Category talk:Eugenics

message: ==== Citations calling eugenics a pseudoscience ====
Thanks to user:Rikurzhen we get these scholarly, mainstream references calling eugenics a "pseudoscience":
* In the name of the pseudoscience of eugenics, Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime exterminated millions of Jews, Gypsies, mental patients, and disabled people between ... Science
* The results demonstrate that eugenics was not an isolated movement whose significance is confined to the histories of genetics and pseudoscience, but was ... American Journal of Public Health
* From those [American and German] eugenic programs, eugenics is generally regarded as a pseudoscience in modern world. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics
* It becomes apparent that the drafters of this legislation are just now discovering the pseudoscience of eugenics. Canadian Medical Association Journal
* Eugenics was in any case a grotesque misuse of science (and promulgation of pseudoscience), but it was easily adapted by the Nazis,... International Review of Psychiatry,
* Eugenics was a political movement fueled by pseudoscience and an imperfect uderstanding of the principles of Mendelian genetics. Public Understanding of Science
* This foray into "social physics" was controversial, and led to a number of unsavoury developments in pseudoscience such as the eugenics movement,... Astronomy and Geophysics
====  Citations calling eugenics a science ====
Here are some instances in which eugenics has been called a science in mainstream sources:
* The University of Virginia was home to supporters of the science of eugenics. - University of Virginia 
** For a time, the doctrine of eugenics exerted considerable influence on American society. Based largely on political and social prejudices, the pseudo-science was taught at schools and universities. - same site, next section Septentrionalis
* The science of improving stock, whether human or animal - Definition from Webster's dictionary 
* Sir Francis Galton , who introduced the term eugenics, is usually regarded as the founder of the modern science of eugenics - Columbia Encyclopedia 
**What is the date this paragraph was written, and therefore the date of "modern"? The next sentence is: Modern eugenics is directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (negative eugenics) and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character (positive eugenics)', which sounds very 30's to my ear. Septentrionalis
***It says "Copyright 2005" on the bottom on the page and it is using sources as recent as 2001, so it must be at least that recent.  Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
* Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), Founder of the science of 'eugenics' - National Portrait Gallery 
**Last sentence of entry: Eugenics, as he called it, enjoyed wide currency around 1900 but was discredited after the rise and fall of Nazism. Septentrionalis
***Okay, but was does this have to do with the fact that the entry calls it a "science"? Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
At least two of these, and perhaps all four, are making the historical statement that eugenics was called a science during Galton's lifetime (as it was up until the 1930's). Septentrionalis 1 July 2005 15:44 (UTC)
:Fist of all, we can't infer the phrase "during Galton's lifetime" if it is directly stated.  Second, even if two sources do imply that, that leaves two other sources that don't.  Third, you admit that at times eugenics was a science.  Therefore we cannot label the article in the "pseudoscience" category.  Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
Here are some more sources calling it a science:
* a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed - Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc. 
* The scientific study of artificial selection towards a particular set of desired characteristics. - CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary 
* From the Afterward, by Dr. Richard Dawkins, The Herald, Glasgow, (2006). "But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?" 
* The Eugenics Impulse and The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine Yale University Press. (2012) by Nathaniel C. Comfort "The eugenic impulse drives us to eliminate disease, to live longer and healthier, with greater intelligence and a better adjustment to the conditions of society. It arises whenever the humanitarian desire for happiness and social betterment combines with an emphasis on heredity as the essence of human nature. It is the aim of control, the denial of fatalism, the rejection of chance. The dream of engineering ourselves, of reducing suffering now and forever. The question is not one of whether there ought to be such an impulse, whether it should be called eugenics, or even whether biomedicine ought to focus so much on genetics. These things just are. And besides, the health benefits, the intellectual thrill, and the profits of genetic biomedicine are too great for us to do otherwise. Resistance would be ill-advised and futile." /]
* Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction, Stephen Wilkinson and Eve Garrard, published by Keele University (2013). "Eugenics is the attempt to improve the human gene pool. People can agree on that definition, even if they disagree considerably about what counts as eugenics." "Eugenics doesn’t seem always to be immoral, and so the fact that PGD, and other forms of selective reproduction, might sometimes technically be eugenic, isn’t sufficient to show that they’re wrong."  
