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Eugenics (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell; Template:Etymology)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population.Template:Sfn<ref name=":0">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref><ref name="Galton 1904">Template:Cite journal</ref> Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fertility of those considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior.<ref name="Spektorowski">Template:Cite book</ref>
Template:Eugenics sidebar The contemporary history of eugenics began in the late 19th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> and most European countries (e.g. Sweden and Germany). In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenics. Many countries adopted eugenic policies intended to improve the quality of their populations.
Historically, the idea of eugenics has been used to argue for a broad array of practices ranging from prenatal care for mothers deemed genetically desirable to the forced sterilization and murder of those deemed unfit.<ref name="Spektorowski" /> To population geneticists, the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies; for example, British-Indian scientist J. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1940 that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Debate as to what qualifies as eugenics continues today.<ref>A discussion of the shifting meanings of the term can be found in Template:Cite book</ref> Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with factors of measured intelligence that often correlated strongly with social class and racial stereotypes.
Although it originated as a progressive social movement in the 19th century,<ref>Paul, Diane B. (1984). "Eugenics and the Left". Journal of the History of Ideas 45 (4):567. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Leonard, Thomas C. (2016). Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press Template:ISBN</ref><ref>Lucassen, Leo (2010). "A Brave New World: The Left, Social Engineering, and Eugenics in Twentieth-Century Europe." International Review of Social History, 55(2), 265–296. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44583170</ref> in the 21st century the term became closely associated with scientific racism. New liberal eugenics seeks to dissociate itself from the old authoritarian varieties by rejecting coercive state programs in favor of individual parental choice.<ref name=":2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Common distinctionsEdit
Eugenic programs included both positive measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, and negative measures, such as marriage prohibitions and forced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction.<ref name="Spektorowski" /><ref>Wilkinson, Stephen A. (2010). "On the distinction between positive and negative eugenics". In Matti Häyry (ed.), Arguments and analysis in bioethics. Amsterdam: Rodopi. pp. 115–128. {{#invoke:doi|main}}.</ref>Template:R
Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged, for example, the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.<ref name="glad2008">Template:Cite book</ref> Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally undesirable. This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning.<ref name="glad2008" /> Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; in Nazi Germany, for example, abortion was illegal for women deemed by the state to be superior.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
As opposed to "euthenics"Edit
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Historical eugenicsEdit
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Ancient and medieval originsEdit
According to Plutarch, in Sparta every proper citizen's child was inspected by the council of elders, the Gerousia, which determined whether or not the child was fit to live.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> If the child was deemed unfit, the child was thrown into a chasm.<ref>Making Patriots by Walter Berns, 2001, page 12, "and whose infants, if they chanced to be puny or ill-formed, were exposed in a chasm (the Apothetae) and left to die;"</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Plutarch is the sole historical source for the Spartan practice of systemic infanticide motivated by eugenics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> While infanticide was practiced by Greeks, no contemporary sources support Plutarch's claims of mass infanticide motivated by eugenics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In 2007 the suggestion that infants were dumped near Mount Taygete was called into question due to a lack of physical evidence. Anthropologist Theodoros Pitsios' research found only bodies from adolescence up to the age of approximately 35.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>"Ancient Sparta – Research Program of Keadas Cavern" https://web.archive.org/web/20131002192630/http://www.anthropologie.ch/d/publikationen/archiv/2010/documents/03PITSIOSreprint.pdf</ref>
Plato's political philosophy included the belief that human reproduction should be cautiously monitored and controlled by the state through selective breeding.<ref>Galton, David J. (1998). "Greek theories on eugenics." Journal of Medical Ethics, 24(4), 263–267. doi:10.1136/jme.24.4.263</ref><ref>The Republic, 457c10-d3</ref>
According to Tacitus (Template:Circa – Template:Circa), a Roman of the Imperial Period, the Germanic tribes of his day killed any member of their community they deemed cowardly, unwarlike or "stained with abominable vices", usually by drowning them in swamps.<ref>Tacitus. Germania.XII "Traitors and deserters are hanged on trees; the coward, the unwarlike, the man stained with abominable vices, is plunged into the mire of the morass, with a hurdle put over him."</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Modern historians see Tacitus' ethnographic writing as unreliable in such details.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Academic originsEdit
