division; The Caucasoid Division."... "Catholics, Protestants, Moslems and Jews are not races..."

What's the intention of dropping this quote out of context? The Race Question is clearly anti-rasist. Download it and see for yourself. 195.67.45.178 (talk) 13:30, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

He talked about three races but he is not a racist.

Fine 81.38.194.71 (talk) 23:46, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have placed a brief factual statement of his allegiance to eugenics in the intro. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:30, 24 July 2009

(UTC)

Facts are facts. Julian Huxley was an eugenist as an ecologist. Both are the same thing. All eugenists and ecologist are ever bigoted, racists and charlatans. Julian Huxley was an eugenicist and among the signatories of the Eugenics manifesto on September,1939. He was also a racist and a supporter of eugenics sterilization. Facts are facts and that's all.Agre22 (talk) 12:55, 12 January 2010 (UTC)agre22[reply]

So you are assering that all ecologists are bigotred, racists and charlatans, and therefore Huxley was a racist? Perhaps you should read what he actually wrote about racism? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.67.45.178 (talk) 13:32, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Misquoting Huxley[edit]

This is a misquote: "The lowest strata are reproducing too fast. Therefore… they must not have too easy access to relief or hospital treatment lest the removal of the last check on natural selection should make it too easy for children to be produced or to survive; long unemployment should be a ground for sterilisation.". Huxley did not advocate this, as the article suggests. On the contrary, he clearly argued against it. See page 68-69. Has the poster(s) even read the book??? This quote is akin to saying that Darwin argued that evolution can not create the eye.

Quoting the mentioned paragraph on p.68-69: "It will, however, by now have become clear that neither of these approaches is so satisfactory as the third. Indeed, neither is methodologically sound. If the aim of eugenics be to control the evolution of the human species and guide it in a desirable direction, and if the genetic selection should always be practiced in relation to an appropriate environment, then it is an unscientific and wasteful procedure not to attempt to control environment at the same time as genetic quality. Science is simultaneously both theory and practice, both knowledge and control. For the applied science of eugenics to neglect the environment is a source both of confusion and of practical weakness. I would go further: I would say that we cannot succeed in achieving anything in the nature of adequate positive eugenics unless we attempt the control of the social environment simultaneously with the control of the human germ-plasm, any more than Stapledon could have improved his rough mountain grazings save by a similar double attack." (emphasis mine)

/Benzocaine (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Please also note that when the abovementioned quote was written, Huxley had the exact opposite opinion:

Though he never really overcame the belief that, on average, members of the very lowest income groups were genetically less well-endowed than members of the upper -- especially professional -- classes, in the 1930s, he was soon persuaded that his views on compulsory sterilization of the unemployed merely aided and abetted Nazism. He came to stress the importance to both eugenics and society of adequate diet, health care, housing, and education. "Don't let's go on pretending it's all the dear old Edwardian Age!," he exclaimed to a friend. In his celebrated 1936 lecture to the Eugenics Society, Huxley said flatly that a system based on private capitalism and public nationalism was ipso facto dysgenic: it failed to utilize existing reservoirs of valuable genes and it led to the ultimate dysgenics -- war. He declared, "We can't do much practical eugenics until we have more or less equalized the environmental opportunities of all classes and types -- and this must be by levelling up." ("Huxley and the Popularization of Science." Daniel j. Kevles. A symposium on Julian Huxley, 1887-1975 Rice University, september 25-27, 1987. p.6)

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Bi-polar disorder[edit]

There doesn't appear to be any sign that JH ever received a diagnosis of bi-polar disorder, or in the terminology of his day, manic depression, and yet he is placed in the category of bi-polar sufferers at the bottom of the article. I'm not sure how high the bar is here, but perhaps this is mistaken? Daedalus 96 (talk) 22:51, 13 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]