* Eugenics Definition "Applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population. Usually refers to human populations."  Unified Medical Language System (Psychological Index Terms). National Library of Medicine. 3 December 2013. Publiceditz (talk) 20:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: Here are some instances in which eugenics has been called a science in mainstream sources:
* The University of Virginia was home to supporters of the science of eugenics. - University of Virginia 
** For a time, the doctrine of eugenics exerted considerable influence on American society. Based largely on political and social prejudices, the pseudo-science was taught at schools and universities. - same site, next section Septentrionalis
* The science of improving stock, whether human or animal - Definition from Webster's dictionary 
* Sir Francis Galton , who introduced the term eugenics, is usually regarded as the founder of the modern science of eugenics - Columbia Encyclopedia 
**What is the date this paragraph was written, and therefore the date of "modern"? The next sentence is: Modern eugenics is directed chiefly toward the discouragement of propagation among the unfit (negative eugenics) and encouragement of propagation among those who are healthy, intelligent, and of high moral character (positive eugenics)', which sounds very 30's to my ear. Septentrionalis
***It says "Copyright 2005" on the bottom on the page and it is using sources as recent as 2001, so it must be at least that recent.  Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
* Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), Founder of the science of 'eugenics' - National Portrait Gallery 
**Last sentence of entry: Eugenics, as he called it, enjoyed wide currency around 1900 but was discredited after the rise and fall of Nazism. Septentrionalis
***Okay, but was does this have to do with the fact that the entry calls it a "science"? Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
At least two of these, and perhaps all four, are making the historical statement that eugenics was called a science during Galton's lifetime (as it was up until the 1930's). Septentrionalis 1 July 2005 15:44 (UTC)
:Fist of all, we can't infer the phrase "during Galton's lifetime" if it is directly stated.  Second, even if two sources do imply that, that leaves two other sources that don't.  Third, you admit that at times eugenics was a science.  Therefore we cannot label the article in the "pseudoscience" category.  Dsh34 1 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
Here are some more sources calling it a science:
* a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of hereditary qualities of a race or breed - Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc. 
* The scientific study of artificial selection towards a particular set of desired characteristics. - CancerWEB's On-line Medical Dictionary 
* From the Afterward, by Dr. Richard Dawkins, The Herald, Glasgow, (2006). "But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability?" 
* The Eugenics Impulse and The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine Yale University Press. (2012) by Nathaniel C. Comfort "The eugenic impulse drives us to eliminate disease, to live longer and healthier, with greater intelligence and a better adjustment to the conditions of society. It arises whenever the humanitarian desire for happiness and social betterment combines with an emphasis on heredity as the essence of human nature. It is the aim of control, the denial of fatalism, the rejection of chance. The dream of engineering ourselves, of reducing suffering now and forever. The question is not one of whether there ought to be such an impulse, whether it should be called eugenics, or even whether biomedicine ought to focus so much on genetics. These things just are. And besides, the health benefits, the intellectual thrill, and the profits of genetic biomedicine are too great for us to do otherwise. Resistance would be ill-advised and futile." /]
* Eugenics and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction, Stephen Wilkinson and Eve Garrard, published by Keele University (2013). "Eugenics is the attempt to improve the human gene pool. People can agree on that definition, even if they disagree considerably about what counts as eugenics." "Eugenics doesn’t seem always to be immoral, and so the fact that PGD, and other forms of selective reproduction, might sometimes technically be eugenic, isn’t sufficient to show that they’re wrong."  
* Eugenics Definition "Applied science or the biosocial movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population. Usually refers to human populations."  Unified Medical Language System (Psychological Index Terms). National Library of Medicine. 3 December 2013. Publiceditz (talk) 20:36, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:   Citations calling eugenics a science 

message: There's no link to the English Thomas John Gerrard. He wrote abut eugenics.Agre22 (talk) 20:09, 9 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Thomas John Gerrard