Evolution: Darwin: In the Name of Darwin Some supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution have misapplied the biological principles of natural selection -- "survival of the fittest" -- to the social, political, and economic realms. The idea of "social Darwinism" originated in the class stratification of England, and has often been used as a general term for any evolutionary argument about the biological basis of human differences. Drawing on social Darwinism, supporters of the 20th-century eugenics movement sought to "improve" human genetic stock, much as farmers do in agriculture. This essay examines the history of eugenics and considers modern genetic research in the same light, so that the lessons of history are not forgotten. Daniel J. Kevles, a historian of science and society, is the Stanley Woodward Professor of History at Yale University. He has written extensively about the social and political relations of science. His works include In the Name of Eugenics (1995), The Physicists: The History of a Scientific Community in Modern America (1995), and The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character (2000).

Adapted with permission of Harvard University Press from the 1995 Preface to In the Name of Eugenics, Daniel Kevles, ix-xiii. Copyright � 1995 by Daniel J. Kevles. (Boldface added.) Charles applied to social issues. The specter of eugenics hovers over virtually all contemporary developments in human genetics . Eugenics was rooted in the social Darwinism of the late 19th century, a period in which notions of fitness, competition, and biological rationalizations of inequality were popular. At the time, a growing number of theorists introduced Darwinian analogies of "survival of the fittest" into social argument. Many social Darwinists insisted that biology was destiny, at least for the unfit, and that a broad spectrum of socially deleterious traits, ranging from "pauperism" to mental illness, resulted from heredity.

The word "eugenics" was coined in 1883 by the English scientist Francis Galton , a cousin of Charles Darwin, to promote the ideal of perfecting the human race by, as he put it, getting rid of its "undesirables" while multiplying its "desirables" -- that is, by encouraging the procreation of the social Darwinian fit and discouraging that of the unfit. In Galton's day, the science of genetics was not yet understood. Nevertheless, Darwin's theory of evolution taught that species did change as a result of natural selection, and it was well known that by artificial selection a farmer could obtain permanent breeds of plants and animals strong in particular characteristics. Galton wondered, "Could not the race of men be similarly improved?" Francis Galton Sir Francis Galton The science of eugenics was invented by Sir Francis Galton, an amateur British scientist. The term eugenics was coined by Galton in 1883, though he had been doing research and writing in the field for some time before then. Galton also did research in several scientific fields including geography, meteorology and anthropology. Galton was the cousin of Charles Darwin and the son of a wealthy, influential family.

In 1869 Galton wrote a book called Heredity Genius in which he followed the lives of several accomplished men from, what he considered good families. These good families, Galton claimed, were more likely to produce intelligent and talented offspring. Galton concluded that it was possible to produce "a highly gifted race of men" by the process of selective breeding, which he later termed "positive" eugenics. Discouraging the reproduction of "undesirables" was subsequently termed "negative" eugenics. (Dolan) The ï¿½negativeï¿½ eugenics movement was much stronger than the ï¿½positiveï¿½ eugenics and swept across the U.S. Eugenics ... death of the defenceless - creation.com Eugenics … death of the defenceless The legacy of Darwin’s cousin Galton By Russell Grigg Few ideas have done more harm to the human race in the last 120 years than those of Sir Francis Galton. He founded the evolutionary pseudo-science of eugenics.

Today, ethnic cleansing, the use of abortion to eliminate ‘defective’ unborn babies, infanticide, euthanasia, and the harvesting of unborn babies for research purposes all have a common foundation in the survival-of-the-fittest theory of eugenics. So who was Galton, what is eugenics, and how has it harmed humanity? Francis Galton Photos Darwin by TFE Graphics, Hitler and Galton by Wikipedia.org Francis Galton (featured on right in photo montage, right) was born into a Quaker family in Birmingham, England, in 1822. A grandson of Erasmus Darwin on his mother’s side and so a cousin of Charles Darwin (pictured above left), he shared the Darwinian agnosticism and antagonism to Christianity for most of his adult life. As a child, he had learned the alphabet by 18 months, was reading by age 2½, memorizing poetry by five, and discussing the Iliad at six. 1 In 1840, he began studies at Cambridge University in medicine and then in mathematics, but, due to a nervous breakdown, succeeded in gaining only a modest B.A. degree, in January 1844.

2 When his father died that same year, he inherited such a fortune that he never again needed to work for a living. This gave the wealthy young Galton free time not only for ‘amusement’, but also to dabble in a number of fields, including exploration of large areas of South West Africa, his reports of which gained him membership of the Royal Geographic Society in 1853, and three years later of the Royal Society. In that year, Galton married Louisa Butler, whose father had been Headmaster at Harrow School. As an amateur scientist of boundless curiosity and energy, he went on to write some 14 books and over 200 papers. 3 His inventions included the ‘silent’ dog whistle, a teletype printer; and various instruments and techniques for measuring human intelligence and body parts; and he invented the weather map and discovered the existence of anticyclones. Interaction with Charles Darwin The publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 was undoubtedly a turning point in Galton’s life.

In 1869 he wrote to Darwin, ‘[T]he appearance of your Origin of Species formed a real crisis in my life; your book drove away the constraint of my old superstition [i.e. religious arguments based on design] as if it had been a nightmare and was the first to give me freedom of thought.’ 4 From Nott, J.C. and Gliddon, G.R., Indigenous Races of the Earth, J.B. Libbincott, Philadelphia, USA, 1868. Pseudoscientific illustration of alleged evolution of human ‘races’. An allegedly ‘scientific’ illustration from 1868 showing that blacks were less evolved than whites by suggesting similarities with a chimpanzee. Even the famous evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould commented that the chimpanzee skull is falsely enlarged and the ‘negro’ jaw falsely extended to suggest that ‘negros’ rank even lower than apes. This demonstration was not from racist or ‘fringe’ literature but from one of the leading scientific textbooks of its time. Today’s militant evolutionists like to conveniently evade the social implications of their ideas, but history demonstrates otherwise.

Galton ‘was among the first to recognize the implications for mankind of Darwin’s theory of evolution.’ 5 He believed that talent, character, intellect, etc. were all inherited from one’s ancestors, as was also any lack of these qualities. Thus the poor were not hapless victims of their circumstances, but were paupers because they were biologically inferior. This was contrary to the prevailing scientific view that all such qualities were due to environment, i.e. how and where a person was brought up. 6 Galton believed that humans, like animals, could and should be selectively bred. In 1883, he coined the term ‘eugenics’ [Greek: εύ (eu) meaning ‘well’ and γένος (genos) meaning ‘kind’ or ‘offspring’] for the study of ways of improving the physical and mental characteristics of the human race. Galton’s views left no room for the existence of a human soul, the grace of God in the human heart, human freedom to choose to be different, or even for the dignity of the individual.

