"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference [10], 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields.

Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.^[1] Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921 Three International Eugenics Conferences took place between 1912 and 1932 and were the global venue for scientists, political, and social leaders to plan and discuss the application of programs to improve human heredity in... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... This article is about modern humans. ... For the scientific journal Heredity see Heredity (journal) Heredity (the adjective is hereditary) is the transfer of characters from parent to offspring, either through their genes or through the social institution called inheritance (for example, a title of nobility is passed from individual to individual according to relevant customs and... Social responsibility is an ethical or ideological theory that an entity whether it is a government, corporation, organization or individual has a responsibility to society. ... For the ethical doctrine, see Altruism (ethics). ... Intelligence is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. ... Face-to-face trading interactions on the New York Stock Exchange trading floor. ... Suffering, or pain in this sense,[1] is a basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm in an individual. ...

Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, while modern ones focus on prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering. Opponents argue that eugenics is immoral. Historically, a minority of eugenics advocates have used it as a justification for state-sponsored discrimination, forced sterilization of persons deemed genetically defective, and the killing of institutionalized populations. Eugenics was also used to rationalize certain aspects of the Holocaust. The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1883,^[2] drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including H.G. Wells, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, William Keith Kellogg and Margaret Sanger.^[3][4] G. K. Chesterton was an early critic of the philosophy of eugenics, expressing this opinion in his book, Eugenics and Other Evils. Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities. Funding was provided by prestigious sources such as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the Harriman family.^[5] Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenics' scientific reputation started to tumble in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin began incorporating eugenic rhetoric into the racial policies of Nazi Germany. Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of developing a cultivated breed over time. ... Prenatal diagnosis is the diagnosis of disease or condition in a fetus or embryo before it is born. ... Fetal screening refers to any tests that allow a fetus to be tested for certain traits or characteristics. ... Genetic counseling is the process by which patients or relatives, at risk of an inherited disorder, are advised of the consequences and nature of the disorder, the probability of developing or transmitting it, and the options open to them in management and family planning in order to prevent, avoid or... For other uses, see Birth control (disambiguation). ... In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a technique in which egg cells are fertilized outside the mothers body in cases where conception is difficult or impossible through normal intercourse. ... Elements of genetic engineering Genetic engineering, recombinant DNA technology, genetic modification/manipulation (GM) and gene splicing are terms that are applied to the direct manipulation of an organisms genes. ... Morality is a complex of principles based on cultural, religious, and philosophical concepts and beliefs, by which an individual determines whether his or her actions are right or wrong. ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Affirmative action in the United States Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity... Compulsory sterilization programs sprouted up in many countries at the beginning of the 20th century, usually as part of a program of negative eugenics -- to prevent undesirable members of the population from reproducing. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ... H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ... mile Zola (April 2, 1840 - September 29, 1902) was an influential French novelist, the most important example of the literary school of naturalism, and a major figure in the political liberalization of France. ... George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was a world-renowned Irish author. ... Will Keith Kellogg, usually referred to as W. K. Kellogg (April 7, 1860 – October 6, 1951) was a U.S. industrialist in food manufacturing. ... Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, an advocate of negative eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). ... Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29, 1874–June 14, 1936) was an influential English writer of the early 20th century. ... The Rockefeller Foundation (RF) is a prominent philanthropic organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. ... The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was founded in June 1930 as the W.K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation by breakfast cereal pioneer Will Keith Kellogg. ... The Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) is a foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1902 to support scientific research. ... Mary Williamson Averell Harriman Mary Williamson Averell (22 July 1851 - 7 November 1932) was born in New York City into a prominent New York family (she was a descendant of Henry I of England (King of England)), she was tutored at home and completed her education at a finishing school... Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution: Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921 Three International Eugenics Conferences took place between 1912 and 1932 and were the global venue for scientists, political, and social leaders to plan and discuss the application of programs to improve human heredity in... This article is in need of attention. ... The racial policy of Nazi Germany refers to the policies and laws implemented by Nazi Germany, asserting the superiority of the so-called Aryan race and based on a specific racist doctrine which claimed scientific legitimacy. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

Since the postwar period, both the public and the scientific communities have associated eugenics with Nazi abuses, such as enforced racial hygiene, human experimentation, and the extermination of undesired population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about what exactly constitutes the meaning of eugenics and what its ethical and moral status is in the modern era. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazism or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ... Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... Human experimentation involves medical experiments performed on human beings. ... Extermination is the act of killing with the intention of eradicating demographics within a population. ...

Meanings and types of eugenics

The word eugenics etymologically derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genēs (born), and was coined by Sir Francis Galton in 1883. Etymologies redirects here. ... Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton FRS (February 16, 1822 - January 17, 1911) was an English explorer, statistician, anthropologist, creator of modern eugenics (he coined the term), and investigator of the human mind. ...

Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things to many different people. Historically, the term has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. Much debate has taken place in the past, as it does today--as to what exactly counts as eugenics.^[6] Some types of eugenics deal only with perceived beneficial and/or detrimental genetic traits. These are sometimes called “pseudo-eugenics’ by proponents of strict eugenics. For mercy killings not performed on humans, see Animal euthanasia. ...

The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social policies influential during the early twentieth century. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities." It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions and designer babies have been (sometimes controversially) referred to as eugenic. The gene pool of a species or a population is the complete set of unique alleles that would be found by inspecting the genetic material of every living member of that species or population. ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother. ... Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like preimplantation genetic diagnosis become more available and more powerful. ... The colloquial term designer baby, which was coined by Maleka Merchant in 1971, has been used in popular scientific and bioethics literature to specify a child whose hereditary makeup (genotype) would be, using various reproductive and genetic technologies, purposefully selected (designed) to be the optimal recombination of their parents genetic...

Because of its normative goals and historical association with scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of genetics, the western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics", although one can find advocates of what is now known as liberal eugenics. Despite its ongoing criticism in the United States, several regions globally practice different forms of eugenics. In philosophy, normative is usually contrasted with positive, descriptive or explanatory when describing types of theories, beliefs, or statements. ... Scientific racism is a term that describes either obsolete scientific theories of the 19th century or historical and contemporary racist propaganda disguised as scientific research. ... This article is about the general scientific term. ... Liberal eugenics is the study and use of genetic engineering to improve human beings, specifically in regards to biological characteristics and capacities. ...

Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) will lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool. Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is perceived by many as a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively (e.g., by empirical, scientific inquiry), eugenics has often been deemed a pseudoscience^{[citation needed]}. The most disputed aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the human gene pool, such as what is a beneficial characteristic and what is a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted with scientific racism. The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... A typical 18th century phrenology chart. ... Scientific racism is a term that describes either obsolete scientific theories of the 19th century or historical and contemporary racist propaganda disguised as scientific research. ...

Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived intelligence factors that often correlated strongly with social class. Many eugenicists took inspiration from the selective breeding of animals (where purebreds are often strived for) as their analogy for improving human society. The mixing of races (or miscegenation) was usually considered as something to be avoided in the name of racial purity. At the time this concept appeared to have some scientific support, and it remained a contentious issue until the advanced development of genetics led to a scientific consensus that the division of the human species into unequal races is unjustifiable. Intelligence is the mental capacity to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend ideas and language, and learn. ... Social class refers to the hierarchical distinctions between individuals or groups in societies or cultures. ... Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of developing a cultivated breed over time. ... Purebreds, also called purebreeds, are cultivated varieties or cultivars of an animal species, achieved through the process of selective breeding. ... Frederick Douglass with his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass (sitting) who was white, a famous 19th century American example of miscegenation. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with miscegenation. ... This article is about the general scientific term. ...

Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of hereditary diseases such as hemophilia and Huntington's disease. However, there are several problems with labeling certain factors as "genetic defects": A genetic disorder, or genetic disease is a disease caused, at least in part, by the genes of the person with the disease. ... Haemophilia (also spelled as hemophilia, from the Greek haima blood and philia to love[1]) is a group of hereditary genetic disorders that impair the bodys ability to control blood clotting or coagulation. ...

• In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what a "genetic defect" is. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or individual choice.
• What appears to be a "genetic defect" in one context or environment may not be so in another. This can be the case for genes with a heterozygote advantage, such as sickle cell anemia or Tay-Sachs disease, which in their heterozygote form may offer an advantage against, respectively, malaria and tuberculosis.
• Although some birth defects are uniformly lethal, disabled persons can succeed in life.
• Many of the conditions early eugenicists identified as inheritable (pellagra is one such example) are currently considered to be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental conditions.

Similar concerns have been raised when a prenatal diagnosis of a congenital disorder leads to abortion (see also preimplantation genetic diagnosis). A heterozygote advantage (heterozygous advantage or overdominance) describes the case in which the heterozygote genotype has a higher relative fitness than either the homozygote dominant or homozygote recessive genotype. ... Sickle-shaped red blood cells Sickle cell anemia (American English), sickle cell anaemia (British English) or sickle cell disease is a genetic disease in which red blood cells may change shape under certain circumstances. ... Tay-Sachs disease (abbreviated TSD, also known as GM2 gangliosidosis, Hexosaminidase A deficiency or Sphingolipidosis) is a genetic disorder, fatal in its most common variant known as Infantile Tay-Sachs disease. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. ... Tuberculosis (abbreviated as TB for tubercle bacillus or Tuberculosis) is a common and deadly infectious disease caused by mycobacteria, mainly Mycobacterium tuberculosis. ... Pellagra is a vitamin deficiency disease caused by dietary lack of niacin (vitamin B3) and protein, especially proteins containing the essential amino acid tryptophan. ... Prenatal diagnosis is the diagnosis of disease or condition in a fetus or embryo before it is born. ... A congenital disorder is any medical condition that is present at birth. ... In medicine and (clinical) genetics preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) (or also known as Embryo Screening) refers to procedures that are performed on embryos prior to implantation, sometimes even on oocytes prior to fertilization. ...

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories:

Positive eugenics is aimed to encourage reproduction among the genetically advantaged. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.^[7]

Negative eugenics is aimed at lowering fertility among the genetically disadvantaged. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.^[8]

Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive. Abortion by "fit" women was illegal in Nazi Germany and in the Soviet Union during Stalin's reign. Fitness (often denoted in population genetics models) is a central concept in evolutionary theory. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ...

