Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong

by Paul A. Offit

One exhibit, titled “Some People Are Born to Be a Burden on the Rest,” featured a series of blinking lights. One light, which flashed every 48 seconds, indicated the birth of a “defective person”; another, which flashed every 50 seconds, indicated that someone had just been sent to jail and that “very few normal people ever go to jail”; a third, which flashed only every 7 minutes, indicated the birth of a “high-grade person.” The exhibit explained that “every 15 seconds $100 of your money goes for the care of persons with bad heredity.”