William Shockley

William Shockley’s importance in the development of modern electronics cannot be overstated. While working at Bell Labs during the 1940s and 50s, Shockley led the team that invented the transistor, for which he and his collaborators won numerous prizes and awards.

In 1965, however, Shockley’s career took an an abrupt turn from internationally famous physicist to geneticist when he gave an address at a Nobel conference on “Genetics and the Future of Man.” In his lecture, Shockley warned of the threat of genetic deterioration (evolution in reverse), he reported his findings, by the Great Society welfare programs that allowed the less genetically fit to reproduce at will, free from the constraints of natural selection. He supported Eugenics.