In his first published article on this subject, in 1865, 7 ‘He denied … that man’s rational faculties are a gift to him from God; he denied that mankind has been cursed with sinfulness since the day of Adam and Eve’; and he viewed religious sentiments as ‘nothing more than evolutionary devices to insure the survival of the human species.’ 8 Concerning the sense of original sin, he wrote that ‘[this] would show, according to my theory, not that man was fallen from a high estate, but that he was rapidly rising from a low one … and that after myriads of years of barbarism, our race has but very recently grown to be civilized and religious.’ 9 In Hereditary Genius (1869), Galton enlarged on all these ideas and proposed that a system of arranged marriages between men of distinction and women of wealth would eventually produce a gifted race. When Charles Darwin read this book, he wrote to Galton, ‘You have made a convert of an opponent in one sense for I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work … .’5 Galton’s ideas undoubtedly helped him extend his evolution theory to man.

Darwin did not mention Galton in his Origin, but referred to him no less than 11 times in his Descent of Man (1871). Three International Eugenics Congresses were held in 1912, 1921 and 1932, with eugenics activists attending from Britain, the USA, Germany, France, Australia, Canada, India, Japan, Mauritius, Kenya and South Africa. Notables who supported the ideas pre–World War II included Winston Churchill, economist John Maynard Keynes, science fiction writer H.G. Wells 10 and US Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge. Galton received the Huxley Medal from the Anthropological Institute in 1901, the Darwin Medal from the Royal Society in 1902, the Darwin–Wallace Medal from the Linnean Society in 1908, and honorary degrees from Cambridge and Oxford Universities; he was knighted in 1909. Despite these ‘honours’, in life Galton was not his own best advocate for his theories.

He had many long-lasting bouts of illness, and notwithstanding his and his wife’s good intellectual pedigrees, they produced no children of their own to carry on his name and heritage. After his death in 1911, his will provided for the funding of a Chair of Eugenics and the Galton Eugenics Laboratory at the University of London. Eugenics in action The concept of improving the physical and mental characteristics of the human race may seem admirable at first glance. However, historically the method of achieving it has involved not just increasing the birthrate of the ‘fit’ by selected parenthood (‘positive eugenics’), but also reducing the birthrate of those people thought to impair such improvement, the ‘unfit’ (‘negative eugenics’). 11 For example, by 1913, one-third (and from the 1920s on, more than half) 12 of the US States had laws allowing for the compulsory sterilization of those held in custody who were deemed to be ‘unfit’.

This resulted in the forced sterilization of some 70,000 victims, including criminals, the mentally retarded, drug addicts, paupers, the blind, the deaf, and people with epilepsy, TB or syphilis. Over 8,000 procedures were done at the one city of Lynchburg, Virginia, 13 and isolated instances continued into the 1970s. 14 , 15 About 60,000 Swedish citizens were similarly treated between 1935 and 1976, and there were similar practices in Norway and Canada. 16 In Germany in 1933, Hitler’s government ordered the compulsory sterilization of all German citizens with ‘undesirable’ handicaps, not just those held in custody or in institutions. This was to prevent ‘contamination’ of Hitler’s ‘superior German race’ through intermarriage. Image Wikipedia.org Eugenics congress logo.

Click here for larger view Then from 1938 to 1945, this surgical treatment of such ‘useless eaters’ was superseded by a more comprehensive solution—the eager genocide, by Hitler’s Nazis, of over 11 million people considered to be subhuman or unworthy of life, as is authenticated and documented by the Nuremberg Trials records. Those killed included Jews, evangelical Christians, 17 blacks, gypsies, communists, homosexuals, amputees and mental patients. This was nothing other than rampant Darwinism—the elimination of millions of human beings branded ‘unfit/inferior’ by, and for the benefit of, those who regarded themselves as being ‘fit/superior’. The core idea of Darwinism is selection. 18 The Nazis believed that they must direct the process of selection to advance the German race. 19 Galton’s naïve vision of a ‘eugenics utopia’ had mutated into the Nazi nightmare of murderous ethnic cleansing. Sadly, ideas of racial superiority and eugenics did not die with Hitler’s regime.

David Duke, America’s infamous anti-black and anti-Jew racist, developed his views from reading the eugenicist writings of Galton, H.G. Wells , Sir Arthur Keith and others, as well as the early writings of modern sociobiologists such as Harvard’s E.O. Wilson. 20 Eugenics in the 21st century. Following World War II, eugenics became a ‘dirty word’. Eugenicists now called themselves ‘population scientists’, ‘human geneticists’, ‘family politicians’, etc. Journals were renamed. Annals of Eugenics became Annals of Human Genetics, and Eugenics Quarterly became the Journal of Social Biology. 21 However today, some 60 years after the Holocaust, the murderous concept that Galton’s eugenics spawned is once again alive and flourishing, and wearing a lab-coat of medical respectability. Doctors now routinely destroy humans, who were created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26), by abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, as well as in fetal/embryonic stem-cell research. A.

Abortion According to the UK’s Daily Mail, ‘women are increasingly eliminating their unborn children because of non life-threatening deformities such as deformed feet or cleft lips and palates’, and ‘more Down’s Syndrome babies are now killed than are allowed to be born.’ 22 Dr Jacqueline Laing of London’s Metropolitan University commented, ‘These figures are symptomatic of a eugenic trend of the consumerist society hell-bent on obliterating deformity.’ ‘This is straightforward eugenics,’ said UK’s Life Trustee, Nuala Scarisbrick. ‘The message is being sent out to disabled people that they should not have been born. It is appalling and abhorrent.’ 22 Globally, there are an estimated 50 million abortions each year. That’s one abortion for every three live births, so any child in the womb, on average, worldwide, has a one in four chance of being deliberately killed. 23 B. Infanticide China is famous for its coercive one-child-per-family policy. In practice, most families want a boy, so if a girl is born, she can be at risk. Sometimes the same grisly principle is followed, but before birth.

In India, it’s common to find out the sex of the baby, and a vast majority of abortions are of girl babies. It makes the feminist support of abortion distressingly ironic. And disabled babies are at risk as well. ‘Ethicist’ Peter Singer has advocated legalization of infanticide to a certain age. He writes: ‘[K]illing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.’ 24 C. Euthanasia In May 2001, Holland became the first country to legalize euthanasia, with the law coming into effect from January 2002. Euthanasia was tolerated in Belgium until May 2002, when it was legalized. It is tolerated in Switzerland, Norway and Columbia. 23 Eugenics and the Scopes Monkey Trial1 Photo Bryan College Clarence Darrow (left) and William Jennings Bryan The textbook from which Scopes taught evolution, A Civic Biology by George Hunter,2 and its companion lab book3 were blatantly eugenic and offensively racist.

