While giving a lecture on genetics and race, Robert Pollack began to quarrel with his audience.
Pollack -- a Columbia University biology professor -- discussed genetics in the wake of the Holocaust in a lecture with about 50 attendees last night.
In his lecture, Pollack also criticized the reaction that many Americans had to Hurricane Katrina, as well as emergency evacuation plans that depended on evacuees owning cars. He blamed "a national habit of denial" and "social stratification by race in the South" for the crisis.
Urging the audience to "stop playing racial games," Pollack reminded attendees that the human species arose in Africa.
"Some of us are African-Americans, but we are all American Africans," he said.
Rather than using genetics to form "biologically bankrupt racial assumptions," we should remember that we are "hard-wired with the necessity to be loved," he said.
Pollack began his presentation by giving a history of eugenics, a branch of genetics that was very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Eugenics advocated the idea of "an ideal human form" and the removal of certain undesirable groups from the gene pool. It was particularly popular in Germany, where hundreds of thousands of sick, alcoholic and homosexual citizens were forcibly sterilized or killed in the decades preceding World War II.
Pollack compared this type of "ethnic cleansing" to modern-day racism in America.
A number of attendees who disagreed with Pollack's points challenged him during the question-and-answer session.
Pollack contended that the disorder and suffering in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck were more man-made than the ills of the Holocaust.
One audience member accused Pollack of being hypocritical by blaming American society more than German society.
Pollack emphasized humanity's obligation to "care for people we do not look like."
Despite the controversy, some attendees were pleased with Pollack's speech.
"He gives a very interesting view on science and social responsibility," first-year Physics graduate student Amitai Bin-Nun said.
Not everyone was as happy with the event, however.
For fourth-year Physics graduate student Dan Swetz, who expected the lecture to focus on the future of genetics, it "was not as enlightening as I hoped it would be."
Third-year Physics graduate student Christopher Semisch felt that much of what Pollack said was obvious.
"His response to comments was much more interesting than the speech," Semisch said.
