The Jukes Family - Further Research

Further Research

Research the 1960s pointed out fundamental problems with the studies, such as the subjects were not one family and not necessarily related. In addition, the attempt to link a trait such as poverty to genetic makeup, ignoring environmental issues has been "totally discredited", as noted to geneticist Andrés Ruiz Linares in a 2011 historical review. This, however, ignores the fact that intelligence (and the lack thereof) is clearly genetically inherited, with intelligence the single strongest correlate for relative wealth and poverty.

In 2001 a poorhouse graveyard was discovered in New Paltz, in Ulster County. Some of the unmarked graves belonged to members of the so-called Jukes family. Further information was found in the archives at the State University of New York at Albany and in records of a forgotten Ulster County poorhouse. A code book, labeled "classified", was found and listed the real surnames of the "Jukes" family. Hundreds of names were listed, including Plough, Miller, DuBois, Clearwater, Bank and Bush. Max, the "founder," was identified as Max Keyser. However, "the mythology of so-called 'genetically problematic families' is still with us," said Paul A. Lombardo of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia. "Even today, the Jukeses seem to be getting a third life on the Internet as we see some religious and political groups invoking them as examples of inherited immorality."