During the 20th century, many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programs, including:

• Genetic screening
• Birth control
• Promoting differential birth rates
• Marriage restrictions
• Segregation (both racial segregation as well as segregation of the mentally ill from the normal)
• Compulsory sterilization
• Forced abortions, or, conversely, forced pregnancies
• Genocide

Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive and/or restrictive, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance (however labeled). However, some private organizations assist people in genetic counseling, and reprogenetics may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced "liberal" eugenics. For other uses, see Birth control (disambiguation). ... Racial segregation characterised by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... Abortion, in its most common usage, refers to the voluntary or induced termination of a pregnancy, generally through the use of surgical procedures or drugs. ... For other uses, see Genocide (disambiguation). ... Genetic counseling is the process by which patients or relatives, at risk of an inherited disorder, are advised of the consequences and nature of the disorder, the probability of developing or transmitting it, and the options open to them in management and family planning in order to prevent, avoid or... Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like preimplantation genetic diagnosis become more available and more powerful. ...

There are 3 main ways by which the methods of eugenics can be applied. They are:

• mandatory eugenics or authoritarian eugenics, in which the government mandates a eugenics program. Policies and/or legislation is often seen as being coercive and restrictive. This was mostly seen in the 1800's, according to Nikolas Rose.
• promotional voluntary eugenics, in which eugenics is voluntarily practiced and promoted to the general population, but not officially mandated. This is a form of non-state enforced eugenics, using a liberal or democratic approach, which can mostly be seen in the 1900's (see Nikolas Rose's essay entitled 'Politics of Life Itself').
• private eugenics, which is practiced voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general population. This can be considered where we are now, and where we have been for the last decade or so. Again, according to Nikolas Rose, this is also where the future of eugenics is heading - that is, toward costly biological science of creating designer babies, focusing on reprogenetics.

The colloquial term designer baby, which was coined by Maleka Merchant in 1971, has been used in popular scientific and bioethics literature to specify a child whose hereditary makeup (genotype) would be, using various reproductive and genetic technologies, purposefully selected (designed) to be the optimal recombination of their parents genetic... Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like preimplantation genetic diagnosis become more available and more powerful. ...

History

Pre-Galtonian eugenic philosophies

The basic ideals of eugenics can be found from the beginnings of Western civilization. The philosophy was most famously expounded by Plato, who believed human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state. However, Plato understood this form of government control would not be readily accepted, and proposed the truth be concealed from the public via a fixed lottery. Mates, in Plato’s Republic, would be chosen by a “marriage number” in which the quality of the individual would be quantitatively analyzed, and persons of high numbers would be allowed to procreate with other persons of high numbers. In theory, this would lead to predictable results and the improvement of the human race. However, Plato acknowledged the failure of the “marriage number” since “gold soul” persons could still produce “bronze soul” children.^{[citation needed]} This might have been one of the earliest attempts to mathematically analyze genetic inheritance, which was not perfected until the development of Mendelian genetics and the mapping of the human genome. Other ancient civilizations, such as Rome,Athens^[9] and Sparta, practiced infanticide through exposure as a form of phenotypic selection. In Sparta, newborns were inspected by the city's elders, who decided the fate of the infant. If the child was deemed incapable of living, it was usually exposed^[10] in the Apothetae near the Taygetus mountain. It was more common for girls than boys to be killed this way.^[11] Trials for babies which included bathing them in wine and exposing them to the elements. To Sparta, this would ensure only the strongest survived and procreated.^[12] Adolf Hitler considered Sparta to be the first "Völkisch State," and much like Ernst Haeckel before him, praised Sparta due to its primitive form of eugenics practice of selective infanticide policy which was applied on deformed children though the Nazi's believed the children were killed outright and not exposed.^[13][14][15] For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Mendel is the last name of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), often called the father of Genetics. ... A graphical representation of the normal human karyotype. ... For other uses, see Rome (disambiguation). ... This article is about the capital of Greece. ... For modern day Sparta, see Sparti (municipality). ... In sociology and biology, infanticide is the practice of intentionally causing the death of an infant of a given species, by members of the same species - often by the mother. ... Look up exposure in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Taygetus or Taygetos (Greek: Ταΰγετος), also Taigetos is a mountain range of the Peloponnesus, Southern Greece, extending about 65 mi (100 km) north from the southern end of Cape Matapan in the Mani Peninsula. ... The völkisch movement is the German interpretation of the Populist movement, with a romantic focus on folklore and the organic. ... Ernst Haeckel. ... For modern day Sparta, see Sparti (municipality). ...

The 12 Tables of Roman Law, established early in the formation of the Roman Republic, stated in the fourth table that deformed children would be put to death. In addition, patriarchs in Roman society were given the right to "discard" infants at their discretion. This was often done by drowning undesired newborns in the Tiber River. The practice of infanticide in the ancient world did not subside until the Christianization of the Roman empire. Tiber River in Rome The River Tiber (Italian Tevere), the third longest river in Italy (disputed — see talk page) at 406 km (252 miles) after the Po and the Adige, flows through the Campagna and Rome in its course from Mount Fumaiolo to the Tyrrhenian Sea, which it reaches in... Topics in Christianity Movements · Denominations Ecumenism · Relation to other religions Preaching · Prayer Music · Liturgy · Calendar Symbols · Art · Criticism Christianity Portal This box:      Christianity is a monotheistic[1] religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. ...

Galton's theory

Sir Francis Galton initially developed the ideas of eugenics using social statistics.

Sir Francis Galton systematized these ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin during the 1860s and 1870s. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton built upon Darwin's ideas whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest; and only by changing these social policies could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."^[16] Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... For other people of the same surname, and places and things named after Charles Darwin, see Darwin. ... The 1859 edition of On the Origin of Species First published in 1859, The Origin of Species (full title On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) by British naturalist Charles Darwin is one of the pivotal... For other uses, see Natural selection (disambiguation). ... Central New York City. ... In statistics, regression toward the mean is a principle stating that of related measurements, the second is expected to be closer to the mean than the first. ...

Galton first sketched out his theory in the 1865 article "Hereditary Talent and Character," then elaborated further in his 1869 book Hereditary Genius.^[17] He began by studying the way in which human intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. Galton's basic argument was "genius" and "talent" were hereditary traits in humans (although neither he nor Darwin yet had a working model of this type of heredity). He concluded since one could use artificial selection to exaggerate traits in other animals, one could expect similar results when applying such models to humans. As he wrote in the introduction to Hereditary Genius: The subject of the inheritance of intelligence is the genetics of mental abilities. ... This Chihuahua mix and Great Dane show the wide range of dog breed sizes created using artificial selection. ...

I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.^[18]

Galton claimed that the less intelligent were more fertile than the more intelligent of his time. Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped a solution would be found if social mores changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of breeding. Mores are strongly held norms or customs. ...

Galton first used the word eugenic in his 1883 Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development,^[19] a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:

That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditary endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viticulture which I once ventured to use.^[20]

In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as "the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage."^[21]

Galton's formulation of eugenics was based on a strong statistical approach, influenced heavily by Adolphe Quetelet's "social physics". Unlike Quetelet, however, Galton did not exalt the "average man" but decried him as mediocre. Galton and his statistical heir Karl Pearson developed what was called the biometrical approach to eugenics, which developed new and complex statistical models (later exported to wholly different fields) to describe the heredity of traits. However, with the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel's hereditary laws, two separate camps of eugenics advocates emerged. One was made up of statisticians, the other of biologists. Statisticians thought the biologists had exceptionally crude mathematical models, while biologists thought the statisticians knew little about biology.^[22] This article is about the field of statistics. ... Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quételet (February 22, 1796 – February 17, 1874) was a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist. ... Karl Pearson FRS (March 27, 1857 – April 27, 1936) established the discipline of mathematical statistics. ... At Walt Disney World, biometric measurements are taken from the fingers of guests to ensure that the persons ticket is used by the same person from day to day Biometrics (ancient Greek: bios =life, metron =measure) refers to two very different fields of study and application. ... “Mendel” redirects here. ...

Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with an intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the approach of influencing differential birth rates. These policies were mostly divided into two categories: positive eugenics, the increased reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and negative eugenics, the discouragement of reproduction by those with hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the past have ranged from attempts at segregation to sterilization and even genocide. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form of awards or bonuses for "fit" parents who have another child. Relatively innocuous practices like marriage counseling had early links with eugenic ideology. Racial segregation characterised by separation of different races in daily life, such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a rest room, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home. ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... For other uses, see Genocide (disambiguation). ... Relationship counseling may be advertised under several headings: marriage, family, couples, ... . It is usually done by appointment with a face-to-face counsellor. ...

Eugenics is superficially related to what would later be known as Social Darwinism. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, while the Social Darwinists argued society itself would naturally "check" the problem of "dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).^{[citation needed]} Social Darwinism is the idea that Charles Darwins theory can be extended and applied to the social realm, i. ...

Nazi Germany

Main article: Nazi eugenics

Nazi propaganda for their compulsory "euthanasia" program: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."

"We do not stand alone": Nazi poster from 1936 with flags of other countries with compulsory sterilization legislation.

Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of "racial hygiene". Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the experiments carried out by Josef Mengele for Otmar von Verschuer on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically "unfit", an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted one American eugenics advocate to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game".^[23] The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "euthanasia" programs.^[24] Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazi eugenics pertains to Nazi Germanys race based social policies that placed the improvement of the race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as life unworthy... Image File history File links EnthanasiePropaganda. ... Image File history File links EnthanasiePropaganda. ... This poster reads: 60,000 Reichsmark is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. ... User(s) Germany Subunit 1/100 Reichspfennig Symbol RM Reichspfennig Rpf. ... Wir stehen nicht allein: We do not stand alone. Nazi propaganda poster from 1936. ... Wir stehen nicht allein: We do not stand alone. Nazi propaganda poster from 1936. ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Hitler redirects here. ... Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911– February 7, 1979) was a German SS officer and a physician in the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. ... For mercy killings not performed on humans, see Animal euthanasia. ...

They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "Aryan" women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women could deliver illegitimate children. Allegations that such women were also impregnated by SS officers in the Lebensborn are common, but unproven. Also, "racially valuable" children from occupied countries were forcibly removed from their parents and adopted by German people. Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" people including Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals during the Holocaust (much of the killing equipment and methods employed in the death camps were first developed in the euthanasia program). The scope and coercion involved in the German eugenics programs along with a strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics and so-called "racial science" throughout the regime created an indelible cultural association between eugenics and the Third Reich in the postwar years.^[25] The Aryan race is a concept in European culture that was influential in the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ... SS redirects here. ... A Lebensborn birth house Lebensborn (Fount of Life, in German) was a child welfare and relocation program initiated by Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler to aid the racial heredity of the Third Reich. ... Language(s) Romani, languages of native region Religion(s) Romanipen, combined with assimilations from local religions Related ethnic groups South Asians (Desi) This article is about the Indo-Aryan ethnic group. ... Homosexuality refers to sexual interaction and / or romantic attraction between individuals of the same sex. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...

