rational selection Archives | Eugenics and Other Evils

Carrel: eugenics asks for the sacrifice of many individuals.

Filed under 1939, applied biology, aristocratic, Biological Laws, birth defects, birth rate, civilization, compulsory marriage, conscious selection, defectives, degeneration, democracy, dysgenic breeding, education, eugenics, feeble-minded, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, Genetics, hereditary courts, human breeding, IQ, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, lunacy, man as animal, marriage, mental defectives, miscegenation, national degeneration, national stock, Natural selection, planned evolution, population control, positive eugenics, poverty, psychiatry, rational selection, society, Soviet Union, unfit, Year

Alexis Carrel, Nobel Prize Winner. Man the Unknown, 1939. [Source] A choice must be made among the multitude of civilized human beings. We have mentioned that natural selection has not played its part for a long while. That many inferior individuals have been conserved through the efforts of hygiene and medicine. But we cannot prevent …

2 comments

Taussig: The breeding of men, eugenics, and progress. 1911

Filed under 1911, American Eugenics, aristocratic, birth rate, breeding horses or cattle, civilization, criminals, death rate, defectives, duty, eugenics, family (the institution of), family planning, Frank Taussig, human breeding, John Stuart Mill, laws of heredity, national stock, Parasitism, pauperism, paupers, Political Economy, poverty, progress, Progressive Era, Progressives, race suicide, racial progress, rational selection, science, Scientific Management, society, Year

SOURCE: Frank Taussig, Principles of Economics, Volume II, 1911. Pages 233-237. This movement is steadily extending, and is gradually affecting not only those who are usually thought of as being in a more special sense “native born,” but the descendants of the immigrants as well. The influence of free institutions and of free opportunities is …

Leave comment

Child Labor Laws as Eugenics Policy

Filed under 1907, American Eugenics, civilization, conscious selection, degeneration, democracy, education, family size, inferior people, laisser-faire, legislative eugenics, Malthus, marriage, minimum wage, national degeneration, planned evolution, public health, race, race betterment, race hygiene, racial progress, rational selection, society, Year

Source: Dr. Frank a Fetter, Cornell University, in a discussion of “Western Civilization and the Birth-Rate”, as found in The American Journal of Sociology, 1907, page 619. The paper mentions but one recent social change which tends definitely and positively to reduce the families of the unskilled classes, namely, child-labor legislation. Such laws as these …

Leave comment

Julian Huxley: Population Control, Eugenics, and Birth Control all part of the same Program

Filed under 1962, altruism, American Eugenics, Andrew Carnegie, artificial insemination, birth control, birth defects, Britain, China, compulsory sterilization, compulsory vaccination, Contraception, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, duty, dysgenic breeding, dysgenics, education, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, Evolution, Evolutionary Humanism, family planning, family size, fertility control, Ford Foundation, Francis Galton, genetic counseling, genetic load, Genetics, H.J. Muller, homosexuality, human breeding, Humanism, India, insane asylums, insanity, intelligence, IQ, Jamaica, Japan, John Rockefeller, Julian Huxley, liberalism, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national efficiency, national stock, nature vs nurture, negative eugenics, Negro, over-population, Parasitism, philanthropy, planned evolution, population control, population explosion, positive eugenics, poverty, Progressives, public health, public welfare, race, race hygiene, rational selection, science, social organism, social problem group, sterilization, technology, United Nations, vaccination, vasectomy, Year

Contemporary advocates for birth control exhibit no awareness whatsoever that birth control was always conceived in the context of ‘eliminating the unfit,’ ie., eugenics. Eugenics, in turn, was considered a straight-forward logical extension of Darwinism. Eugenics was seen as human control of human evolution, and was always tied into discussions on ‘population control.’ These are …

2 comments

Eugenics Quote of the Day: Birth Control is about Weeding out the Unfit; so says Margaret Sanger

Filed under 1920, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, birth control, birth defects, conscious selection, Contraception, dysgenic breeding, Efficiency Movement, eugenics, eugenics quote of the day, every child a wanted child, family planning, feebleminded, Fit and Unfit, human weeds, Margaret Sanger, Natural selection, Oops!, race, racial progress, rational selection, Women and the New Race, Year

“Birth control itself … is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.” So says MARGARET SANGER.