Hunter divided humanity into five races and ranked them according to how high each had reached on the evolutionary scale, from ‘the Ethiopian or negro type’ to ‘the highest type of all, the Caucasians, represented by the civilized white inhabitants of Europe and America’.4 A Civic Biology asserted that crime and immorality are inherited and run in families, and said that ‘these families have become parasitic on society. … If such people were lower animals, we would probably kill them off to prevent them from spreading. Humanity will not allow this, but we do have the remedy of separating the sexes in asylums or other places and in various ways preventing intermarriage and the possibilities of perpetuating such a low and degenerate race.’4 This is the book that Darwinists of the day insisted that Scopes had a right to teach! All this is documented by Dr David Menton in the DVD Inherently Wind: a Hollywood History of the Scopes Trial (right). References and notes The 1925 trial in Dayton, Tennessee, USA, of high-school teacher John T. Scopes, charged with violating state law by teaching the theory of evolution.

Hunter, G., A Civic Biology Presented in Problems, American Book Co., New York, USA, pp. 195–196, 1914. Hunter, G., Laboratory Problems in Civic Biology, American Book Co., New York, USA, 1916. Ref. 2, pp. 261–265. Judgment at Nuremberg Perhaps the most frequently asked question concerning the eugenics-inspired genocide of the Holocaust is: ‘How could it have happened?’ In the 1961 MGM film Judgment at Nuremberg, about the trial of four Nazi war criminals, judges who had enforced Nazi decrees,1 one of the defendants (Judge Ernst Janning, played by Burt Lancaster) cries out to Chief Judge Dan Haywood (played by Spencer Tracy): ‘Those people—those millions of people—I never knew it would come to that.

You must believe it!’ Haywood’s response was eloquent: ‘It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.’ Likewise today, eugenic killing of innocent preborn babies because they are thought to be less than perfect began the first time a doctor consented to kill a handicapped child in the womb. The rest is history. Based on the third Nuremberg Trial (1947), also called the ‘Judges’ Trial’ because it tried Nazi judges and prosecutors for imposing the Nazi ‘racial purity’ programme through the eugenic and racial laws. There were a total of 13 Nuremberg Trials. The photograph (above right) comes from the first Nuremberg Trial (1945–6), the most famous and significant of them because it tried the main German leaders. Front row (left-to-right): Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel; Back row: Karl Dönitz, Erich Raeder, Baldur von Schirach, Fritz Sauckel.

(Courtesy Wikipedia) Conclusion Not all evolutionists are murderers, of course, and Francis Galton may never have conceived that his theories would lead to the killing of so many millions of people, let alone the onslaught on defenceless unborn babies. However, such action is totally consistent with evolutionary teaching, namely the survival of the fittest by the elimination of the weakest. Deeds are the outcome of beliefs. As Jesus said: ‘A bad tree bears bad fruit’; it ‘cannot bear good fruit’ ( Matthew 7:17–18 ). Contrary to the deadly philosophy of eugenics, every human person has eternal value in God’s sight and has been created ‘in the image of God’ ( Genesis 1:26–27 ). God also explicitly forbade murder ( Exodus 20:13 ), or intentional killing of innocent humans. Indeed, God so loved humanity that He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to die on the Cross to save us from sin ( John 3:16–17 ), and to transform us into the image of His Son when we believe on Him ( Romans 8:29 ; 2 Corinthians 3:18 ).

In Jesus , the Second Person of the Trinity took on human nature ( Hebrews 2:14 ), becoming the Last Adam ( 1 Corinthians 15:45 ), thus becoming the (kinsman-) Redeemer ( Isaiah 59:20 ) of the race of the first man, Adam. Related Articles The Transhumanists are coming! References and notes Cowan, R., Sir Francis Galton and the study of heredity in the nineteenth century, Garland Publishing Inc., New York, USA, p. vi, 1985. Return to text Forrest, D.W., Francis Galton: The life and work of a Victorian genius, Paul Elek, London, UK, p. 25, 1974. Return to text Subjects included twins, blood transfusions, criminality, travel in undeveloped countries, meteorology, correlational calculus, anthropometry (measurement of the human body), and fingerprints as a means of identity—first used by Scotland Yard in 1901 and now throughout the world. Return to text Galton to Darwin, 24 December 1869, quoted from ref. 1, p. 74.

Return to text Galton, Sir Francis, Encyclopædia Britannica 5:97–98, 1992. Return to text These two views of heredity versus environment have also been labelled ‘nature versus nurture’. Return to text Galton, F., Hereditary talent and character, 2 parts, MacMillan’s magazine 12:157–166 and 318–327, June and August 1865 (Source: ref. 1, p. 1.). Return to text eugenics | genetics | Britannica.com Eugenics epigenetics Eugenics, the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans.

The term eugenics was coined in 1883 by the British explorer and natural scientist Francis Galton , who, influenced by Charles Darwin ’s theory of natural selection , advocated a system that would allow “the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” Social Darwinism , the popular theory in the late 19th century that life for humans in society was ruled by “survival of the fittest,” helped advance eugenics into serious scientific study in the early 1900s. By World War I , many scientific authorities and political leaders supported eugenics. However, it ultimately failed as a science in the 1930s and ’40s, when the assumptions of eugenicists became heavily criticized and the Nazis used eugenics to support the extermination of entire races. Early history Although eugenics as understood today dates from the late 19th century, efforts to select matings in order to secure offspring with desirable traits date from ancient times. Plato ’s Republic (c. 378 bce) depicts a society where efforts are undertaken to improve human beings through selective breeding.

Later, Italian philosopher and poet Tommaso Campanella , in City of the Sun (1623), described a utopian community in which only the socially elite are allowed to procreate. Galton, in Hereditary Genius (1869), proposed that a system of arranged marriages between men of distinction and women of wealth would eventually produce a gifted race. In 1865, the basic laws of heredity were discovered by the father of modern genetics , Gregor Mendel . His experiments with peas demonstrated that each physical trait was the result of a combination of two units (now known as genes ) and could be passed from one generation to another. However, his work was largely ignored until its rediscovery in 1900. This fundamental knowledge of heredity provided eugenicists—including Galton, who influenced his cousin Charles Darwin—with scientific evidence to support the improvement of humans through selective breeding. Sir Francis Galton, detail of an oil painting by G.