Some researchers, such as John Glad, have questioned the relation between eugenics and the Holocaust. They argue that, contrary to popular beliefs Hitler did not regard the Jews as intellectually inferior and did not send them to the concentration camps on these grounds. In fact, in the 1930s Germans regarded the Jews as a highly talented people.^{[citation needed]} Hitler had different reasons for his genocidal policies toward the Jews.^[26] Seymour W. Itzkoff writes that the Holocaust was "a vast dysgenic program to rid Europe of highly intelligent challengers to the existing Christian domination by a numerically and politically minuscule minority". Therefore, according to Itzkoff, "the Holocaust was the very antithesis of eugenic practice."^[27] However, this proposition is not supported by most researchers. Hitler did regard Jews as being intelligent, but also considered them inferior in all other ways - morally, spiritually, artistically and physically. In his view, their intelligence enabled them to thrive, but only by undermining and perverting the civilisation of other races. The extensive Nazi propaganda comparing Jews to plagues of rats demonstrates that the Holocaust was indeed a eugenics program in its conception.^{[original research?]} An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... For other uses, see Holocaust (disambiguation) and Shoah (disambiguation). ... Seymour W. Itzkoff (born 22 July 1928) is an American professor known for his controversial research into intelligence. ... “Shoah” redirects here. ... This article is about rats. ...

Eugenics and the United States, 1890s–1945

One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf should not marry, in his lecture Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human race presented to the National Academy of Sciences on 13 November 1883.^[28] However, it was his hobby of livestock breeding which led to his appointment to biologist David Starr Jordan's Committee on Eugenics, under the auspices of the American Breeders Association. The committee unequivocally extended the principle to man.^[29] Like many other early eugenicists, Bell proposed controlling immigration for the purpose of eugenics, and warned that boarding schools for the deaf could possibly be considered as breeding places of a deaf human race.^{[citation needed]} Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847 – 2 August 1922) was an eminent scientist, inventor and innovator who is credited with the invention of the telephone. ... The word deaf can have very different meanings depending on the background of the person speaking or the context in which the word is used. ... Map of Marthas Vineyard. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... President Harding and the National Academy of Sciences at the White House, Washington, DC, April 1921 The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine. ... is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan, Ph. ...

Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals.^[30] Although the law was overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921,^[31] the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.^[32] Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856—February 3, 1924), was the twenty-eighth President of the United States. ... For other uses, see Indiana (disambiguation). ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... The Supreme Court of Indiana is the highest court in the state of Indiana. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Holding The Court upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the protection and health of the state. ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ...

Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded" from marrying. In 1898 Charles B. Davenport, a prominent American biologist, began as director of a biological research station based in Cold Spring Harbor where he experimented with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904 Davenport received funds from the Carnegie Institution to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. The Eugenics Record Office opened in 1910 while Davenport and Harry H. Laughlin began to promote eugenics.^[33] Official language(s) none (de facto English) Capital Hartford Largest city Bridgeport[2] Largest metro area Hartford Metro Area[3] Area  Ranked 48th in the US  - Total 5,543[4] sq mi (14,356 km²)  - Width 70 miles (113 km)  - Length 110 miles (177 km)  - % water 12. ... Feeble-minded was a term used from the late 19th century through the early 20th century to loosely describe a variety of mental deficiencies, including what would now be considered mental retardation in its various types and grades, and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. ... Charles Benedict Davenport (June 1, 1866 — February 18, 1944) was a prominent American biologist and eugenicist. ... For the song by Girls Aloud see Biology (song) Biology studies the variety of life (clockwise from top-left) E. coli, tree fern, gazelle, Goliath beetle Biology (from Greek: Βιολογία - βίος, bio, life; and λόγος, logos, speech lit. ... Cold Spring Harbor can refer to: Cold Spring Harbor, New York Cold Spring Harbor, a Billy Joel album Cold Spring Harbor, a 1986 novel by Richard Yates This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Carnegie Institution of Washington (CIW) is a foundation established by Andrew Carnegie in 1902 to support scientific research. ... The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. ... Harry H. Laughlin Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880 – January 26, 1943) was a leading American eugenicist in the first half of the 20th century. ...

During the 20th century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until the mid-20th century. By 1945 over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized.^{[citation needed]} All in all, 60,000 Americans suffered from sterilization.^[34]

In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the psychologist Henry H. Goddard and the conservationist Madison Grant (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit". (Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his The Kallikak Family; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.)^[35] Though their methodology and research methods are now understood as highly flawed, at the time this was seen as legitimate scientific research.^[36] It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, Thomas Hunt Morgan, one of the few Mendelians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.^[37] {redirect|Psychological science|the journal|Psychological Science (journal)}} Not to be confused with Phycology. ... Henry Herbert Goddard (1866 – 1957) was a prominent American psychologist and eugenicist in the early 20th century. ... Madison Grant in the early 1920s. ... Goddards book traced the genealogy of Deborah Kallikak, a woman in his institution. ... Thomas Hunt Morgan (September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945) was an American geneticist and embryologist. ... Mendel is the last name of Gregor Mendel (1822-1884), often called the father of Genetics. ...

Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of eugenic sterilization was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.^[38] A favorable report on the results of sterilization in California, the state with the most sterilizations by far, was published in book form by the biologist Paul Popenoe and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for war crimes in Nuremberg after World War II, they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.^[34] The Supreme Court of the United States (sometimes colloquially referred to by the acronym SCOTUS[1]) is the highest judicial body in the United States and leads the federal judiciary. ... Holding The Court upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the protection and health of the state. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... This article is about the U.S. state. ... Paul B. Popenoe in 1915. ... In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under International Law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ... Nürnberg redirects here. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

A pedigree chart from The Kallikak Family meant to show how one illicit tryst could lead to an entire generation of imbeciles.

The idea of "genius" and "talent" is also considered by William Graham Sumner, a founder of the American Sociological Society (now called the American Sociological Association). He maintained that if the government did not meddle with the social policy of laissez-faire, a class of genius would rise to the top of the system of social stratification, followed by a class of talent. Most of the rest of society would fit into the class of mediocrity. Those who were considered to be defective (mentally retarded, handicapped, etc.) had a negative effect on social progress by draining off necessary resources. They should be left on their own to sink or swim. But those in the class of delinquent (criminals, deviants, etc.) should be eliminated from society ("Folkways", 1907). Download high resolution version (492x644, 26 KB)An image from Henry H. Goddards The Kallikak Family, 1912. ... Download high resolution version (492x644, 26 KB)An image from Henry H. Goddards The Kallikak Family, 1912. ... A pedigree is a list of ancestors (usually implying distinguished), a list of ancestors of the same breed (usually in the case of animals), the purity of a breed, individual, or strain, or a document proving any of these things. ... Goddards book traced the genealogy of Deborah Kallikak, a woman in his institution. ... William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) was the leading American advocate of a free-trade industrial society, which is what he believed the socialists meant by capitalism. ...

Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference.

Eugenics is today often associated with racism and both W.E.B. DuBois and Marcus Garvey supported eugenics or ideas resembling eugenics as a way to reduce African American suffering and improve stature.^{[citation needed]}. However, methods of eugenics were applied to reformulate more restrictive definitions of white racial purity in existing state laws banning interracial marriage: the so-called anti-miscegenation laws. The most famous example of the influence of eugenics and its emphasis on strict racial segregation on such "anti-miscegenation" legislation was Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned this law in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, and declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Illustration from The Speaking Portrait (Pearsons Magazine, Vol XI, January to June 1901) demonstrating the principles of Bertillons anthropometry. ... Manifestations Slavery Racial profiling Lynching Hate speech Hate crime Genocide (examples) Ethnocide Ethnic cleansing Pogrom Race war Religious persecution Blood libel Paternalism Police brutality Movements Policies Discriminatory Race / Religion / Sex segregation Apartheid Redlining Internment Ethnocracy Anti-discriminatory Emancipation Civil rights Desegregation Integration Equal opportunity Counter-discriminatory Affirmative action Racial quota... W. E. B. Du Bois William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (pronounced ) (February 23, 1868 – August 27, 1963) was a civil rights activist, sociologist, educator, historian, writer, editor, poet, and scholar, and socialist. ... Marcus Mosiah Garvey, Jr. ... An African American (also Afro-American, Black American, or simply black) is a member of an ethnic group in the United States whose ancestors, usually in predominant part, were indigenous to Africa. ... Othello and Desdemona from William Shakespeares Othello, a play often depicted as concerning a biracial couple. ... Anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were laws that banned interracial marriage and sometimes also interracial sex. ... Frederick Douglass with his second wife Helen Pitts Douglass (sitting) who was white, a famous 19th century American example of miscegenation. ... The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 of Virginia, United States, was a law that had required that a racial description of every person be recorded at birth, and prevented marriage between white persons and non-white persons. ... The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C. The Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., (large image) The Supreme Court of the United States, located in Washington, D.C., is the highest court (see supreme court) in the United States; that is, it has ultimate judicial authority within the United States... Holding The Court declared Virginias anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, unconstitutional, thereby ending all race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. ...

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, eugenicists for the first time played an important role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock"^{[citation needed]} from eastern and southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent from previous years, to control the number of "unfit"^{[citation needed]} individuals entering the country. While eugenicists did support the act, the most important backers were union leaders like Samuel Gompers^[39]. The new act, inspired by the eugenic belief in the racial superiority of "old stock" white Americans as members of the "Nordic race" (a form of white supremacy), strengthened the position of existing laws prohibiting race- mixing.^[40] Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of incest laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many anti-miscegenation laws.^[41] It has been suggested that National Origins Quota of 1924 be merged into this article or section. ... Samuel Gompers (January 27, 1850[1] - December 13, 1924) was an American labor union leader and a key figure in American labor history. ... Nordic theory (or Nordicism) was a theory of race prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ... White supremacy is a racist ideology which holds the belief that white people are superior to other races. ... Incest is defined as sexual relations between closely related persons (often within the immediate family) such that it is either illegal or socially taboo. ... Anti-miscegenation laws (also known as miscegenation laws) were laws that banned interracial marriage and sometimes also interracial sex. ...