The term eugenics and its modern field of study were first formulated by Francis Galton in 1883,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Efn directly drawing on the recent work delineating natural selection by his half-cousin Charles Darwin.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Bowler 309">Template:Citation</ref>Template:Efn He published his observations and conclusions chiefly in his influential book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. Galton himself defined it as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations".<ref>Cited in Template:Harvnb</ref> The first to systematically apply Darwinism theory to human relations, Galton believed that various desirable human qualities were also hereditary ones, although Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from various sources.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Organizations were formed to win public support for and to sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the British Eugenics Education Society of 1907 and the American Eugenics Society of 1921. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals.<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302">Template:Cite journal</ref> In 1909, the Anglican clergymen William Inge and James Peile both wrote for the Eugenics Education Society. Inge was an invited speaker at the 1921 International Eugenics Conference, which was also endorsed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York Patrick Joseph Hayes.<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302" />
Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists, with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York City. Eugenic policies in the United States were first implemented by state-level legislators in the early 1900s.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Eugenic policies also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Brazil,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Canada,<ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Page needed</ref> Japan and Sweden.
Frederick Osborn's 1937 journal article "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" framed eugenics as a social philosophy—a philosophy with implications for social order.<ref name="Osborn1937">Template:Cite journal</ref> That definition is not universally accepted. Osborn advocated for higher rates of sexual reproduction among people with desired traits ("positive eugenics") or reduced rates of sexual reproduction or sterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits ("negative eugenics").Template:Citation needed
In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenics Organizations.Template:Sfn Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics,Template:Sfn the Cold Spring Harbor Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution,Template:Sfn and the Eugenics Record Office.Template:Sfn Politically, the movement advocated measures such as sterilization laws.Template:Sfn In its moral dimension, eugenics rejected the doctrine that all human beings are born equal and redefined moral worth purely in terms of genetic fitness.Template:Sfn Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure "Nordic race" or "Aryan" genetic pool and the eventual elimination of "unfit" races.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Many leading British politicians subscribed to the theories of eugenics. Winston Churchill supported the British Eugenics Society and was an honorary vice president for the organization. Churchill believed that eugenics could solve "race deterioration" and reduce crime and poverty.<ref name ="Blom 2008">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Jones, S. (1995). The Language of Genes: Solving the Mysteries of Our Genetic Past, Present and Future (New York: Anchor).</ref><ref>King, D. (1999). In the name of liberalism: illiberal social policy in Britain and the United States (Oxford: Oxford University Press).</ref>
As a social movement, eugenics reached its greatest popularity in the early decades of the 20th century, when it was practiced around the world and promoted by governments, institutions, and influential individuals. Many countries enacted<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> various eugenics policies, including: genetic screenings, birth control, promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions, segregation (both racial segregation and sequestering the mentally ill), compulsory sterilization, forced abortions or forced pregnancies, ultimately culminating in genocide. By 2014, gene selection (rather than "people selection") was made possible through advances in genome editing,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> leading to what is sometimes called new eugenics, also known as "neo-eugenics", "consumer eugenics", or "liberal eugenics"; which focuses on individual freedom and allegedly pulls away from racism, sexism or a focus on intelligence.<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
Early oppositionEdit
Early critics of the philosophy of eugenics included the American sociologist Lester Frank Ward,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> the English writer G. K. Chesterton, and Scottish tuberculosis pioneer and author Halliday Sutherland.Template:Efn Ward's 1913 article "Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics", Chesterton's 1917 book Eugenics and Other Evils,<ref name="Chesterton22">Template:Cite book</ref> and Franz Boas' 1916 article "Eugenics" (published in The Scientific Monthly)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> were all harshly critical of the rapidly growing movement.