Graef, 1882; in the National Portrait Gallery, … Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, London Similar Topics one gene–one enzyme hypothesis The advancement of eugenics was concurrent with an increasing appreciation of Charles Darwin’s account for change or evolution within society—what contemporaries referred to as Social Darwinism . Darwin had concluded his explanations of evolution by arguing that the greatest step humans could make in their own history would occur when they realized that they were not completely guided by instinct. Rather, humans, through selective reproduction, had the ability to control their own future evolution. A language pertaining to reproduction and eugenics developed, leading to terms such as positive eugenics, defined as promoting the proliferation of “good stock,” and negative eugenics, defined as prohibiting marriage and breeding between “defective stock.” For eugenicists, nature was far more contributory than nurture in shaping humanity. biological determinism: The eugenics movement During the early 1900s, eugenics became a serious scientific study pursued by both biologists and social scientists. They sought to determine the extent to which human characteristics of social importance were inherited. Among their greatest concerns were the predictability of intelligence and certain deviant behaviours.

Eugenics, however, was not confined to scientific laboratories and academic institutions. It began to pervade cultural thought around the globe, including the Scandinavian countries, most other European countries, North America , Latin America , Japan, China, and Russia. In the United States , the eugenics movement began during the Progressive Era and remained active through 1940. It gained considerable support from leading scientific authorities such as zoologist Charles B. Davenport , plant geneticist Edward M. East , and geneticist and Nobel Prize laureate Hermann J. Muller . Political leaders in favour of eugenics included U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt , Secretary of State Elihu Root , and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall Harlan . Internationally, there were many individuals whose work supported eugenic aims, including British scientists J.B.S. Haldane and Julian Huxley and Russian scientists Nikolay K. Koltsov and Yury A. Filipchenko. Eugenics organizations and legislation Scientists Ponder Menopause in Killer Whales Galton had endowed a research fellowship in eugenics in 1904 and, in his will, provided funds for a chair of eugenics at University College, London.

The fellowship and later the chair were occupied by Karl Pearson , a brilliant mathematician who helped to create the science of biometry , the statistical aspects of biology . Pearson was a controversial figure who believed that environment had little to do with the development of mental or emotional qualities. He felt that the high birth rate of the poor was a threat to civilization and that the “higher” races must supplant the “lower.” His views gave countenance to those who believed in racial and class superiority. Thus, Pearson shares the blame for the discredit later brought on eugenics. Karl Pearson, pencil drawing by F.A. de Biden Footner, 1924 Courtesy of Professor D.V. Lindley; photograph, J.R. Freeman & Co. Ltd. Branches of Genetics In the United States, the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) was opened at Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island , N.Y., in 1910 with financial support from the legacy of railroad magnate Edward Henry Harriman . Whereas ERO efforts were officially overseen by Charles B.

Davenport, director of the Station for Experimental Study of Evolution (one of the biology research stations at Cold Spring Harbor), ERO activities were directly superintended by Harry H. Laughlin, a professor from Kirksville, Mo. The ERO was organized around a series of missions. These missions included serving as the national repository and clearinghouse for eugenics information, compiling an index of traits in American families, training field-workers to gather data throughout the United States, supporting investigations into the inheritance patterns of particular human traits and diseases, advising on the eugenic fitness of proposed marriages, and communicating all eugenic findings through a series of publications. To accomplish these goals, further funding was secured from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, John D. Rockefeller , Jr., the Battle Creek Race Betterment Foundation, and the Human Betterment Foundation. Prior to the founding of the ERO, eugenics work in the United States was overseen by a standing committee of the American Breeder’s Association (eugenics section established in 1906), chaired by ichthyologist and Stanford University president David Starr Jordan .

Research from around the globe was featured at three international congresses, held in 1912, 1921, and 1932. In addition, eugenics education was monitored in Britain by the English Eugenics Society (founded by Galton in 1907 as the Eugenics Education Society) and in the United States by the American Eugenics Society. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Following World War I, the United States gained status as a world power. A concomitant fear arose that if the healthy stock of the American people became diluted with socially undesirable traits, the country’s political and economic strength would begin to crumble. The maintenance of world peace by fostering democracy , capitalism, and, at times, eugenics-based schemes was central to the activities of “ the Internationalists,” a group of prominent American leaders in business, education, publishing, and government. One core member of this group, the New York lawyer Madison Grant, aroused considerable pro-eugenic interest through his best-selling book The Passing of the Great Race (1916). Beginning in 1920, a series of congressional hearings was held to identify problems that immigrants were causing the United States.

As the country’s “eugenics expert,” Harry Laughlin provided tabulations showing that certain immigrants, particularly those from Italy, Greece, and Eastern Europe, were significantly overrepresented in American prisons and institutions for the “feebleminded.” Further data were construed to suggest that these groups were contributing too many genetically and socially inferior people. Laughlin’s classification of these individuals included the feebleminded, the insane, the criminalistic, the epileptic, the inebriate, the diseased—including those with tuberculosis, leprosy , and syphilis —the blind, the deaf, the deformed, the dependent, chronic recipients of charity, paupers, and “ne’er-do-wells.” Racial overtones also pervaded much of the British and American eugenics literature. In 1923, Laughlin was sent by the U.S. secretary of labour as an immigration agent to Europe to investigate the chief emigrant-exporting nations. Laughlin sought to determine the feasibility of a plan whereby every prospective immigrant would be interviewed before embarking to the United States.

He provided testimony before Congress that ultimately led to a new immigration law in 1924 that severely restricted the annual immigration of individuals from countries previously claimed to have contributed excessively to the dilution of American “good stock.” Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Immigration control was but one method to control eugenically the reproductive stock of a country. Laughlin appeared at the centre of other U.S. efforts to provide eugenicists greater reproductive control over the nation. He approached state legislators with a model law to control the reproduction of institutionalized populations. By 1920, two years before the publication of Laughlin’s influential Eugenical Sterilization in the United States (1922), 3,200 individuals across the country were reported to have been involuntarily sterilized . That number tripled by 1929, and by 1938 more than 30,000 people were claimed to have met this fate. More than half of the states adopted Laughlin’s law, with California, Virginia, and Michigan leading the sterilization campaign. Laughlin’s efforts secured staunch judicial support in 1927.

In the precedent-setting case of Buck v. Bell, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. , upheld the Virginia statute and claimed, “It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” Popular support for eugenics During the 1930s, eugenics gained considerable popular support across the United States. Hygiene courses in public schools and eugenics courses in colleges spread eugenic-minded values to many. A eugenics exhibit titled “Pedigree-Study in Man” was featured at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933–34. Consistent with the fair’s “Century of Progress” theme, stations were organized around efforts to show how favourable traits in the human population could best be perpetuated. Contrasts were drawn between the emulative, presidential Roosevelt family and the degenerate “Ishmael” family (one of several pseudonymous family names used, the rationale for which was not given).