Various authors, notably Stephen Jay Gould, have repeatedly asserted that restrictions on immigration passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965 with the Immigration and Nationality Act) were motivated by the goals of eugenics.^{[citation needed]} During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like Lothrop Stoddard and Harry Laughlin (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments they would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted.^{[citation needed]} It has been argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable Anglo-Saxon and Nordic peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were almost completely banned from entering the country.^[42] However, several people, in particular Franz Samelson, Mark Snyderman and Richard Herrnstein, have argued, based on their examination of the records of the congressional debates over immigration policy, Congress gave virtually no consideration to these factors. According to these authors, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the country's cultural integrity against a heavy influx of foreigners.^[43] This interpretation is not, however, accepted by most historians of eugenics. Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. ... The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952 (Also known as the McCarran-Walter Act) restricted immigration into the U.S. and is codified under Title 8 of the United States Code. ... Lothrop Stoddard. ... Harry Hamilton Laughlin (March 11, 1880- January 26, 1943) was a leading eugenicist in the United States in the first half of the 20th century. ... For other uses, see Anglo-Saxon. ... Nordic theory (or Nordicism) was a theory of race prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. ... Richard Herrnstein (1930-1994) was a prominent researcher in comparative psychology who did pioneering work on pigeon intelligence employing the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. ... For other uses, see Culture (disambiguation). ...

Some who disagree with the idea of eugenics in general contend that eugenics legislation still had benefits. Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood of America) found it a useful tool to urge the legalization of contraception. In its time eugenics was seen by many as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the death camps of World War II, the idea that eugenics could lead to genocide was not taken seriously. Margaret Higgins Sanger (September 14, 1879 – September 6, 1966) was an American birth control activist, an advocate of negative eugenics, and the founder of the American Birth Control League (which eventually became Planned Parenthood). ... Planned Parenthood is an American organization devoted to individual determination with regards to matters of fertility. ... Birth control is the practice of preventing or reducing the probability of pregnancy without abstaining from sexual intercourse; the term is also sometimes used to include abortion, the ending of an unwanted pregnancy, or abstinence. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... For other uses, see Genocide (disambiguation). ...

Japan

Main article: Eugenics in Showa Japan

In the early part of the Shōwa era, Japanese governments executed a eugenic policy to limit the birth of children with "inferior" traits, as well as aiming to protect the life and health of mothers.^[44] This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Shōwa period , literally period of enlightened peace), or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), from December 25, 1926 to January 7, 1989. ...

The Race Eugenic Protection Law was submitted from 1934 to 1938 to the Diet. After four amendments, this draft was promulgated as the National Eugenic Law in 1940 by the Konoe government ^[45]. According to the Eugenic Protection Law (1948), sterilization could be enforced on criminals "with genetic predisposition to commit crime", patients with genetic diseases such as total color-blindness, hemophilia, albinism and ichthyosis, and mental affections such as schizophrenia, manic-depressiveness and epilepsy. ^[46]. Mental illnesses were added in 1952. Konoe can refer to: Emperor Konoe, emperor of Japan Konoe family, a branch of the Fujiwara family Prince Fumimaro Konoe (1891 – 1945), 34th, 38th and 39th Prime Minister of Japan Jushiro Konoe (1914 - 1977), Jidaigeki actor In historical kana usage, the name Konoe is spelled Konoye. ... Haemophilia or hemophilia is the name of any of several hereditary genetic illnesses that impair the bodys ability to control bleeding. ... Albino redirects here. ... Ichthyosis is a family of genetic dermatological conditions seen in humans and domestic animals. ...

The Leprosy Prevention laws of 1907, 1931 and 1953, the last one only repealed in 1996, permitted the segregation of patients in sanitarium where forced abortions and sterilization were common, even if the laws did not refer to it, and authorized punishmement of patients "disturbing peace" as most Japanese leprologists believed that the body constitution vulnerable to the disease was inheritable. ^[47] There were a few Japanese leprologists such as Noburo Ogasawara who argued against the "isolation-sterilization policy" but he was denounced as a traitor to the nation at 15th conference of the Japanese Association of Leprology in 1941. ^[48]

Center staff also attempted to discourage marriage between Japanese women and Korean men who had been recruited from the peninsula as laborers following its annexation by Japan in 1910. In 1942, a survey report argued that "the Korean laborers brought to Japan, where they have established permanent residency, are of the lower classes and therefore of inferior constitution...By fathering children with Japanese women, these men could lower the caliber of the Yamato minzoku." ^[49]

One of the last eugenic measure of the Shōwa regime was taken by the Higashikuni government. On 19 August 1945, the Home Ministry ordered local government offices to establish a prostitution service for allied soldiers to preserve the "purity" of the "Japanese race". The official declaration stated that : "Through the sacrifice of thousands of "Okichis" of the Shōwa era, we shall construct a dike to hold back the mad frenzy of the occupation troops and cultivate and preserve the purity of our race long into the future...." ^[50] Prince Higashikuni (Naruhiko) of Japan (東久邇 稔彦 Higashikuni Naruhiko, also Higashikuni no miya Naruhiko ō (東久邇宮 稔彦王)) (3 December 1887 – 26 January 1990) was the 43rd Prime Minister of Japan from 17 August 1945 to 9 October 1945, a period of 54 days. ... is the 231st day of the year (232nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1945 (MCMXLV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar). ... Whore redirects here. ... The Shōwa period , literally period of enlightened peace), or Shōwa era, is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito), from December 25, 1926 to January 7, 1989. ...

Canada

In Canada, the eugenics movement took place early in the 20th century, particularly in Alberta, and was quite popular. The Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta was enacted in 1928, focusing the movement on the sterilization of mentally deficient individuals, as determined by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The campaign to enforce this action was backed by groups such as the United Farm Women's Group, including key member Emily Murphy. Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. ... Mental retardation (abbreviated as MR), is a term for a pattern of persistently slow learning of basic motor and language skills (milestones) during childhood, and a significantly below-normal intellectual capacity as an adult. ... In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mental deficient. ... Statue of Emily Murphy in the monument to The Famous Five, Parliament Hill, Ottawa Emily Murphy (March 14, 1868 - October 17, 1933) was a Canadian womens rights activist. ...

Individuals were assessed using IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet. This posed a problem to new immigrants arriving in Canada, as many had not mastered the English language, and often their scores denoted them as having impaired intellectual functioning. As a result, many of those sterilized under the Sexual Sterilization Act were immigrants who were unfairly categorized. IQ tests are designed to give approximately this Gaussian distribution. ... Immigration to Canada is the process by which people migrate to Canada and become nationals of the country. ...

The popularity of the eugenics movement peaked during the depression. Individuals sought an explanation for the financial problems of the nation, and the notion of defective breeding became a scapegoat; citizens blamed individuals considered to be subhuman. The end of the Canadian eugenics movement was brought about when the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed in 1972. For other uses, see The Great Depression (disambiguation). ... The Scapegoat by William Holman Hunt, 1854. ...

Australia

The policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents emerged from an opinion based on Eugenics theory in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Australia that the 'full-blood' tribal Aborigine would be unable to sustain itself, and was doomed to inevitable extinction, as at the time huge numbers of aborigines were in fact dying out, from diseases caught from European settlers.^[51] An ideology at the time held that mankind could be divided into a civilisational hierarchy. This white supremacist notion supposed that Northern Europeans were superior in civilisation and that Aborigines were inferior. According to this view, the increasing numbers of mixed-descent children in Australia, labelled as 'half-castes' (or alternatively 'crossbreeds', 'quadroons' and 'octoroons'). In the first half of the twentieth century, this led to policies and legislation that resulted in the removal of children from their tribe.^[52] The stated aim was to culturally assimilate mixed-descent people into contemporary Australian society. In all states and territories legislation was passed in the early years of the twentieth century which gave Aboriginal protectors guardianship rights over Aborigines up to the age of sixteen or twenty-one. Policemen or other agents of the state (such as Aboriginal Protection Officers), were given the power to locate and transfer babies and children of mixed descent, from their communities into institutions. In these Australian states and territories, half-caste institutions (both government or missionary) were established in the early decades of the twentieth-century for the reception of these separated children.^[53][54] The 2002 movie Rabbit-Proof Fence portrays this system and the harrowing consequences of attempting to overcome it. Language(s) Several hundred Indigenous Australian languages (many extinct or nearly so), Australian English, Australian Aboriginal English, Torres Strait Creole, Kriol Religion(s) Primarily Christian, with minorities of other religions including various forms of Traditional belief systems based around the Dreamtime Related ethnic groups see List of Indigenous Australian group... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Tribal refers to a culture or society based on tribes or clans. ... An ideology is an organized collection of ideas. ... For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation). ... Not to be confused with Intermarriage. ... Actress Halle Berry was born to a white mother and a black father The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people whose parents are not the same race. ... For other uses, see Missionary (disambiguation). ...

In 1915 A.O. Neville was appointed the second Western Australia State Chief Protector of Aborigines. During the next quarter-century, he presided over the now notorious 'Assimilation' policy of removing mixed-race Aboriginal children from their parents. This policy in turn created the Stolen Generations and set in motion a grieving process that through the now widely accepted concept of trans-generational grief, would affect many generations to come. In 1936 Neville became the Commissioner for Native Affairs, a post he held until his retirement in 1940. Auber Octavius Neville (October 20, 1875–April 18, 1954) was a bureaucrat in Western Australia. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... Australian Aborigines are the main indigenous people of Australia. ... The Stolen Generation is a term used to describe the Australian Aboriginal children, usually of mixed descent, who were removed from their families by Australian government agencies and church missions, under various state acts of parliament, denying the rights of parents and making all Aboriginal cildren wards of the state...

Neville believed that biological absorption was the key to 'uplifting the Native race.' Speaking before the Moseley Royal Commission, which investigated the administration of Aboriginals in 1934, he defended the policies of forced settlement, removing children from parents, surveillance, discipline and punishment, arguing that "they have to be protected against themselves whether they like it or not. They cannot remain as they are. The sore spot requires the application of the surgeon's knife for the good of the patient, and probably against the patients will." The Moseley Royal Commission, officially titled the Royal Commission Appointed to Investigate, Report and Advise Upon Matters in Relation to the Condition and Treatment of Aborigines. ...