Several biologists were also antagonistic to the eugenics movement, including Lancelot Hogben.<ref>"Lancelot Hogben, who developed his critique of eugenics and distaste for racism in the period...he spent as Professor of Zoology at the University of Cape Town". Alison Bashford and Philippa Levine, The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford; Oxford University Press, 2010 Template:ISBN (p. 200)</ref> Other biologists who were themselves eugenicists, such as J. B. S. Haldane and R. A. Fisher, however, also expressed skepticism in the belief that sterilization of "defectives" (i.e. a purely negative eugenics) would lead to the disappearance of undesirable genetic traits.<ref>"Whatever their disagreement on the numbers, Haldane, Fisher, and most geneticists could support Jennings's warning: To encourage the expectation that the sterilization of defectives will solve the problem of hereditary defects, close up the asylums for feebleminded and insane, do away with prisons, is only to subject society to deception". Daniel J. Kevles (1985). In the Name of Eugenics. University of California Press. Template:ISBN (p. 166).</ref>
Among institutions, the Catholic Church opposes sterilization for eugenic purposes.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Attempts by the Eugenics Education Society to persuade the British government to legalize voluntary sterilization were opposed by Catholics and by the Labour Party.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The American Eugenics Society initially gained some Catholic supporters, but Catholic support declined following the 1930 papal encyclical Casti connubii.<ref name="Baker 2014 pp. 281–302" /> In this, Pope Pius XI explicitly condemned sterilization laws: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The eugenicists' political successes in Germany and Scandinavia were not at all matched in such countries as Poland and Czechoslovakia, even though measures had been proposed there, largely because of the Catholic church's moderating influence.<ref>Roll-Hansen, Nils (1988). "The Progress of Eugenics: Growth of Knowledge and Change in Ideology." History of Science, xxvi, 295-331.</ref>
Concerns over human devolutionEdit
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DysgenicsEdit
Eugenic feminismEdit
North American eugenicsEdit
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Eugenics in MexicoEdit
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Nazism and the decline of eugenicsEdit
The reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin used eugenics as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in {{#invoke:Lang|lang}} in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power.Template:Sfn Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families. This included racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews in Nazi Germany), the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, and homosexuals as "degenerate" or "unfit". This led to segregation, institutionalization, sterilization, and mass murder.Template:Sfn The Nazi policy of identifying German citizens deemed unfit and then systematically killing them with poison gas, referred to as the Aktion T4 campaign, paved the way for the Holocaust.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Quote box By the end of World War II, many eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany.<ref name="Black">Template:Cite book</ref> H. G. Wells, who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904,<ref name="jt">Template:Cite book</ref> stated in his 1940 book The Rights of Man: Or What Are We Fighting For? that among the human rights, which he believed should be available to all people, was "a prohibition on mutilation, sterilization, torture, and any bodily punishment".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> After World War II, the practice of "imposing measures intended to prevent births within [a national, ethnical, racial or religious] group" fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.<ref>Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such as:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
See the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.</ref> The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In SingaporeEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, actively promoted eugenics as late as 1983.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In 1984, Singapore began providing financial incentives to highly educated women to encourage them to have more children. For this purpose was introduced the "Graduate Mother Scheme" that incentivized graduate women to get married as much as the rest of their populace.<ref>See Diane K. Mauzy; Robert Stephen Milne, Singapore politics under the People's Action Party (Routledge, 2002).</ref> The incentives were extremely unpopular and regarded as eugenic, and were seen as discriminatory towards Singapore's non-Chinese ethnic population. In 1985, the incentives were partly abandoned as ineffective, while the government matchmaking agency, the Social Development Network, remains active.<ref name="LOC1989">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="natgeo">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="pushingforbabies">Template:Cite news</ref>
Modern eugenicsEdit
Template:See also Liberal eugenics, also called new eugenics, aims to make genetic interventions morally acceptable by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":2" /> Bioethicist Nicholas Agar, who coined the term, argues that the state should intervene only to forbid interventions that excessively limit a child’s ability to shape their own future.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Unlike "authoritarian" or "old" eugenics, liberal eugenics draws on modern scientific knowledge of genomics to enable informed choices aimed at improving well-being.<ref name=":2" /> Julien Savulescu further argues that some eugenic practices, like prenatal screening for Down syndrome, are already widely practiced, without being labeled "eugenics", as they are seen as enhancing freedom rather than restricting it.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
