'FREED' Eugenic Research Board Established
By MIKE CULBERT
Gazette Executive Editor

Berkeley, California, Monday, March 30, 1970

A "Foundation for Research and Education on Eugenics and Dysgenics," set up to study the admittedly controversial area of human genetic equality and the importance of genetic factors on human intelligence, is now established and operating through Berkeley.

Dr. William Shockley of Stanford University, Nobel Prize-winning inventor of the transistor and persistent gadfly in the area of genetic investigation, announced over the weekend the addition of a famed University of California professor emeritus of paleontology as a director of FREED which Shockley heads.

He is Dr. Ralph W. Chaney, Berkeley, long associated with the University of California-Berkeley, long active in Save the Redwoods League, the author of numerous books, and, like Dr. Shockley, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Science.

Dr. Chaney joins anatomist Dr. John B.deC.M. Saunders and Shockley as directors of the recently established non-profit research organization.

SERVING AS advisors to FREED are Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, world renowned for his work in physiology, the Hon. Ernst Gruening (D-Alaska), and Perry A. Lambird, Oklahoma physician who obtained his M.D. degree at age 23.

Recently named as advisor to the group, too, is Sir Cyril Burt, a British pioneer of student psychology, and statistical method and a recognized expert on identical twins.

Dr. Stanley Porteus, a famed psychologist, was associated with FREED in the early organizational process of the group.

Dr. Chaney Named to Research Board

Dr. Shockley has announced that FREED's "home address is Post Office Box 4487 Sather Gate, Berkeley.

Dr. Shockley, a nationwide campaigner for drawing attention to the importance of genetic factors in intelligence and what he calls "human quality problems," has been rebuffed several times by the NAS in attempts to impress upon the elite scientific body the need for fullscale research into genetic problems.

FREED LISTS "three theses" to which members, directors and advisers adhere in greater or lesser degree:

1. That "current reproductive patterns threaten future generations with dysngeic (sic!) deterioration.
2. That "significant research on dysgenics is both urgently needed and possible."
3. That "countermeasures acceptable in a democracy should be developed concurrently so that if research confirms the worst, dysgenic trends can be remedied by eugenics - the improvement of human genetic quality by applying the known laws of heredity."

Dr. Shockley, whose profound interest in the problem spans several years and numerous public appearances - some of them tumultuous - defines dysgenics as "the study of mechanisms adverse to human genetic quality, particularly retrogressive evolution through disproportionate reproduction of the genetically disadvantaged."

Dr. Shockley is in the forefront of a group of savants who stress the importance of genetics over environment - usually on the order of 75 to 80 percent - in determining innate human capacities.

Frequently a one-man champion of an analysis he says numerous scientists privately espouse but fear to support publicly, Dr. Shockley has seen his lectures cancelled because of administrative fears of responses to his theses and has been muzzled by disrupters - as at Dartmouth College last October during a meeting of the National Academy of Sciences.

He has coined such terms as "inverted liberalism" and "unsearch" to define what he believes is a failure of the scientific community to rally to realization of the awesomeness of what he terms "population pollution."

The latter is the "lowering of the quality of the population" through programs which continually encourage the interbreeding of humans at the lower end of the IQ-measurable achievement-performance spectrum.

IF THE "quality" of the population is ever descending, the human race is running an ultimate peril, he believes.

"We believe that irrefutable evidence continues to accumulate for the inheritance of genetically controlled, socially maladaptive traits," he told the NAS last year.

"We fear that 'fatuous beliefs' in the power of welfare money, unaided by eugenic foresight may contribute to the decline of human quality" for all segments of society.

He recommended that "the public, the press, the government, and the scientific community€. seek facts relevant to hereditary aspects of our human quality problems. We believe that from such inquiry will inevitably come knowledge suggesting wise, humane and appropriate remedial legislation."

DR. CHANEY, one of whose most recent honors was receiving the highest civilian award bestowed by the Department of Interior, was curator of the UC Museum of Paleontology from 1931 to 1956, and professor of paleontology during the same time, and retains "emeritus" standing in both duties.

He has been assistant director of the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, research assistant at the Carnegie Institute, visiting professor at Stanford and instructor at the University of Oregon in 1944.

He has been director and counselor of the Save the Redwoods League, member of the advisory board, National Park Service, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, Geological Society of America, Paleontology Society of America, the California Academy of Science and a member of American and Japanese botanical societies.

Culbert, Mike. " 'FREED' Eugenic research board established." Gazette (Berkeley, CA) 30 Mar 1970.