In a book that seeks to re-assert the importance of the government in charting humanity’s genetic course without avoiding the abuses that are associated with eugenics, there are nonetheless some contentions made that are consistent with the goal of this website. From pages 9-10: The Shadow of Eugenics Even the brightest aspirations of the new …
Category: eugenics
The Geneticists Manifesto (1939) or Social Biology and Population Improvement, by H.J. Muller
Social Biology and Population Improvement (aka, the Geneticist’s Manifesto) by H.J. Muller [Source #1, Source #2] The Seventh International Congress of Genetics adjourned at Edinburgh only three days before World War II got under way. It is interesting to recall that just before the shooting started a group of geneticists at that Congress-informally formulated what …
Bentley Glass: “No parent will have the right to burden society with a defective child”
Excerpt from Dangerous Diagnostics by Dorothy Nelkin and Laurence R. Tancredi (pg 12, 1994) [Source] And in the same year [1970], Bentley Glass, in his retirement address as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, called for “the use of the new biology to assure the quality of all new babies. … …
On the Elimination of Defectives: Hitler, in Mein Kampf
Note the utilitarian appeal to the reduction of suffering, the appeal to the ‘common good’, and the basic belief that all he is doing is applying biological principles. Hitler, in Mein Kampf. [Source] In this field the People’s State will have to repair the damage that arises from the fact that the problem is at …
Francis Galton Coins the Word ‘Eugenics’ as the Science of Better Breeding: Men, Brutes, and Plants. Quote of the Day
A little known fact is that eugenics was seen as the application of principles of heredity, in particular those principles as understood by Darwin. In this excerpt, Francis Galton (Darwin’s cousin), coins the word eugenics and explicitly refers to it as a science. The principles of heredity thus applied, he says, are “applicable to men, …
Eugenics and Christianity in a Letter to the Eugenics Review
Norman A. Thompson, “Eugenics and Christianity”, published in The Eugenics Review, pages 346-347 (1933) [Source] To the Editor, Eugenics Review Sir, In these latter days of the general liquefaction of ideas, philosophies, and policies, whether founded on dogma or tradition, or on other bases, which may have satisfied our understanding at earlier stages of the …
Guy Irving Burch: Sterilize or Segregate
[Source] Context, etc, to be determined. [T]here is almost unanimous agreement among competent authorities that those who are definitely mentally defective should not reproduce their kind. This can be accomplished either by segregation or by voluntary sterilization.
Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Eugenics is a great force in the evolution of man.” Francis Darwin (son of Charles)
Francis Darwin in Francis Galton (the Galton Lecture) as found in The Eugenics Review, 1914: But it is time to speak of Galton as a eugenist–on which if we look to the distant future his fame will reset. For no one can doubt that the science of eugenics must become a great and beneficent force …
Eugenics Quote of the Day: Eugenics is Not likely to Infringe on Individual Freedom
Paul Popenoe in his widely used 1920 textbook, Applied Eugenics. pg 364-365. “Not likely” indeed! It is charged that eugenics infringes on the freedom of the individual. This charge (really that of the individualists more than of socialists, strictly speaking) is based mainly on a misconception of what eugenics attempts to do. Coercive measures have …
Eugenics Quote of the Day: Compulsory Abortion is Constitutional–says John Holdren
QUOTE: Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society. [HT] Other quotes by John Holdren: AND: One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate …
Recent Comments