UC Berkeley sociologist Troy Duster argued that modern genetics is a "back door to eugenics".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> This view was shared by then-White House Assistant Director for Forensic Sciences, Tania Simoncelli, who stated in a 2003 publication by the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College that advances in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) are moving society to a "new era of eugenics", and that, unlike the Nazi eugenics, modern eugenics is consumer driven and market based, "where children are increasingly regarded as made-to-order consumer products".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> The United Nations' International Bioethics Committee also noted that while human genetic engineering should not be confused with the 20th century eugenics movements, it nonetheless challenges the idea of human equality and opens up new forms of discrimination and stigmatization for those who do not want or cannot afford the technology.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2025, geneticist Peter Visscher published a paper in Nature, arguing genome editing of human embryos and germ cells may become feasible in the 21st century, and raising ethical considerations in the context of previous eugenics movements.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite journal</ref> A response argued that human embryo genetic editing is "unsafe and unproven".<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> Nature also published an editorial, stating: "The fear that polygenic gene editing could be used for eugenics looms large among them, and is, in part, why no country currently allows genome editing in a human embryo, even for single variants".<ref name=":4" />
Contested scientific statusEdit
One general concern that the reduced genetic diversity may be a feature of long-term, species-wide eugenics plans,<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> could eventually result in inbreeding depression,<ref name=":1" /> increased spread of infectious disease,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Better source needed and decreased resilience to changes in the environment.<ref name="Withrock et al 2015" />Template:Better source needed
Arguments for scientific validityEdit
Template:See also In his original lecture "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics", Karl Pearson claimed that everything concerning eugenics fell into the field of medicine.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Anthropologist Aleš Hrdlička said in 1918 that "[t]he growing science of eugenics will essentially become applied anthropology."<ref>Hrdlička, Aleš (1918). "A Physical Anthropology, Its Scope and Aims." American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 1 (PDF), p. 21</ref> The economist John Maynard Keynes was a lifelong proponent of eugenics and described it as a branch of sociology.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In a 2006 newspaper article, Richard Dawkins said that discussion regarding eugenics was inhibited by the shadow of Nazi misuse, to the extent that some scientists would not admit that breeding humans for certain abilities is at all possible. He believes that it is not physically different from breeding domestic animals for traits such as speed or herding skill. Dawkins felt that enough time had elapsed to at least ask just what the ethical differences were between breeding for ability versus training athletes or forcing children to take music lessons, though he could think of persuasive reasons to draw the distinction.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Objections to scientific validityEdit
Amanda Caleb, Professor of Medical Humanities at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, says "Eugenic laws and policies are now understood as part of a specious devotion to a pseudoscience that actively dehumanizes to support political agendas and not true science or medicine."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The first major challenge to conventional eugenics based on genetic inheritance was made in 1915 by Thomas Hunt Morgan. He demonstrated the event of genetic mutation occurring outside of inheritance involving the discovery of the hatching of a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with white eyes from a family with red eyes,Template:R demonstrating that major genetic changes occurred outside of inheritance.Template:RTemplate:Clarify Morgan criticized the view that traits such as intelligence or criminality were hereditary, because these traits were subjective.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Efn
Pleiotropy occurs when one gene influences multiple, seemingly unrelated phenotypic traits, an example being phenylketonuria, which is a human disease that affects multiple systems but is caused by one gene defect.<ref name="Stearns">Template:Cite journal</ref> Andrzej Pękalski, from the University of Wroclaw, argues that eugenics can cause harmful loss of genetic diversity if a eugenics program selects a pleiotropic gene that could possibly be associated with a positive trait. Pękalski uses the example of a coercive government eugenics program that prohibits people with myopia from breeding but has the unintended consequence of also selecting against high intelligence since the two were associated.<ref name="pekalski">Template:Cite journal</ref>