In his twilight years Neville continued to actively promote his policy. Towards the end of his career, Neville published Australia's Coloured Minority, a text outlining his plan for the biological absorption of aboriginal people into white Australia.^{[55] [56]}

Sweden

See also: Homo Sapiens 1900 and Herman Lundborg

From about 1934 to until 1975, Sweden sterilized more than 62,000 people with Herman Lundborg in the lead of the project.^[57] Sweden's large-scale eugenics program targeted the mentally ill. Most sterilizations were voluntary, but nine per cent of the sterilized were more or less forced to do so. As was the case in other programs, ethnicity and race were believed to be connected to mental and physical health. Still, a comprehensive critical investigation showed there is no evidence the Swedish sterilization programme targeted ethnic minorities ^[58]. While many Swedes disliked the program, politicians generally supported it; the left supported it more as a means of promoting social health, while amongst the right it was more about racial protectionism. In 1999 the Swedish government began paying compensation to the victims and their families. Homo Sapiens 1900 is a documentary directed by Peter Cohen, about various eugenics methods that were in practise in Europe during the first part of the 20th century. ... Herman Lundborg was a Swedish eugenicist and partially responsible for Swedens eugenics program. ... Herman Lundborg was a Swedish eugenicist and partially responsible for Swedens eugenics program. ...

Britain

Galton's view of the British class structure was the basis and emphasis of the eugenics movement in Britain.

In Britain, eugenics never received significant state funding, but it was supported by many prominent figures of different political persuasions, including the future Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Arthur Balfour, and socialists such as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells, before World War 1.^[4] Furthermore, its emphasis was more upon class, rather than race.^[59] Indeed, Galton expressed these views during a lecture in 1901 in which he placed the British society into groups. These groupings are shown in the figure and indicate the proportion of society falling into each group and their perceived genetic worth. Galton suggested that negative eugenics (i.e. an attempt to prevent them from bearing offspring) should be applied only to those in the lowest social group (the "Undesirables"), while positive eugenics applied to the higher classes. However, he appreciated the worth of the higher working classes to society and industry. Churchill redirects here. ... For the steel manufacturer, see Arthur Balfour, 1st Baron Riverdale. ... George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was a world-renowned Irish author. ... H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ...

Sterilisation programmes were never legalised, although some were carried out in private upon the mentally ill by clinicians who were in favour of a more widespread eugenics plan.^[60] (Sterilization had, in fact, been carried out to prevent masturbation in mentally ill patients since the 1820s, long before the eugenics movement.) Indeed, those in support of eugenics shifted their lobbying of Parliament from enforced to voluntary sterilization, in the hope of achieving more legal recognition.^[61] But leave for the Labour Party Member of Parliament Major A. G. Church, to propose a Private Member's Bill in 1931, which would legalise the operation for voluntary sterilization, was rejected by 167 votes to 89.^[62] The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ... A Private Members Bill is a proposed law introduced by a backbench member of parliament, whether from the government or the opposition side, to that legislature or parliament. ...

The popularity of eugenics in Britain was reflected by the fact that only two universities established courses in this field (University College London and Liverpool University), and the position of a professorship in eugenics was never created at either. The Galton Institute, affiliated to UCL, was headed by Galton's protégé, Karl Pearson. Affiliations University of London Russell Group LERU EUA ACU Golden Triangle G5 Website http://www. ... The University of Liverpool is a university in the city of Liverpool in the United Kingdom. ... The Eugenics Education Society, later the Eugenics Society (often known as the British Eugenics Society to distinguish it from others) was a society formed in 1907 in the United Kingdom to promote eugenics. ... Karl Pearson FRS (March 27, 1857 – April 27, 1936) established the discipline of mathematical statistics. ...

Other countries

Almost all non-Catholic Western nations adopted some eugenic legislations. In July 1933 Germany passed a law allowing for the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards, sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable disease which would be passed on to their offspring."^[63] Two provinces in Canada carried out thousands of compulsory sterilizations, and these lasted into the 1970s. Many First Nations (native Canadians) were targeted, as well as immigrants from Eastern Europe, as the program identified racial and ethnic minorities to be genetically inferior^{[citation needed]}. Besides the large-scale program in the United States, other nations included Australia, Norway, France, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, and Switzerland with programs to sterilize people the government declared to be mentally deficient. Singapore practiced a limited form of eugenics that involved discouraging marriage between university graduates and the rest through segregation in matchmaking agencies, in the hope that the former would produce better children.^[64] Compulsory sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization. ... First Nations is a term of ethnicity that refers to the indigenous peoples in what is now Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis people. ... For the community in Florida, see University, Florida. ...

Marginalization after World War II

In the decades after World War II, eugenics became increasingly unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy, such as when Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969.

After the experience of Nazi Germany, many ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific community. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed in response to abuses during the Second World War, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and affirmed, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."^[65] In continuation, the 1978 UNESCO declaration on race and racial prejudice states that the fundamental equality of all human beings is the ideal toward which ethics and science should converge.^[66] Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1308x1026, 1172 KB) Summary Photograph of journal bindings in an anthropology library, showing the transition where Eugenics Quarterly was renamed to Social Biology in 1969. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1308x1026, 1172 KB) Summary Photograph of journal bindings in an anthropology library, showing the transition where Eugenics Quarterly was renamed to Social Biology in 1969. ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... For the 1947 Soviet film about the trials, see Nuremberg Trials (film). ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ... The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (abbreviated UDHR) is an advisory declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/217, 10 December 1948 at Palais de Chaillot, Paris). ... UN redirects here. ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ...

In reaction to Nazi abuses, eugenics became almost universally reviled in many of the nations where it had once been popular (however, some eugenics programs, including sterilization, continued quietly for decades). Many pre-war eugenicists engaged in what they later labeled "crypto-eugenics", purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs "underground" and becoming respected anthropologists, biologists and geneticists in the postwar world (including Robert Yerkes in the U.S. and Otmar von Verschuer in Germany). Californian eugenicist Paul Popenoe founded marriage counseling during the 1950s, a career change which grew from his eugenic interests in promoting "healthy marriages" between "fit" couples.^[67] Robert Mearns Yerkes, PhD, (b. ... Paul B. Popenoe in 1915. ... Relationship counseling may be advertised under several headings: marriage, family, couples, ... . It is usually done by appointment with a face-to-face counsellor. ...

The American Life League, an opponent of abortion, charges that eugenics was merely "re-packaged" after the war, and promoted anew in the guise of the population-control and environmentalism movements. They claim, for example, that Planned Parenthood was funded and cultivated by the Eugenics Society for these reasons. Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO and a founder of the World Wildlife Fund was also a Eugenics Society president and a strong supporter of eugenics^[68] The largest pro-life organization in the United States, the American Life League, or ALL, opposes all forms of abortion, birth control, stem cell research, and euthanasia. ... This article is about Planned Parenthood Federation of America. ... Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, FRS (June 22, 1887 – February 14, 1975) was a English biologist, author, Humanist and internationalist, known for his popularisations of science in books and lectures. ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ... Note: After losing a court case in 2002 on the use of the initials WWF, the organization previously known as the World Wrestling Federation has rebranded itself as World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE. WWF - The Conservation Organization was formerly known as World Wildlife Fund and Worldwide Fund for Nature. ...

[E]ven though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. --Julian Huxley^[69]

High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the '40s often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be had from applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals devoted to heredity in general were run by eugenicists and featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in nonhuman organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent editions of relevant journals. Even the names of some journals changed to reflect new attitudes. For example, Eugenics Quarterly became Social Biology in 1969 (the journal still exists today, though it looks little like its predecessor). Notable members of the American Eugenics Society (1922–94) during the second half of the 20th century included Joseph Fletcher, originator of Situational ethics; Dr. Clarence Gamble of the Procter & Gamble fortune; and Garrett Hardin, a population control advocate and author of the essay The Tragedy of the Commons. The American Eugenics Society (AES) was a society established in 1922 to promote eugenics in the United States. ... Joseph Fletcher (1905-1991) was an American professor who founded the theory of situational ethics in the 1960s, and was a pioneer in the field of bioethics. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Situation ethics. ... Clarence J. Gamble, married to Sarah Merry Bradley-Gamble, was the heir of the Procter and Gamble soap company fortune. ... Procter & Gamble Co. ... Garrett Hardin Garrett James Hardin (April 21, 1915 – September 14, 2003) was a controversial ecologist from Dallas, Texas who was most known for his 1968 paper, The Tragedy of the commons. ... Population control is the practice of limiting population increase, usually by reducing the birth rate. ... The Tragedy of the Commons is a type of social trap, often economic, that involves a conflict over resources between individual interests and the common good. ...

In the United States, the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s while forced sterilizations mostly ended in the 1960s with the last performed in 1981.^[70] Many US states continued to prohibit biracial marriages with "anti-miscegenation laws" such as Virginia's The Racial Integrity Act of 1924, until they were over-ruled by the Supreme Court in 1967 in Loving v. Virginia.^[71] The Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, which was designed to limit the immigration of "dysgenic" Italians, and eastern European Jews, was repealed and replaced by the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1965.^[72] The Racial Integrity Act of 1924 of Virginia, United States, was a law that required the racial makeup of persons to be recorded at birth, and prevented marriage between white persons and non-white persons. ... Holding The Court declared Virginias anti-miscegenation statute, the Racial Integrity Act of 1924, unconstitutional, thereby ending all race-based legal restriction on marriage in the United States. ... It has been suggested that National Origins Quota of 1924 be merged into this article or section. ... The Immigration and Nationality Act amendments of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act, INS Act of 1965, Pub. ...

However, some prominent academics continued to support eugenics after the war. In 1963 the Ciba Foundation convened a conference in London under the title “Man and His Future,” at which three distinguished biologists and Nobel laureates (Hermann Muller, Joshua Lederberg, and Francis Crick) all spoke strongly in favor of eugenics.^[73] Hermann Joseph Muller (December 21, 1890 - April 5, 1967) was an American geneticist and educator. ... Joshua Lederberg speaking at a conference in 1997 Joshua Lederberg (born May 23, 1925) is an American molecular biologist who is known for his work in genetics, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. ... Francis Harry Compton Crick OM FRS (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004), (Ph. ...

A few nations, notably, Canada and Sweden, maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s.

Modern eugenics, genetic engineering, and ethical re-evaluation

Beginning in the 1980s, the history and concept of eugenics were widely discussed as knowledge about genetics advanced significantly. Endeavors such as the Human Genome Project made the effective modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in the early 20th century). The difference at the beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced. This article is about the general scientific term. ... The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project. ... Mendelian inheritance (or Mendelian genetics or Mendelism) is a set of primary tenets relating to the transmission of hereditary characteristics from parent organisms to their children; it underlies much of genetics. ...