By studying the passage of ancestral traits, fairgoers were urged to adopt the progressive view that responsible individuals should pursue marriage ever mindful of eugenics principles. Booths were set up at county and state fairs promoting “fitter families” contests, and medals were awarded to eugenically sound families. Drawing again upon long-standing eugenic practices in agriculture, popular eugenic advertisements claimed it was about time that humans received the same attention in the breeding of better babies that had been given to livestock and crops for centuries. Antieugenics sentiment Opium Wars Antieugenics sentiment began to appear after 1910 and intensified during the 1930s. Most commonly it was based on religious grounds. For example, the 1930 papal encyclical Casti connubii condemned reproductive sterilization, though it did not specifically prohibit positive eugenic attempts to amplify the inheritance of beneficial traits. Many Protestant writings sought to reconcile age-old Christian warnings about the heritable sins of the father to pro-eugenic ideals. Indeed, most of the religion-based popular writings of the period supported positive means of improving the physical and moral makeup of humanity.

In the early 1930s, Nazi Germany adopted American measures to identify and selectively reduce the presence of those deemed to be “socially inferior” through involuntary sterilization. A rhetoric of positive eugenics in the building of a master race pervaded Rassenhygiene (racial hygiene) movements. When Germany extended its practices far beyond sterilization in efforts to eliminate the Jewish and other non-Aryan populations, the United States became increasingly concerned over its own support of eugenics. Many scientists, physicians, and political leaders began to denounce the work of the ERO publicly. After considerable reflection, the Carnegie Institution formally closed the ERO at the end of 1939. During the aftermath of World War II , eugenics became stigmatized such that many individuals who had once hailed it as a science now spoke disparagingly of it as a failed pseudoscience. Eugenics was dropped from organization and publication names. In 1954, Britain’s Annals of Eugenics was renamed Annals of Human Genetics. In 1972, the American Eugenics Society adopted the less-offensive name Society for the Study of Social Biology.

Its publication, once popularly known as the Eugenics Quarterly, had already been renamed Social Biology in 1969. U.S. Senate hearings in 1973, chaired by Edward Kennedy , revealed that thousands of U.S. citizens had been sterilized under federally supported programs. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare proposed guidelines encouraging each state to repeal their respective sterilization laws. Other countries, most notably China, continue to support eugenics-directed programs openly in order to ensure the genetic makeup of their future. The “ new eugenics” Despite the dropping of the term eugenics, eugenic ideas remain prevalent in many issues surrounding human reproduction. Medical genetics , a post-World War II medical specialty, encompasses a wide range of health concerns, from genetic screening and counseling to fetal gene manipulation and the treatment of adults suffering from hereditary disorders . Because certain diseases (e.g., hemophilia and Tay-Sachs disease ) are now known to be genetically transmitted, many couples choose to undergo genetic screening, in which they learn the chances that their offspring have of being affected by some combination of their hereditary backgrounds.

Couples at risk of passing on genetic defects may opt to remain childless or to adopt children. Furthermore, it is now possible to diagnose certain genetic defects in the unborn. Many couples choose to terminate a pregnancy that involves a genetically disabled offspring. These developments have reinforced the eugenic aim of identifying and eliminating undesirable genetic material. Counterbalancing this trend, however, has been medical progress that enables victims of many genetic diseases to live fairly normal lives. Direct manipulation of harmful genes is also being studied. If perfected, it could obviate eugenic arguments for restricting reproduction among those who carry harmful genes. Such conflicting innovations have complicated the controversy surrounding what many call the “new eugenics.” Moreover, suggestions for expanding eugenics programs, which range from the creation of sperm banks for the genetically superior to the potential cloning of human beings, have met with vigorous resistance from the public, which often views such programs as unwarranted interference with nature or as opportunities for abuse by authoritarian regimes.

Applications of the Human Genome Project are often referred to as “Brave New World” genetics or the “new eugenics”; however, the ethical , legal, and social implications of this international project are monitored much more closely than were early 20th-century eugenics programs. Applications also generally are more focused on the reduction of genetic diseases than on improving intelligence. Still, with or without the use of the term, many eugenics-related concerns are reemerging as a new group of individuals decide how to regulate the application of genetics science and technology. This gene-directed activity, in attempting to improve upon nature, may not be that distant from what Galton implied in 1909 when he described eugenics as the “study of agencies, under social control, which may improve or impair” future generations. eugenics - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) The often-controversial study of improving the human race through genetic means is called eugenics. The word eugenics comes from a Greek word that means "wellborn." Supporters of eugenics seek to change the human race through artificial selection, the controlled breeding of people who have certain physical characteristics or mental abilities.

Eugenics is based on genetics, the science that studies how genes are structured and passed on through generations. Eugenics also involves use of information obtained from other areas of knowledge. Psychology, the study of personality; medicine, as it relates to the genetic factors of certain diseases and conditions; sociology, the study of group interaction; and demography, the statistical study of human populations, are some of the disciplines on which eugenic theories are based. (See also genetics; heredity.) Article Contributors Francis Galton - Anthropologist, Scientist, Inventor, Explorer - Biography.com Francis Galton Francis Galton was an English explorer and anthropologist best known for his research in eugenics and human intelligence. He was the first to study the effects of human selective mating. IN THESE GROUPS Famous British People quotes “The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal. It is retained by its extra-ordinary adhesion to the comforts of the house in which it is reared.” Francis Galton Synopsis Born in Birmingham, England, on February 16, 1822, Francis Galton was an explorer and anthropologist known for his studies in eugenics and human intelligence.

As a child, Galton rejected conventional methods of teaching, and he began studying medicine in his teens. He soon embraced a passion for travel with the help from a sufficient fortune left to him from his father. A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton researched the implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, focusing on human genius and selective mating. Early Life A relative of famed naturalist Charles Darwin, Francis Galton spent much of his life dedicated to research and critical inquiries into several different subject areas, from exploration to eugenics to weather to fingerprints. He was born on February 16, 1822, and grew up in a wealthy family near Birmingham, England. At an early age, he began to show great intellectual promise. At first, Galton planned to become a doctor. He studied medicine at Birmingham's General Hospital and at King's College in London in the late 1830s. But he abandoned this idea and went on to study mathematics at Cambridge University. After his father's death in 1844, Galton received a substantial inheritance. This inheritance enabled him to pursue whatever topic piqued his curiosity. And he soon decided that it was time to explore more distant shores.

