Eugenics
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
Eugenics is a philosophy. It wants to use knowledge of genetics in order to improve humans. Through this it would be possible to eradicate genetic traits that lead to suffering. People also thought that it would be possible to create humans that are healthier, and perhaps more intelligent. In the past, many different ways were proposed for doing this, and even today eugenics means different things to different people. The idea of eugenics is today very controversial, because in the past it was used in order to justify discrimination and injustice against people who were thought to be genetically "unhealthy".
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[edit] Francis Galton
Modern eugenics was first invented in the 1860s by Sir Francis Galton, a British scientist who was the cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton believed that intelligence and talent were hereditary and were passed from parent to their children. Based on this, he thought that people could be bred to be smarter, just like animals were bred to be larger or smaller. Galton thought the best way to do this in his day was first to learn more about heredity, and also to tell people that they should only marry people who were smart and strong. Galton chose the name "Eugenics" because it was very similar to the Greek word for "well born".
Galton developed the idea of eugenics further throughout his life. He considered eugenics to be like a modern, scientific religion. He determined that there could be two types of eugenics. The first type would try to increase the number of "good" people in the world by encouraging "good" people to breed. This was called "positive eugenics". The second type would try to decrease the number of "bad" people in the world by finding ways to make it so that "bad" people would not breed. This was called "negative eugenics". One problem that critics brought up very early on is that the definition of who is a "good" person, genetically speaking, and who is a "bad" person is not scientific, and can lead to prejudice.
[edit] Eugenics in the United States
Eugenics was not very popular until after the rediscovery of the scientific work of Gregor Mendel in 1900. Mendel's work, which led to modern genetics, gave new tools for understanding how heredity worked. Mendel himself experimented on peas, and found that many characterstics of the pea plants, such as their color or their height, could be turned on and off through heredity like a switch. For example, his peas could be either yellow or green, one or the other. When applied to humans, people thought this meant that human characteristics, like being smart or not, could also be easily turned on or off through heredity.
In the United States, eugenics became a very popular idea in the early 20th century. People thought it would cure society of all of its problems at the time, like crime and poverty, because they thought that all aspects of human behavior were probably hereditary. Very important scientists and politicians supported eugenics, and most thought it was a very progressive and scientific philosophy. But many of those who led the eugenics movement used it to justify racism and prejudice. They used eugenics as an excuse to pass laws which to restrict immigration from countries that they did not like, saying that the people in them were genetically "unfit". They also passed laws which said that people of different races could not get married to one another. Most importantly, they passed laws which said that people who were thought to have mental illness or mental disability could be sterilized against their will. Under these laws over 60,000 people were sterilized in the United States between 1907 and the 1970s.
Today we know that much of the "science" used to support eugenics in the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s was wrong. It made assumptions which are considered bad scientific method today, and sometimes the scientists were very biased in their conclusions. Even at the time there were some scientists who said that the science was very bad. But many of those behind the movement were very important scientists anyway.
[edit] Eugenics after the Second world war
With the end of the Second World War, forced sterilisation ended in Germany. It was continued in the United States until 1974. The main targets were at firast those that were ill or that had some physical or mental disabilities. Later on, the focus shifted towards convicted criminals, as well as black people.
Only in 1985 was a law of the Swiss canton of Vaud abolished. This law allowed for the forced sterilisation of a certain group of people. It was replaced by a law on the national level, that tells under which circumstances people who are unable to consent, may be sterilised.
[edit] Eugenics today?
Though there are very few people who openly advocate eugenics today, many people wonder what improvements in genetic technologies will mean for eugenics in the future. Some people think that there is a very strict difference between genetic counseling, where parents can get information about their heredity and even prevent the birth of a child if it has a heredity illness, and eugenics. Genetic counselors say that because they only want to help the parents, then it is not eugenics, because eugenics is a philosophy which wants to change all people. Some people do not think the issue is so clear, though, and wonder if genetic counseling, birth control, and genetic screening are all just another type of eugenics. Some people wonder whether eugenics is only bad if it is done coercively, like the Nazis, or if it is bad because it infringes upon human dignity. Some people oppose eugenics and genetic counseling for religious reasons. The idea of eugenics is very controversial today for these reasons.