Suggestions and ideas

A few scientific researchers such as psychologist Richard Lynn, psychologist Raymond Cattell, and doctor Gregory Stock have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology, but they represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural circles.^[74] One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a "genius sperm bank" (1980–99) created by Robert Klark Graham, from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donors were Nobel Prize winners William Shockley and J.D.Watson). In the U.S. and Europe, though, these attempts have frequently been criticized as in the same spirit of classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s. Because of its association with compulsory sterilization and the racial ideals of the Nazi Party, the word eugenics is rarely used by the advocates of such programs. Richard Lynn (born 1930) is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology who is known for his controversial views on racial and ethnic differences[1]. Lynn claims there exists race differences and sex differences in intelligence. ... Raymond Bernard Cattell (20 March 1905 - 2 February 1998) was a British and American psychologist who theorized the existence of fluid and crystallized intelligences to explain human cognitive ability. ... Gregory Stock is a scientist and writer with doctorate in biophysics from John Hopkins University. ... The Repository for Germinal Choice (originally known as the Hermann J. Muller Repository for Germinal Choice) was a sperm bank that existed in Escondido, California from 1980 to 1999. ... Robert Klark Graham (June 9, 1906 – February 13, 1997) was born in Harbor Springs, Michigan, USA. He was a eugenicist and businessman who made millions by developing shatter-proof plastic eyeglass lenses, and who later founded the Repository for Germinal Choice, a sperm bank for geniuses in the hope of... The Nobel Prize (Swedish: ) was established in Alfred Nobels will in 1895, and it was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. ... William Bradford Shockley (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was a British-born American physicist and inventor. ... For other people named James Watson, see James Watson (disambiguation). ...

Eugenicists have argued that immigration from countries with low national IQ is undesirable. According to Raymond Cattell "when a country is opening its doors to immigration from diverse countries, it is like a farmer who buys his seeds from different sources by the sack, with sacks of different average quality of contents."^[75] IQ and the Wealth of Nations IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a controversial 2002 book by Dr. Richard Lynn, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and Dr. Tatu Vanhanen, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. ... Raymond Bernard Cattell (20 March 1905 - 2 February 1998) was a British and American psychologist who theorized the existence of fluid and crystallized intelligences to explain human cognitive ability. ...

Cyprus

A similar screening policy (including prenatal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists on both sides of the island of Cyprus. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Tests for the gene are compulsory for both partners, prior to church wedding. Thalassemia (British spelling, thalassaemia) is an inherited autosomal recessive blood disease. ...

United States

There are some states that require a blood test prior to marriage.^[76] While these tests are typically restricted to the detection of the sexually transmitted disease Syphilis (which was the most common STD at the time these laws were enacted), some partners will voluntarily test for other diseases and genetic incompatibilities. A sexually transmitted disease (STD), a. ... Syphilis is a curable sexually transmitted disease caused by the Treponema pallidum spirochete. ...

Harris polls in 1986 and 1992 recorded majority public support for limited forms of germ-line intervention, especially to prevent "children inheriting usually fatal genetic disease".^[77]

In 1971, lobbying by the US organization The International Association for Voluntary Sterilization (AVS), led politicians and officials at the Office for Equal Opportunity to pay for voluntary sterilization of low income Americans for birth-control purposes.^{[citation needed]} AVS also focused on the International community, and its lobbying led to a US foreign policy and funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development to encourage Third World/Developing World countries to utilise abortion and sterilization in order to control their population growth.^{[citation needed]} For further information see EngenderHealth. EngenderHealth is a nonprofit organization based in New York, internationally active in contraception, HIV/AIDS, gender equity, obstetric fistula, sterilization, and other sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues in 40 developing countries around the world[1]. From its web site: EngenderHealth works to improve the health and well-being of... The United States Agency for International Development (or USAID) is the US government organization responsible for most non-military foreign aid. ... For the Jamaican reggae band, see Third World (band). ... For the Jamaican reggae band, see Third World (band). ... EngenderHealth is a nonprofit organization based in New York, internationally active in contraception, HIV/AIDS, gender equity, obstetric fistula, sterilization, and other sexual and reproductive health (SRH) issues in 40 developing countries around the world[1]. From its web site: EngenderHealth works to improve the health and well-being of...

Dor Yeshorim

Main article: Dor Yeshorim

Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of Tay-Sachs disease, Cystic Fibrosis, Canavan disease, Fanconi anemia, Familial Dysautonomia, Glycogen storage disease, Bloom's Syndrome, Gaucher Disease, Niemann-Pick Disease, and Mucolipidosis IV among certain Jewish communities, is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with liberal eugenics. [11] In Israel, at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose these diseases before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with one of these diseases among which Tay-Sachs is the most commonly known, the pregnancy may be terminated, subject to consent. Most other Ashkenazi Jewish communities also run screening programs because of the higher incidence of genetic diseases. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is still practiced, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being homozygous for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim (which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to Tay-Sachs with the purpose of preventing others from suffering the same tragedy) test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on fatal conditions. If both the young man and woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. Judaism, like numerous other religions, discourages abortion unless there is a risk to the mother, in which case her needs take precedence. The effort is not aimed at eradicating the hereditary traits, but rather at the occurrence of homozygosity. The actual impact of this program on allele frequencies is unknown, but little impact would be expected because the program does not impose genetic selection. Instead, it encourages disassortative mating. Dor Yeshorim (Hebrew: generation [that is] straight/reliable) is an organization that offers genetic screening to members of Orthodox Jewish communities. ... Tay-Sachs disease (abbreviated TSD, also known as GM2 gangliosidosis, Hexosaminidase A deficiency or Sphingolipidosis) is a genetic disorder, fatal in its most common variant known as Infantile Tay-Sachs disease. ... Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary disease that affects mainly the lungs and digestive system, causing progressive disability, and, for some, early death. ... Canavan disease is an inherited disorder that causes progressive damage to nerve cells in the brain. ... Fanconi anemia (FA) is a genetic disease that affects children and adults from all ethnic backgrounds. ... Familial dysautonomia, or FD, is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system which affects the development and survival of sensory, sympathetic and some parasympathetic neurons in the autonomic and sensory nervous system resulting in variable symptoms including: insensitivity to pain, inability to produce tears, poor growth, and labile blood pressure... Glycogen storage disease is any one of several inborn errors of metabolism that result from enzyme defects that affect the processing of glycogen synthesis or breakdown within muscles, liver, and other cell types. ... Bloom syndrome is a rare inherited disorder characterized by a high frequency of breaks and rearrangements in an affected persons chromosomes, discovered and first described by dermatologist Dr. David Bloom in 1954. ... In medicine (hematology), Gauchers disease (or Gaucher disease) is a genetic disorder that affects white blood cells, the spleen, bones and brain. ... Niemann-Pick disease is an inherited condition involving lipid metabolism (the breakdown and use of fats and cholesterol in the body) in which harmful amounts of lipids accumulate in the spleen, liver, lungs, bone marrow, and brain. ... Mucolipidosis type IV (ML IV) is caused by harmful alterations of a protein in the cell that is believed to be involved in the movement of molecules such as calcium across cell membranes. ... Orthodox Judaism is the formulation of Judaism that adheres to a relatively strict interpretation and application of the laws and ethics first canonised in the Talmudic texts (Oral Torah) and as subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and Acharonim. ... Liberal eugenics is the study and use of genetic engineering to improve human beings, specifically in regards to biological characteristics and capacities. ... Ashkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim (אַשְׁכֲּנָזִי אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים Standard Hebrew, Aškanazi,Aškanazim, Tiberian Hebrew, ʾAškănāzî, ʾAškănāzîm, pronounced sing. ... Homozygote cells are diploid or polyploid and have the same alleles at a locus (position) on homologous chromosomes. ... An allele (pronounced , ) (from the Greek αλληλος, meaning each other) is one member of a pair or series of different forms of a gene. ... Disassortative sexual selection is a form of sexual selection in which one sex chooses the other, in such a way that the offspring benefits from the diversity of the parental genotypes. ...

Ethical re-assessment

Ideological social determinists, some of which have obtained college degrees in fields relevant to eugenics, often describe eugenics as a pseudoscience.^{[citation needed]} Modern inquiries into the potential use of genetic engineering have led to an increased invocation of the history of eugenics in discussions of bioethics, most often as a cautionary tale. Some ethicists suggest that even non-coercive eugenics programs would be inherently unethical^{[citation needed]}, though this view has been challenged by such thinkers as Nicholas Agar.^[78] Social determinism is the hypothesis that social interactions and constructs alone determine individual behavior (as opposed to biological or objective factors). ... Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine. ... Bioethics is the ethics of biological science and medicine. ... Nicholas Agar is a professor of ethics and a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington (VUM). ...

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new eugenics will come from reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create "designer babies" (what the biologist Lee M. Silver prominently called "reprogenetics"). It has been argued that this non-coercive form of biological improvement will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create the best opportunities for children, rather than an urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early 20th-century forms of eugenics. Because of this non-coercive nature, lack of involvement by the state and a difference in goals, some commentators have questioned whether such activities are eugenics or something else altogether. But critics note^{[citation needed]} that Francis Galton, did not advocate coercion when he defined the principles of eugenics. In other words, eugenics does not mean coercion. It is, according to Galton who originated the term, the proper label for bioengineering of better human beings. The colloquial term designer baby has been used in popular scientific and bioethics literature to specify a child whose hereditary makeup (genotype) would be, using various reproductive and genetic technologies, purposefully selected (designed) to be the optimal recombination of their parents genetic material. ... (born 1952) is a professor at Princeton University (as of 07/2005) in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. ... Reprogenetics is a term referring to the merging of reproductive and genetic technologies expected to happen in the near future as techniques like preimplantation genetic diagnosis become more available and more powerful. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Daniel Kevles argues that eugenics and the conservation of natural resources are similar propositions. Both can be practiced foolishly so as to abuse individual rights, but both can be practiced wisely. Daniel J. Kevles is Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, a position he assumed in 2001. ...

Some disability activists argue that, although their impairments may cause them pain or discomfort, what really disables them as members of society is a sociocultural system that does not recognize their right to genuinely equal treatment. They express skepticism that any form of eugenics could be to the benefit of the disabled considering their treatment by historical eugenic campaigns.