Exploration and Accomplishments In the mid-1840s, Galton made his first trip to the Middle East and Africa. He went to Egypt and traveled down the Nile River to the Sudan, among other destinations in the area. His travels inspired him to undertake an exploration of southern Africa. In 1850, Galton joined the Royal Geographical Society and soon set off on his journey, with the society's approval. He initially planned to travel from an area known as Damaraland to Lake Ngami, but he ended up traveling through a Southwestern section called Ovamboland. Galton's maps and observations and descriptions of the native peoples of these regions brought him great acclaim, including a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society. He published on a book on his exploration, entitled Tropical South Africa (1853). Two years later, Galton offered his advice for other would-be explorers in The Art of Travel: Or, Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries (1855). Married in 1853 to Louisa Jane Butler, Galton ended his explorations for other scientific pursuits.

He became interested in weather and created the first weather map, showing different climate conditions across a geographical area. In 1863, he published a book on the subject, called Meteorgraphica, or Methods of Mapping the Weather. Strongly influenced by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859), Galton developed his own theories on inherited traits. He studied identical twins, and worked on the first intelligence test in his exploration of the roles of "nature and nurture"—a phrase created by Galton—in human attributes. According to some sources, Galton also coined the term "eugenics," a controversial field of study about selective breeding in humans to produce preferred traits. Final Years Galton spent much of his life studying heredity and eugenics, and he later thought that a person's fingerprints might be a part of human genetic puzzle. He thought that these prints might provide information on differences between people, from race to moral character to intelligence. While he never made any discoveries in this area, Galton established a fingerprint classification system that is still in use today. In 1908, Galton published his autobiography. He received a knighthood from King Edward the following year.

Galton died on January 17, 1911, in Haslemere, England, at the age of 88. In his will, he donated funds for a professorship in eugenics to University College London. Fact Check We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us ! Citation Information Creating the Master Race | Jewish Virtual Library Tweet From 1933 to 1945 , Nazi Germany’s government led by Adolf Hitler promoted a nationalism that combined territorial expansion with claims of biological superiority—an “Aryan master race”—and virulent antisemitism . Driven by a racist ideology legitimized by German scientists, the Nazis attempted to eliminate all of Europe’s Jews, ultimately killing six million in the Holocaust . Many others also became victims of persecution and murder in the Nazis’ campaign to cleanse German society of individuals viewed as threats to the “health” of the nation. Following Germany’s defeat in World War I and during the ensuing political and economic crises of the Weimar Republic, ideas known as racial hygiene or eugenics began to inform population policy, public health education, and government-funded research.

By keeping the “unfit” alive to reproduce and multiply, eugenics proponents argued, modern medicine and costly welfare programs interfered with natural selection – the concept Charles Darwin applied to the “survival of the fittest” in the animal and plant world. In addition, members of the “fit,” educated classes were marrying later and using birth control methods to limit family size. The result, eugenics advocates believed, was an overall biological “degeneration” of the population. As a solution, they proposed “positive” government policies such as tax credits to foster large, “valuable” families, and “negative” measures, mainly the sterilization of genetic “inferiors.” International Eugenics German proponents of eugenics were part of an international phenomenon. The English scientist Francis Galton coined the term eugenics, meaning “good birth,” in 1883.

German biologist August Weissmann’s theory of “immutable germ plasm,” published in 1892, fostered growing international support for eugenics, as did the rediscovery in 1900 of Austrian botanist Gregor Mendel’s theory that the biological makeup of organisms was determined by certain “factors” that were later identified with genes. (The term gene was first used by a Danish scientist in 1909.) Reform-minded proponents of eugenics worldwide offered biological solutions to social problems common to societies experiencing urbanization and industrialization. After classifying individuals into labeled groups using the scientific methods of the day—observation, family genealogies, physical measurements, and intelligence tests—they ranked the groupings from “superior” to “inferior.” When perfected, surgical sterilization became the most common proposal for preventing unproductive “inferiors” from reproducing and for saving on costs of special care and education. But sterilization gained only limited political support. Catholics objected to interfering with human reproduction, and liberals decried the violation of individual rights.

Before 1933, the passage of national statutes legalizing “voluntary” sterilization of inmates of prisons and state mental hospitals proved politically feasible only in Denmark , where the law was little used. Eugenicists more successfully promoted sterilization laws in individual provinces, cantons, or states in Canada , Switzerland , and the United States . THE BIOLOGICAL STATE: Nazi Racial Hygiene, 1933-1939 Nazism was “applied biology,” stated Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess . During the Third Reich , a politically extreme, antisemitic variation of eugenics determined the course of state policy. Hitler’s regime touted the “Nordic race” as its eugenic ideal and attempted to mold Germany into a cohesive national community that excluded anyone deemed hereditarily “less valuable” or “racially foreign.” Public health measures to control reproduction and marriage aimed at strengthening the “national body” by eliminating biologically threatening genes from the population. Many German physicians and scientists who had supported racial hygiene ideas before 1933 embraced the new regime’s emphasis on biology and heredity, the new career opportunities, and the additional funding for research.

Hitler’s dictatorship, backed by sweeping police powers, silenced critics of Nazi eugenics and supporters of individual rights. After all educational and cultural institutions and the media came under Nazi control, racial eugenics permeated German society and institutions. Jews, considered “alien,” were purged from universities, scientific research institutes, hospitals, and public health care. Persons in high positions who were viewed as politically “unreliable” met a similar fate. The Battle for Births Echoing ongoing eugenic fears, the Nazis trumpeted population experts’ warnings of “national death” and aimed to reverse the trend of falling birthrates. The Marital Health Law of October 1935 banned unions between the “hereditarily healthy” and persons deemed genetically unfit.

Getting married and having children became a national duty for the “racially fit.” In a speech on September 8, 1934 , Hitler proclaimed: “In my state, the mother is the most important citizen.” Acting on earlier eugenic concerns about the effects of alcohol, tobacco, and syphilis, the Nazi regime sponsored research, undertook public education campaigns, and enacted laws that together aimed at eliminating “genetic poisons” linked to birth defects and genetic damage to later generations. In 1936 , the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion was established to step up efforts to prevent acts that obstructed reproduction. In a 1937 speech linking homosexuality to a falling birthrate, German police chief Heinrich Himmler stated: “A people of good race which has too few children has a one-way ticket to the grave.” The Mass Sterilization Program On July 14, 1933 , the Nazi dictatorship fulfilled the long-held dreams of eugenics proponents by enacting the Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, based on a voluntary sterilization law drafted by Prussian health officials in 1932 .

