Eugenics
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With
the increased awareness of genetics, a conflict developed between those who
felt environmental conditions played the greatest role in human development,
versus those who felt genetics did.
For those who believe that nature forms the person more than nurture,
there is a science dedicated to the betterment of the human species through
reproductive controls. This science
is called Eugenics. |
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Founded
in 1883 by Francis Galton, an Englishman and cousin of Charles Darwin, Eugenics
comes from the Greek word eugenes, or wellborn. In essence, it is the application of
Darwinist breeding to human being.
For some, it represents the encouragement of favorable humans (those that
are smart, good looking, athletically skilled) to reproduce. For others, Eugenics is a pseudoscience
dedicated to ethnic cleansing, and racial/social prejudice. |
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As
odd as it may seem to us in the 21st century, with our alleged
awareness of equality among all people, eugenics was used through many
countries in the last century. In the
United States after the first Word War, the Immigration restriction Act of
1924 prevented the immigration of “biologically inferior” people from
northern Europe. In 32 states between
1907 and 1937, the government was able to sterilize any people they deemed as
undesirable, including the mentally ill, handicapped, criminals and other
degenerates. |
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In
Germany, Eugenics reached incredible heights with the founding of the
Archives of Race-Theory and Social Biology in 1904 and the German Society of
Racial Hygiene in 1905 by Dr. Alfred Ploetz.
Germany took many of the steps the United States did at the same time,
but soon became enveloped in what would be called the “final solution” for
the Jewish question. As many people,
including Jews, Gypsies, and psychiatric patients, were deemed by Nazi
Germany as undesirable, so grew a program to remove them from the gene pool. As a result, many millions of people were
killed in the name of eugenics. |
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After
the Second World War, eugenics lost its popularity as an issue of human
rights. Nevertheless, many countries
still practice types of eugenics, as in the ethnic cleansing of Albanians in
Serbia, or in many nations of Africa where colonial-political boundaries that
don’t fit the proper populations cause internal strife. |
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