James D. Watson, the first director of the Human Genome Project, initiated the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Program (ELSI) which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human genetic engineering (along with a prominent website on the history of eugenics), because: For other people named James Watson, see James Watson (disambiguation). ... The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project. ...

In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project would point out that I was a representative of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory that once housed the controversial Eugenics Record Office. My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying racial discrimination.^[79]

Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners John Sulston ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world")^[80] and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it")^[81] support genetic screening. Which ideas should be described as "eugenic" are still controversial in both public and scholarly spheres. Some observers such as Philip Kitcher have described the use of genetic screening by parents as making possible a form of "voluntary" eugenics.^[82] The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) is a research and educational institution, consisting of science laboratories located in Cold Spring Harbor, New York on Long Island, USA. The Laboratory has research programs focusing on cancer, neurobiology, plant genetics, genomics and bioinformatics, and has a broad educational mission, including the recently... The Eugenics Record Office at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York was a center for eugenics and human heredity research in the first half of the twentieth century. ... John E. Sulston received his degree as a chemist at Cambridge, UK, but devoted his scientific life to biological research, especially in the field of molecular biology. ... A genetic screen (or simply screen) is a procedure or test to identify and select individuals which possess a phenotype of interest. ... Philip Stuart Kitcher (born 1947) is a British philosophy professor who specializes in the philosophy of science. ...

Some modern subcultures advocate different forms of eugenics assisted by human cloning and human genetic engineering, sometimes even as part of a new religious movement (see Raëlism, Cosmotheism, or Prometheism). These groups also talk of "neo-eugenics". "conscious evolution", or "genetic freedom". In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a set of people with a set of behaviors and beliefs, culture, which could be distinct or hidden, that differentiate them from the larger culture to which they belong. ... Although genes are recognized as influencing [behavior] and [cognition], genetically identical does not mean altogether identical; identical twins, despite being natural human clones with near identical DNA, are separate people, with separate experiences and not altogether overlapping personalities. ... Human genetic engineering refers to the controlled modification of the human genome, which is the genome of Homo sapiens, composed of 23 pairs of chromosomes with a total of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs containing an estimated 30,000 genes. ... A new religious movement or NRM is a term used to refer to a religious faith, or an ethical, spiritual or philosophical movement of recent origin that isnt part of an established denomination, church, or religious body. ... This article is about the Raëlian Church. ... Cosmotheism is a term invented in the late-19th or early-20th century, originally as a near-synonym of pantheism, and used by: Mordekhay Nesiyahu (Zionist user of the term) William Luther Pierce (White separatist) This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ...

Behavioral traits often identified as potential targets for modification through human genetic engineering include intelligence, depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and orientation) and criminality. Human genetic engineering refers to the controlled modification of the human genome, which is the genome of Homo sapiens, composed of 23 pairs of chromosomes with a total of approximately 3 billion DNA base pairs containing an estimated 30,000 genes. ...

Criticism

This article or section is currently being developed or reviewed. Some statements may be disputed, incorrect, unverified, biased or otherwise objectionable. Please read the discussion on the talk page before making substantial changes.

Diseases vs. traits

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology there is at this point no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the other hand, genetic diseases like hemochromatosis can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means, some of which are eugenic in all but name. The other traits that are discussed have positive as well as negative effects and are not generally targeted at present anywhere.^{[citation needed]} This article is about the general scientific term. ... A genetic disorder is a condition caused by abnormalities in genes or chromosomes. ... Haemochromatosis, also spelled hemochromatosis, is a hereditary disease characterized by improper processing by the body of dietary iron which causes iron to accumulate in a number of body tissues, eventually causing organ dysfunction. ...

Slippery slope

A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical (Lynn 2001). A hypothetical scenario posits that if one racial minority group is on average less intelligent than the racial majority group, then it is more likely that the racial minority group will be submitted to a eugenics program rather than the least intelligent members of the whole population. In sociology and in voting theory, a minority is a sub-group that is outnumbered by persons who do not belong to it. ...

H. L. Kaye wrote of "the obvious truth that eugenics has been discredited by Hitler's crimes," (Kaye 1989). R. L. Hayman argued "the eugenics movement is an anachronism, its political implications exposed by the Holocaust," (Hayman 1990).

Steven Pinker has stated that it is "a conventional wisdom among left-leaning academics that genes imply genocide." He has responded to this "conventional wisdom" by comparing the history of Marxism, which had the opposite position on genes to that of Nazism: Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a prominent Canadian-born American experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, and popular science writer known for his spirited and wide-ranging advocacy of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.^[83]

Richard Lynn broadens his criticism of eugenics, by arguing that any social philosophy is capable of ethical misuse. Though Christian principles have aided in the abolition of slavery and the establishment of welfare programs, he notes that the Christian church has also burned many dissidents at the stake and allowed for the killing of large numbers of innocent people by Crusaders. Lynn argues the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believes Christianity does not "inevitably [lead] to the extermination of those who do not accept its doctrines," (Lynn 2001). Richard Lynn (born 1930) is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology who is known for his controversial views on racial and ethnic differences[1]. Lynn claims there exists race differences and sex differences in intelligence. ... This article is about the medieval crusades. ...

Genetic diversity

Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of genetic diversity, in which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool would very likely, as evidenced in numerous instances in isolated island populations (e.g. the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, of Mauritius) result in extinction due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. A long-term eugenics plan might lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition. (Galton 2001, 48). Genetic diversity is a characteristic of ecosystems and gene pools that describes an attribute which is commonly held to be advantageous for survival -- that there are many different versions of otherwise similar organisms. ... For other uses, see Dodo (disambiguation). ...

Proponents of eugenics argue that in any one generation any realistic program would make only minor changes in the gene pool, giving plenty of time to reverse direction if unintended consequences emerge, reducing the likelihood of the elimination of desirable genes. Proponents of eugenics argue that any appreciable reduction in diversity is so far in the future that little concern is needed for now.^[84] This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ...

The possible elimination of the autism genotype is a significant political issue in the autism rights movement, which claims autism is a form of neurodiversity. Many advocates of Down Syndrome rights also consider Down Syndrome (Trisomy-21) a form of neurodiversity.^{[citation needed]} Autism is a brain development disorder characterized by impairments in social interaction and communication, and restricted and repetitive behavior, all exhibited before a child is three years old. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This box:      The autism rights movement (which has also been called autistic self-advocacy movement [1] and autistic liberation movement [2]) was started by adult autistic individuals in order to advocate and demand tolerance for what they refer to as neurodiversity. ... Neurodiversity is an idea that asserts that atypical (neurodivergent) neurological wiring is a normal human difference that is to be tolerated and respected as any other human difference. ...

Heterozygous recessive traits

In some instances efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was a heterozygous recessive trait, the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there are still as many genes for the condition left in the gene pool as were eliminated according to the Hardy-Weinberg principle, which states that a population's genetics are defined as pp+2pq+qq at equilibrium. With genetic testing it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous recessive traits, but only at great cost with the current technology. Under normal circumstances it is only possible to eliminate a dominant allele from the gene pool. Recessive traits can be severely reduced, but never eliminated unless the complete genetic makeup of all members of the pool was known, as aforementioned. As only very few undesirable traits, such as Huntington's disease, are dominant, the practical value for "eliminating" traits is quite low. It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles accessible from a disambiguation page. ... In genetics, the term recessive gene refers to an allele that causes a phenotype (visible or detectable characteristic) that is only seen in a homozygous genotype (an organism that has two copies of the same allele). ... Hardy–Weinberg principle for two alleles: the horizontal axis shows the two allele frequencies p and q, the vertical axis shows the genotype frequencies and the three possible genotypes are represented by the different glyphs In population genetics, the Hardy–Weinberg principle is a relationship between the frequencies of alleles... Genetic testing allows the genetic diagnosis of vulnerabilities to inherited diseases, and can also be used to determine a persons ancestry. ...

However, there are examples of eugenic acts that managed to lower the prevalence of recessive diseases, although not influencing the prevalence of heterozygote carriers of those diseases. The elevated prevalence of certain genetically transmitted diseases among the Ashkenazi Jewish population (Tay-Sachs, Cystic Fibrosis, Canavan's disease and Goucher's disease), has been decreased in current populations by the application of genetic screening.^[85] Tay-Sachs disease is a fatal genetic disorder, inherited in an autosommal recessive pattern, in which harmful quantities of a fatty substance called ganglioside GM2 accumulate in the nerve cells in the brain. ... Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a hereditary disease that affects mainly the lungs and digestive system, causing progressive disability, and, for some, early death. ...

Counterarguments

Dysgenics

Main article: Dysgenics

Some supporters of eugenics allege that a dysgenic decline in intelligence is occurring, which may lead to the collapse of civilization, and justify eugenic programs on that basis. Dysgenics is a term applied by some researchers to describe the evolutionary weakening of a population of organisms relative to their environment, often due to relaxation of natural selection or the occurrence of negative selection. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Potential benefits

Small differences in average IQ at the group level might theoretically have large effects on social outcomes. Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray altered the mean IQ (100) of the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's population sample by randomly deleting individuals below an IQ of 103 until the population mean reached 103. This calculation was conducted twice and averaged together to avoid error from the random selection. This test showed that the new group with an average IQ of 103 had a poverty rate 25% lower than a group with an average IQ of 100. Similar substantial correlations in high school drop-out rates, crime rates, and other outcomes were measured.^{[citation needed]} IQ redirects here. ... Richard Herrnstein (1930-1994) was a prominent researcher in comparative psychology who did pioneering work on pigeon intelligence employing the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. ... Charles Murray Charles Alan Murray (born 1943) is a controversial libertarian American political scientist. ...