The new Nazi law was coauthored by Falk Ruttke, a lawyer, Arthur Gütt, a physician and director of public health affairs, and Ernst Rüdin, a psychiatrist and early leader of the German racial hygiene movement. Individuals who were subject to the law were those men and women who “suffered” from any of nine conditions assumed to be hereditary: feeblemindedness, schizophrenia, manic-depressive disorder, genetic epilepsy, Huntington’s chorea (a fatal form of dementia), genetic blindness, genetic deafness, severe physical deformity, and chronic alcoholism. Special hereditary health courts lent an aura of due process to the sterilization measure, but the decision to sterilize was generally routine. Nearly all better-known geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists sat on such courts at one time or another, mandating the sterilizations of an estimated 400,000 Germans. Vasectomy was the usual sterilization method for men, and for women, tubal ligation, an invasive procedure that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of women. Views from Abroad International reaction to the Nazi sterilization law varied.

In the United States, some newspaper editors noted the mass scale of the policy and feared that “Hitlerites” would apply the law to Jews and political opponents. In contrast, American eugenicists viewed the law as the logical development of earlier thinking by Germany’s “best specialists” and not as “the hasty improvisation of the Hitler regime.” In the 1930s, leading American and British geneticists increasingly criticized established eugenic organizations for freely mingling prejudices with a dated and simplistic understanding of human heredity. At the same time, sterilization gained support beyond eugenic circles as a means of reducing costs for institutional care and poor relief. Sterilization rates climbed in some American states during the Depression, and new laws were passed in Finland , Norway , and Sweden during the same period. In Great Britain , Catholic opposition blocked a proposed law. Nowhere did the numbers of persons sterilized come close to the mass scale of the Nazi program.

"I DO NOT CHARACTERIZE EVERY JEW AS INFERIOR, AS NEGROES CERTAINLY ARE...BUT I REJECT JEWRY WITH EVERY MEANS IN MY POWER, AND WITHOUT RESERVE, IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE HEREDITARY ENDOWMENT OF MY PEOPLE."-Eugene Fischer, Anthropologist, June 20, 1939. The Segregation of Jews The sterilization of ethnic minorities defined as “racially foreign” was not mandated under the 1933 law. Instead, the “ Blood Protection Law ,” announced in Nuremberg on September 15, 1935 , criminalized marriage or sexual relations between Jews and non-Jewish Germans. Soon after, Nazi leaders took biological segregation a step further, privately discussing the “complete emigration” of all Jews as a goal. After the incorporation of Austria in March 1938 (the Anschluss), SS officer Adolf Eichmann coordinated the forced emigration of tens of thousands of Austrian Jews.

The Nazi-organized attacks on German and Austrian Jews and Jewish property of November 9–10, 1938— Kristallnacht —convinced many Jews remaining in the Reich that leaving was their only option for survival. FINAL SOLUTIONS Murderous Racial Hygiene, 1939-1945 World War II provided both pretext and cover to new programs for killing “undesirables” regarded as burdens on national resources. Using arguments advanced by some physicians and jurists in the 1920s, the Nazis justified murder in the name of euthanasia—“mercy death”—and enlisted hundreds of asylum directors, pediatricians, psychiatrists, family doctors, and nurses. Many of those who had earlier rejected euthanasia as a eugenics measure came to support murder “for the good of the Fatherland.” The first victims were German infants and children. The Reich Ministry of the Interior instructed midwives and physicians to register all children born with severe birth defects. Three expert physicians evaluated each case and, usually without seeing the potential victims, selected those to be killed. Officials deceived the children’s families by providing falsified causes of death.

From 1939 to 1945 , more than 5,000 boys and girls were killed in some 30 special children’s wards established at state hospitals and clinics. Mass Gassings: Operation T-4 In October 1939 , after Hitler authorized “mercy deaths” for patients deemed “incurable,” the murder program expanded from children to adults. Operation T-4 —referring to the address of the secret program’s headquarters at Tiergartenstrasse 4, Berlin —mostly targeted adult patients in private, state, and church-run institutions. Individuals judged unproductive were particularly vulnerable. From January 1940 to August 1941 , more than 70,000 men and women were transported to one of six specially staffed facilities in Germany and Austria and killed by carbon monoxide poisoning in gas chambers disguised as showers. Growing public awareness and unrest over the killings influenced Hitler to halt the gassing program. Euthanasia murders resumed in other guises; patients were killed by means of starvation diets and overdoses of medication in hospitals and mental institutions throughout the country.

From 1939 to 1945, an estimated 200,000 persons were killed in the various euthanasia programs. Racial Hygiene in Occupied Poland While secret euthanasia programs were under way inside the German Reich, members of the SS , headed by Heinrich Himmler , were terrorizing or eliminating perceived biological threats in occupied Poland . Himmler, charged by Hitler with overseeing the radical restructuring of Poland along ethnic lines, sought to reduce Poland to a nation of manual laborers to serve their German “masters.” Nazi plans called for the elimination of Poland’s political and intellectual leaders through mass executions or imprisonment; the deportation of Poles, Jews, and “ Gypsies ” (Roma) out of areas incorporated into the Reich; colonization by resettled Germans; and the “Germanization” of racially “valuable” Poles.

Hundreds of experts trained in racial hygiene helped screen tens of thousands of individuals for genetic and racial “fitness.” Germans held Polish and other eastern Jews in special contempt, as “subhumans.” From the fall of 1939 to the summer of 1941 , the Nazis concentrated some two million Jews in towns and cities and then segregated them into marked-off sections or ghettos . Some of the push to create sealed ghettos in Warsaw and other cities came from German public health officials who falsely linked Jews to the spread of typhus and other diseases. Mass Gassings of Jews Nazi racial hygiene culminated in the near-annihilation of European Jewry. The “ Final Solution to the Jewish Question ” began as special squads of SS and police followed German forces into the Soviet Union and killed more than one million Jews in open-air shootings. But the psychological stress of shooting men, women, and children face-to-face led SS chief Heinrich Himmler to seek a “cleaner” and “more efficient” method of killing. He turned to the example of the euthanasia murder program, and gassing was introduced, but on a vastly larger scale.

