Matt Novak’s brilliant Paleofuture blog, now housed at the Smithsonian site, is one of the very best uses of the Internet. Looking back at old predictions of the future, it unearths so much hubris and prejudice of the past and, yes, the present. In his latest post, Novak recalls a 1950 Redbook cover story which looked at the physical, mental and moral future of Americans, featuring insights from the rather dangerous anthropologist and eugenicist Earnest A. Hooton. An excerpt:

There can be little doubt of the increase during the past fifty years of mental defectives, psychopaths, criminals, economic incompetents and the chronically diseased. We owe this to the intervention of charity, “welfare” and medical science, and to the reckless breeding of the unfit.

In 2000, apart from the horde of proliferating morons, the commonest type of normal male will be taller and more gangling than ever, with big feet, horse-faces and deformed dental arches. The typical women will be similar—probably less busty and buttocky than those of our generation. These spindly giants will be intelligent, not combative, full of humanitarianism, allergies and inhibitions—stewing in their own introspections. Probably they will be long-lived; the elongated shrivel and buckle, but hang on.•