Indeed, many studies suggest that IQ correlates with various socioeconomic factors. However, to what extent IQ is a cause of these socioeconomic factors, as opposed to a consequence of them, is disputed. Studies have suggested, for example, that education increases an individual's IQ -- although other studies have shown that education has little to no effect.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Abortion
• Liberal eugenics
• Alberta Eugenics Board
• A.O. Neville
• Biological determinism
• Gattaca
• Genetic determinism
• Genetics and violence
• Inheritance of intelligence
• Leilani Muir
• John M. MacEachran
• Nature versus nurture
• Nazi eugenics
• One-child policy
• Race and intelligence
• Racial hygiene
• Repository for Germinal Choice
• Social Darwinism
• Social Justice
• Stolen Generation
• State racism, a concept coined by Michel Foucault
• Transhumanism

Liberal eugenics is the study and use of genetic engineering to improve human beings, specifically in regards to biological characteristics and capacities. ... In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mental deficient. ... Auber Octavius Neville (October 20, 1875–April 18, 1954) was a bureaucrat in Western Australia. ... Categories: Biology stubs ... Gattaca is a 1997 science fiction drama film written and directed by Andrew Niccol, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law with supporting roles played by Loren Dean, Gore Vidal and Alan Arkin. ... Genetic determinism is the belief that genes largely determine physical and behavioral phenotypes. ... Scientific interest in the correlation between genetic factors and violence dates back to the eugenics movement of the 19th century. ... The subject of the inheritance of intelligence is the genetics of mental abilities. ... Leilani with her young relatives Leilani Marietta Muir (previously named Leilani Marie Scorah) was born on July 15, 1944, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. ... John Malcolm MacEachran (1877-1971) was a Canadian philosopher and psychologist whose most notable credentials involved the development of the Psychology and Philosophy Department at the University of Alberta, co-founder of the Canadian Psychological Association, and the appointed Chairman of the Alberta Eugenics Board which was responsible for approving... The nature versus nurture debates concern the relative importance of an individuals innate qualities (nature) versus personal experiences (nurture) in determining or causing individual differences in physical and behavioral traits. ... Nazism in history Nazi ideology Nazism and race Outside Germany Related subjects Lists Politics Portal         Nazi eugenics pertains to Nazi Germanys race based social policies that placed the improvement of the race through eugenics at the center of their concerns and targeted those humans they identified as life unworthy... The phrase one-child policy is commonly used in English to refer to the population control policy (or Planned Birth policy) of the Peoples Republic of China (PRC). ... The study of race and intelligence is the controversial study of how human intellectual capacities may vary among the different population groups commonly known as races. ... Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... The Repository for Germinal Choice (originally known as the Hermann J. Muller Repository for Germinal Choice) was a sperm bank that existed in Escondido, California from 1980 to 1999. ... Social Darwinism is the idea that Charles Darwins theory can be extended and applied to the social realm, i. ... Social justice refers to the concept of an unjust society that refers to more than just the administration of laws. ... Portrayal of The taking of the children on the Great Australian Clock, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney The Stolen Generation (or Stolen Generations) is a term used to describe the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, usually of mixed descent who were removed from their families, under the rationale of... State racism is a concept used by French philosopher Michel Foucault to designate the reappropriation of the historical and political discourse of race struggle, In the late seventeenth century. ... Michel Foucault (pronounced ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Posthuman Future, an illustration by Michael Gibbs for The Chronicle of Higher Educations look at how biotechnology will change the human experience, has become one of the secular icons representing transhumanism. ...

References

Major General Frederick H. Osborn (1903—5 January 1980) was an American philanthropist and military leader whom the American Philosophical Society dubbed the respectable face of eugenic research in the post-war period. ... The American Sociological Review is the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association (ASA). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article is an overview article about the Crown chartered British Broadcasting Corporation formed in 1927. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 346th day of the year (347th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Ernst Haeckel. ... Hitler redirects here. ... The Zweites Buch (Second Book and sometimes Secret Book) is a transcript of Adolf Hitlers unfiltered thoughts on a number of topics that was never published in his lifetime. ... The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center. ... The Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) was founded in 1967 and originally named the Ohio College Library Center. ... Donald A. MacKenzie is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Racial hygiene (often labeled a form of scientific racism) is the selection, by a government, of the most physical, intellectual and moral persons to raise the next generation (selective breeding) and a close alignment of public health with eugenics. ... Alexander Graham Bell (3 March 1847 – 2 August 1922) was an eminent scientist, inventor and innovator who is credited with the invention of the telephone. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. ... is the 347th day of the year (348th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Holding The Court upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for the protection and health of the state. ... Daniel J. Kevles is Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, a position he assumed in 2001. ... is the 313th day of the year (314th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. ... Richard Herrnstein (1930-1994) was a prominent researcher in comparative psychology who did pioneering work on pigeon intelligence employing the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. ... Charles Murray is the name of several notable people: Charles Murray, the Libertarian and author of The Bell Curve. ... The Bell Curve is a controversial, best-selling 1994 book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray exploring the role of genes in American life. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 238th day of the year (239th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 238th day of the year (239th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Richard Lynn (born 1930) is a British Professor Emeritus of Psychology who is known for his controversial views on racial and ethnic differences[1]. Lynn claims there exists race differences and sex differences in intelligence. ... Nicholas Agar is a professor of ethics and a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington (VUM). ... For other people named James Watson, see James Watson (disambiguation). ... is the 286th day of the year (287th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 59th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Philip Stuart Kitcher (born 1947) is a British philosophy professor who specializes in the philosophy of science. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 238th day of the year (239th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

Sources

• Larson, Edward J. (2004), Evolution, Modern Library, ISBN 0-679-64288-9

Histories of eugenics (academic accounts)

• Elof Axel Carlson, The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea (Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2001). ISBN 0-87969-587-0
• Daniel Kevles, In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity (New York: Knopf, 1985).
• Dieter Kuntz, ed., Deadly medicine: creating the master race (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004). online exhibit
• Ruth C. Engs, The Eugenics Movement: An Encyclopedia. (Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005). ISBN 0-313-32791-2.
• John Glad, Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century. (Hermitage Publishers, 2008). ISBN 1-55779-154-6.[12]

Histories of hereditarian thought

• Elazar Barkan, The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
• Stephen Jay Gould, The mismeasure of man (New York: Norton, 1981).
• Ewen & Ewen, Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2006).

Criticisms of eugenics, historical and modern

• Edwin Black, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). [13] ISBN 1-56858-258-7
• Dinesh D'Souza, The End of Racism (Free Press, 1995) ISBN 0-02-908102-5
• Galton, David, Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century (Abacus, 2002) ISBN 0-349-11377-7
• Robert L. Hayman, Presumptions of justice: Law, politics, and the mentally retarded parent. Harvard Law Review 1990, 103, 1202-71. (p. 1209)
• Joseph, J. (2004). The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope.New York: Algora. (2003 United Kingdom Edition by PCCS Books)
• Joseph, J. (2005). The 1942 “Euthanasia” Debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry. History of Psychiatry, 16, 171-179.
• Joseph, J. (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes.New York: Algora.
• H. L. Kaye, The social meaning of modern biology 1987, New Haven, CT Yale University Press. (p. 46)
• Tom Shakespeare, "Back to the Future? New Genetics and Disabled People", Critical Social Policy 46:22-35 (1995)
• Wahlsten, D. (1997). Leilani Muir versus the Philosopher King: eugenics on trial in Alberta. Genetica 99: 185-198.
• Tom Shakespeare, Genetic Politics: from Eugenics to Genome, with Anne Kerr (New Clarion Press, 2002).
• Nancy Ordover, American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2003). ISBN 0-8166-3559-5
• Gina Maranto, "Quest for Perfection: The Drive to Breed Better Human Beings" Diane Publishing Co. (June 1996) ISBN 0-7881-9431-3

Edward J. Larson (born ?) is an American historian. ... Daniel J. Kevles is Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University, a position he assumed in 2001. ... Ruth Clifford Engs, is Professor, Applied Health Science, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. In recent years she has done research on social movements related to health and public health issues. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... Stephen Jay Gould (September 10, 1941 – May 20, 2002) was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. ... Edwin Black is an American author and journalist. ... Dinesh DSouza (born April 25, 1961 in Bombay, India) is an author currently serving as the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. ... Dr. Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet, better known as Tom Shakespeare, (b. ... Dr. Sir Thomas William Shakespeare, 3rd Baronet, better known as Tom Shakespeare, (b. ...

Films and Documentaries

• Homo Sapiens 1900, Director: Peter Cohen, 2000
• Idiocracy, Director: Mike Judge, 2006

Homo Sapiens 1900 is a documentary directed by Peter Cohen, about various eugenics methods that were in practise in Europe during the first part of the 20th century. ... Human he is! -Yoda This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... Idiocracy is a 2006 American dark comedy directed by Mike Judge, and starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. ... Michael Craig Judge (born 17 October 1962 in Guayaquil, Ecuador) is an American animator, actor, voice actor, writer, director, and producer, best-known as the creator and star of the hit animated television series Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill. ...

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Eugenics

General-eugenics websites

• Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil. A Philosophical discussion and a prelude to Eugenics

Pro-eugenics websites

• Eugenics - a planned evolution for life
• Future Generations Eugenics Portal
• Mankind Quarterly
• Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century by John Glad

Anti-eugenics and historical websites

• Eugenics Archive - Historical Material on the Eugenics Movement (funded by the Human Genome Project)
• Shoaheducation.com:Eugenics
• University of Virginia Historical Collections: Eugenics
• "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race" (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit)
• Vermont Eugenics: A documentary history
• DNA: Pandora's Box - PBS documentary about DNA, the Human Genome Project, and questions about a "new" eugenics
• Fighting Fire with Fire: African Americans and Hereditarian Thinking, 1900-1942 - article on the support of eugenics by African American thinkers
• "Eugenics -- Breeding a Better Citizenry Through Science", a historical critique from physical anthropologist Jonathan Marks
• "The Quest for a Perfect Society", from Awake! magazine (September 22, 2000)
• "Eugenics and other Evils",G K Chesterton's "Eugenics and other Evils." (1922)
• "Eugenics" - National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature Scope Note 28, features overview of eugenics history and annotated bibliography of historical literature

The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project. ... Not to be confused with Public Broadcasting Services in Malta. ... The Human Genome Project (HGP) is an international scientific research project. ... Jonathan Marks is a biological anthropologist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. ... Awake! magazine, February 2007 Awake! (ISSN 0005-237X) is a general-interest magazine published by Jehovahs Witnesses. ... is the 265th day of the year (266th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ...

Other

• "Do not have children if they won't be healthy!" Tamara Traubmann, Haaretz June 16, 2004.
• "As Gene Test Menu Grows, Who Gets to Choose?" Amy Harmon, New York Times (21 July 2004).
• "The Crimson Rivers" -- a fiction movie in 2000.
• Yale Study: U.S. Eugenics Paralleled Nazi Germany by David Morgan Published on Tuesday, February 15, 2000 in the Chicago Tribune
• Eugenics: past, present, and the future
• 1907 Indiana Eugenics Law