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Eugenics

A 1930s exhibit by the Eugenics Society. Some of the signs read "Healthy and Unhealthy Families", "Heredity as the Basis of Efficiency" and "Marry Wisely".

Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/ yoo-JEN-iks; from Ancient Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well' and -γενής (genḗs) 'born, come into being, growing/grown')[1] is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population.[2][3][4] Historically, eugenicists have altered various human gene frequencies by inhibiting the fertility of people and groups they considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior.[5]

The contemporary history of eugenics began in the late 19th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom,[6] and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia,[7] and most European countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany). In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenic ideas. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populations' genetic stock.

Historically, the idea of eugenics has been used to argue for a broad array of practices ranging from prenatal care for mothers deemed genetically desirable to the forced sterilization and murder of those deemed unfit.[5] To population geneticists, the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies; for example, British-Indian scientist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1940 that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent."[8] Debate as to what exactly counts as eugenics continues today.[9] Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with factors of measured intelligence that often correlated strongly with social class.

Although it originated as a progressive social movement in the 19th century,[10][11][12][13] in contemporary usage in the 21st century, the term is closely associated with scientific racism. New, liberal eugenics seeks to dissociate itself from old, authoritarian eugenics by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice.[14]

  1. ^ Galton, Francis (2002) [1883]. Tredoux, Gavan (ed.). Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (PDF). pp. 17, 30. Retrieved 21 July 2023 – via Online Galton Archives. what is termed in Greek, eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily 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 cognisance 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 viriculture which I once ventured to use.... The investigation of human eugenics – that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced – is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, both medical and general, extending over three or four generations.
  2. ^ Black 2003, p. 370.
  3. ^ English, Daylanne K. (28 June 2016). "Eugenics – African American Studies". Oxford Bibliographies. Archived from the original on 24 June 2019. Racially targeted sterilization practices between the 1960s and the present have been perhaps the most common topic among scholars arguing for, and challenging, the ongoing power of eugenics in the United States. Indeed, unlike in the modern period, contemporary expressions of eugenics have met with widespread, thoroughgoing resistance
  4. ^ Galton, Francis (1904). "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims". The American Journal of Sociology. X (1): 82. Bibcode:1904Natur..70...82.. doi:10.1038/070082a0. ISSN 0028-0836. Archived from the original on 1 March 2006. Retrieved 1 January 2020.
  5. ^ a b Spektorowski, Alberto; Ireni-Saban, Liza (2013). Politics of Eugenics: Productionism, Population, and National Welfare. London: Routledge. p. 24. ISBN 9780203740231. Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved 16 January 2017. As an applied science, thus, the practice of eugenics referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. Galton divided the practice of eugenics into two types—positive and negative—both aimed at improving the human race through selective breeding.
  6. ^ Hansen, Randall; King, Desmond (1 January 2001). "Eugenic Ideas, Political Interests and Policy Variance Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and U.S". World Politics. 53 (2): 237–263. doi:10.1353/wp.2001.0003. JSTOR 25054146. PMID 18193564. S2CID 19634871.
  7. ^ McGregor, Russell (2002). "'Breed out the colour' or the importance of being white". Australian Historical Studies. 33 (120): 286–302. doi:10.1080/10314610208596220. S2CID 143863018. Archived from the original on 25 February 2021. Retrieved 18 February 2021.
  8. ^ Haldane, J. (1940). "Lysenko and Genetics". Science and Society. 4 (4). Archived from the original on 23 June 2011.
  9. ^ A discussion of the shifting meanings of the term can be found in Paul, Diane (1995). Controlling Human Heredity: 1865 to the Present. Humanities Press. ISBN 9781573923439.
  10. ^ Paul, Diane B. (1984). "Eugenics and the Left." Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (4):567. doi:10.2307/2709374
  11. ^ Goldberg, Jonah (2007). Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 9780385511841.
  12. ^ Leonard, Thomas C. (2016). Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press ISBN 978-0-691-16959-0
  13. ^ Lucassen, Leo (2010). "A Brave New World: The Left, Social Engineering, and Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Europe." International Review of Social History, 55(2), 265–296. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44583170
  14. ^ "Eugenics". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.

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