Nearly two million people, mostly Polish Jews, were transported for murder to Chelmno and to Sobibor , Treblinka , and Belzec (isolated SS camps in annexed and occupied Poland) where redeployed T-4 staff manned the gassing installations and crematoria. At Auschwitz-Birkenau , more than one million Jews deported from German-controlled countries perished. Nazi doctors selected “fitter” adults for forced labor, a temporary reprieve, and used both adults and children as guinea pigs in eugenic sterilization experiments and genetic research conducted at the camp. After the war, few of the biomedical experts who helped, in varying degrees, implement and legitimize Nazi racial hygiene policies were ever indicted or brought to a moral accounting of any kind for their actions. Many continued their professional careers. eugenics - definition and meaning eugenics from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition n. The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License n. The science of improving stock, whether human or animal. n. A social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary qualities through selective breeding.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English n. The science of improving stock, whether human or animal. from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia n. The science of generative or procreative development; the doctrine of progress or evolution, especially in the human race, through improved conditions in the relations of the sexes. from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. n. the study of methods of improving genetic qualities by selective breeding (especially as applied to human mating) Etymologies from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License Comes from Ancient Greek meaning "good breeding". Coined in 1883 by an English scientist, Francis Galton, who was cousin of Charles Darwin. Examples The term eugenics comes from the Greek roots for “good” and “generation” or “origin” and was first used to refer to the “science” of heredity and good breeding in about 1883. Darwin, Charles - Players - Eugenics Archives View this document in the Connections discovery object. View this document in the Database discovery object. View this document in the Pathways discovery object. View this document in the Players discovery object.

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.”source Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English geologist and naturalist. Darwin is most famous for his theories of evolution and natural selection. Darwin's theories are often used to justify processes of eugenics, although his own stance on eugenics remains controversial. The theory of evolution is that organisms have a common ancestor, and over many generations, small genetic variations led to the differentiation of new species. Organisms who could survive and reproduce under environmental pressures would have their genes passed on. According to Darwin, the process of natural selection - when organisms that were better adapted to the environment survived and passed their genes on to future generations - was the driving force for evolution. Darwin’s theories are the foundation of evolutionary biology and are among the most influential of all time. Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, in 1809. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, but dropped out after two years.

Eventually, after studying at Cambridge, Darwin was given the opportunity to work without pay as a naturalist on the voyage Beagle (Darwin, 1887). The voyage lasted nearly five years and helped establish Darwin in the scientific community. Additionally, the voyage introduced Darwin to the Galapagos islands and its finches, which would later become a cornerstone of Darwin’s theory. Darwin published The Origin of Species in 1859. In this book, he argued that over time, the frequency of characteristics in a population of a species would change based on the pressures of environment, and that those changes could eventually result in that population evolving into a new species entirely. If an organism had a trait that made it better able to survive and reproduce compared to other organisms within the population, their genes would become more frequent. Darwin called this process natural selection. Darwin’s theory of evolution was crucial to the eugenics movement for a number of reasons. First, the theory of evolution generated new interest and work in genetics and was the foundation of evolutionary biology (Paul & Radick, 2009). This renewed interest in heredity fueled the eugenics movement.

Secondly, individuals and groups appropriated Darwin’s theories as scientific justification for eugenics (Wiker, 2009). In the late nineteenth century, claims were being made that the “higher” classes of society - the wealthy and successful - were being outbred by the so-called unfit. Taken with Darwin’s theory of evolution, this idea created public alarm and a sense of desperation (Paul & Radick, 2009). Eugenicists declared that the ‘unfit’ were having more children than the ‘fit’, and the human race was doomed to deteriorate. Additionally, it was argued that medicine, charity and centralized governments were interfering with the process of natural selection because they removed struggle, thereby promoting the survival of the so-called unfit. Darwin himself commented that he did not believe that natural selection was working the way that it ought to with humans, though he did not offer his own solutions (Darwin, 1871; Paul & Radick, 2009). However, the situation provided an ideal setting for eugenic ideas to flourish - interest was high, knowledge about heredity was in its early stages, and there appeared to be benefits to intervention in human reproduction.

Eugenicists felt that they were able to justify prejudiced and immoral actions under Darwin’s theories (Wiker, 2000). The segregation, sterilization, and murder of various groups was justified by some as being done for the greater good of evolution - those groups were considered to be ‘less fit’, and by preventing their reproduction, advocates argued that the human race would improve and evolve into a better species. The theory of evolution helped support explanations that defended these actions as necessary to ensure that human progress continued (Wiker, 2000). The most well-known consequences of this line of thinking were in Nazi Germany, when Russians, Jews, and those with mental or physical disabilities (among other groups) were sterilized, imprisoned and murdered. Less broadly, Charles Darwin was a direct influence on his cousin Sir Francis Galton (Gillham, 2009). Galton coined the term eugenics, and is considered by some to be the father of eugenics (Galton, 1883). He was inspired by Darwin’s Origin of Species and tried to establish that intelligence and talent were hereditary. (Gillham, 2009).

Other members of Darwin’s family were involved in the eugenics movement as well. One of his sons, Leonard, was the president of the first International Congress of Eugenics (Wiker, 2000). Another son, George, promoted birth control among the lower classes and simplifying divorces in order to limit the reproduction of the so-called unfit. Darwin’s own opinion about eugenics is controversial. He published The Descent of Man in 1871. In it, he argues that racial extermination has brought human evolution to where it is today (Darwin, 1871). Darwin suggests that Caucasians were superior to other races, particularly Africans and Aboriginal Australians. He also discusses adversity, and how struggle is a key part of natural selection. However, in the same text, Darwin argued that charity and sympathy were characteristics of evolved beings, and that men should not be restricted in reproduction by laws, as the evolution of man was not guided by such intervention (Weikart, 2009). Darwin did not have many concrete suggestions to promote eugenics.

He did not believe that marriage, breeding, or segregation laws would be accepted or effective (Paul & Radick, 2009). He suggested education was the best way of promoting eugenic ideas. Scholars have argued that Darwin would have been horrified to see the ways his theories were used to justify Nazism and genocide (Wiker, 2000). Ultimately, Darwin’s personal opinions about eugenics had much less impact on the eugenics movement than his theories. Whether or not he would have agreed with it, the theory of evolution and natural selection provided a scientific and theoretical basis for eugenic ideas and actions. -Natalie Ball Darwin, C. (1859). On the origin of species by natural selection. London: John Murray. Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man. New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company. Darwin, C. (1887). The autobiography of Charles Darwin. New York, NY: Barnes & Noble Publishing. Gillham, N. W. (2009). Cousins: Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics.

Significance, 6(3), 132-135. Paul, D.B. (2009). Darwin, social Darwinism and eugenics. In The Cambridge companion to Darwin. G. Radick (Ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weikart, R. (1993). The origins of social Darwinism in Germany, 1859-1895. Journal of the History of Ideas, 54, 469-488. Weikart, R. (2000). Was Darwin or Spencer the father of laissez-faire social Darwinism? Journal of Economic Behaviour & Organization, 71, 20-28. Wiker, B. (2009). The Darwin myth: The life and lies of Charles Darwin. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing.

Question: Which scientist half-cousin of Charles Darwin coined the term 'eugenics'?
Answer: SIR FRANCIS GALTON