Leave comment

Davenport: Death is Nature’s Great Blessing to the Race. Why Keep Defectives Alive?

Filed under 1914, American Eugenics, Artificial Selection, birth defects, Charity, Charles Davenport, criminals, death, death as creative, death rate, defectives, education, eugenics, feebleminded, laws of heredity, legislative eugenics, marriage, mental defectives, Natural selection, negative eugenics, Oops!, positive eugenics, race betterment, race hygiene, racial progress, rational selection, religion, segregation, society, sterilization, the State, Year

Charles Davenport, in The Eugenic Programme And Progress in its Achievement (1914) [italics in original, bold added] The lowest stratum of society has, on the other hand, neither intelligence nor self-control enough to justify the State to leave its matings in their own hands. On the contrary, the defectives and criminalistic are, so far as …

Leave comment

Francis Galton Coins the Word ‘Eugenics’ as the Science of Better Breeding: Men, Brutes, and Plants. Quote of the Day

Filed under 1883, adaptation, applied biology, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, Darwinism, definition of eugenics, eugenics, eugenics as a science, eugenics quote of the day, Francis Galton, human breeding, laws of heredity, rational selection, science, scientific world view, Year

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, …

1 comment

Eugenics Quote of the Day: ‘Defective (ie, ‘disabled’) people should not be allowed to reproduce for the good of the state.’ RZ Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI

Filed under 1879, American Eugenics, Biological Laws, birth defects, Charity, defectives, degeneration, duty, education, eugenics, eugenics quote of the day, euthanasia, Evolution, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, Herbert Spencer, Natural selection, Progressive Era, rational selection, right to reproduce, scientism, Wisconsin, Year

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and obligations to these unfortunate classes. At …

Leave comment

The Duty of the State in the Treatment of the Deformed: R. Z. Mason, Appleton WI, 1879

Filed under 1879, abortion, American Eugenics, applied biology, aristocratic, authority, Biological Laws, birth defects, breeders, breeding horses or cattle, carbonic acid gas, Charitable organizations, Charity, compulsory education, Darwinism, defectives, degeneration, drunkard, duty, dysgenic breeding, education, eugenics, euthanasia, every child a wanted child, Evolution, feeble-minded, Fit and Unfit, genetic counseling, Herbert Spencer, hereditary cripples, idiots, imbecile, imbeciles, immortality, laws of heredity, Laws of Nature, legislative eugenics, life unworthy of life, lunacy, man as animal, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national stock, philanthropy, progress, Progressive Era, Progressives, public school, race, race betterment, rational selection, religion, right to life, right to reproduce, science, scientific world view, sentimentalism, social organism, Wisconsin, Year

R.Z. Mason, mayor of Appleton, WI, “The Duty of the State in its Treatment of the Deaf and Dumb, the Blind, the Idiotic, the Crippled and Deformed, and the Insane.” [Source / Italics added, bold text added] In the progress of modern civilization, the state has come slowly to a recognition of certain duties and …

4 comments

Frederick Osborn, Galton and Mid-Century Eugenics, 1956 Eugenics Review published lecture and “Voluntary Unconscious Selection”

Filed under 1956, adaptation, American Eugenics, applied biology, Biological Laws, birth control, birth defects, Britain, Contraception, crypto-eugenics, death rate, defectives, degeneration, dysgenic breeding, education, England, eugenics, eugenics as a science, euthenics, Evolution, family (the institution of), family planning, family size, Fit and Unfit, Francis Galton, Frederick Osborn, genetic counseling, Genetics, heredity clinic, inferior people, marriage, medical genetics, mental defectives, national stock, Natural selection, planned evolution, population control, positive eugenics, rational selection, science, social body, Year

Frederick Osborn, president of the Population Council and steadfast advocate for eugenics, in a 1956 speech recorded in the Eugenics Review. [SOURCE] […] Galton never envisaged any system of arbitrary controls, except for the more serious mental and physical handicaps, which should be treated like a form of communicable disease. But he did propose that …

1 comment

Category: rational selection