Eugenics is a controversial social movement that aims to manipulate human genetic inheritance to bring out the “best” traits. It has a negative history of promoting policies that target “minor” members of society. While it was once supported by many scientists, it is now considered pseudoscience. Eugenics ignores the role of the environment in human development and has been linked to the Holocaust. There are two forms of eugenics: positive and negative, with negative historically involving forced sterilization, imprisonment, and even genocide.
Eugenics is a social movement that involves manipulating human genetic inheritance to bring out the traits that are believed to be “best.” While the future of the human race is of concern to most people, many people distance themselves from eugenics because it has some very negative connotations. This practice has historically been used as an argument for mandatory sterilization and a variety of other policies that have been targeted at “minor” members of society with the goal of eliminating their gene pool from the gene pool.
The history of eugenics begins in the 1800s, when Francis Golton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the term and began exploring the idea of consciously altering the course of human evolution. Support for eugenics grew, and at one point many prominent members of the scientific community believed in the movement. Most modern scientists consider it a form of pseudoscience, even though in reality humans could be bred like animals to bring out specific desired traits.
Historically, many of the arguments used to support eugenics have indeed been pseudoscientific in nature, even though the fundamental assumption that humans could be improved through breeding was valid. Scientists who worked in the field used fallacious arguments, such as the idea that dark-skinned people were naturally less intelligent than light-skinned people, or that poor people were more likely to be intellectually challenged than those with money. In essence, eugenics supported the idea that rich, white people should be allowed to propagate the human race, while poor people, members of some religions, people of color, and people with disabilities should be eliminated from the pool. genetic.
Eugenics ignores the profound role the environment plays in human development, focusing on identifying genetic traits. Many of the traits believed to be genetic by members of the movement were later shown to be more closely related to the environment, and the fact that eugenics played a role in the Holocaust has further strengthened the stigma of this branch of scientific inquiry.
Most researchers of the movement’s history, along with people who dabble in this field today — calling their field “liberal eugenics” — distinguish two forms. In positive eugenics, people with traits perceived as positive are encouraged to have children. Negative eugenics involves suppressing traits deemed negative; historically, this has involved using forced sterilization, imprisonment, denial of social services, segregation, genocide, marriage restrictions, birth control without consent, and forced abortions as tools.
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