While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology, at this point there is no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Some conditions such as sickle-cell disease and cystic fibrosis respectively confer immunity to malaria and resistance to cholera when a single copy of the recessive allele is contained within the genotype of the individual, so eliminating these genes is undesirable in places where such diseases are common.<ref name="Withrock et al 2015">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Edwin Black, journalist, historian, and author of War Against the Weak, argues that eugenics is often deemed a pseudoscience because what is defined as a genetic improvement of a desired trait is a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined through objective scientific inquiry.Template:Sfn This aspect of eugenics is often considered to be tainted with scientific racism and pseudoscience.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Contested ethical statusEdit
Contemporary ethical oppositionEdit
Template:See also In a book directly addressed at socialist eugenicist J.B.S. Haldane and his once-influential Daedalus, Betrand Russell had one serious objection of his own: eugenic policies might simply end up being used to reproduce existing power relations "rather than to make men happy."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Environmental ethicist Bill McKibben argued against germinal choice technology and other advanced biotechnological strategies for human enhancement. He writes that it would be morally wrong for humans to tamper with fundamental aspects of themselves (or their children) in an attempt to overcome universal human limitations, such as vulnerability to aging, maximum life span and biological constraints on physical and cognitive ability. Attempts to "improve" themselves through such manipulation would remove limitations that provide a necessary context for the experience of meaningful human choice. He claims that human lives would no longer seem meaningful in a world where such limitations could be overcome with technology. Even the goal of using germinal choice technology for clearly therapeutic purposes should be relinquished, he argues, since it would inevitably produce temptations to tamper with such things as cognitive capacities. He argues that it is possible for societies to benefit from renouncing particular technologies, using Ming China, Tokugawa Japan and the contemporary Amish as examples.<ref name="McKibben 2003">Template:Cite book</ref>
Contemporary ethical advocacyEdit
Bioethicist Stephen Wilkinson has said that some aspects of modern genetics can be classified as eugenics, but that this classification does not inherently make modern genetics immoral.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Historian Nathaniel C. Comfort has claimed that the change from state-led reproductive-genetic decision-making to individual choice has moderated the worst abuses of eugenics by transferring the decision-making process from the state to patients and their families.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
In their book published in 2000, From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, bioethicists Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels and Daniel Wikler argued that liberal societies have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of eugenic enhancement technologies as possible (so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' reproductive rights or exert undue pressures on prospective parents to use these technologies) in order to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.<ref name="Buchanan 2000">Template:Cite book</ref>
In science fictionEdit
The novel Brave New World by the English author Aldous Huxley (1931), is a dystopian social science fiction novel which is set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy.Template:Citation needed
Various works by the author Robert A. Heinlein mention the Howard Foundation, a group which attempts to improve human longevity through selective breeding.Template:Citation needed
Among Frank Herbert's other works, the Dune series, starting with the eponymous 1965 novel, describes selective breeding by a powerful sisterhood, the Bene Gesserit, to produce a supernormal male being, the Kwisatz Haderach.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The Star Trek franchise features a race of genetically engineered humans which is known as "Augments", the most notable of them is Khan Noonien Singh. These "supermen" were the cause of the Eugenics Wars, a dark period in Earth's fictional history, before they were deposed and exiled. They appear in many of the franchise's story arcs, most frequently, they appear as villains.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Efn
<section begin=Gattaca1997/>The film Gattaca (1997) provides a fictional example of a dystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world. The title alludes to the letters G, A, T and C, the four nucleobases of DNA, and depicts the possible consequences of genetic discrimination in the present societal framework. Relegated to the role of a cleaner owing to his genetically projected death at age 32 due to a heart condition (being told: "The only way you'll see the inside of a spaceship is if you were cleaning it"), the protagonist observes enhanced astronauts as they are demonstrating their superhuman athleticism. Although it was not a box office success, it was critically acclaimed and influenced the debate over human genetic engineering in the public consciousness.<ref name="Jabr">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="popemcroberts">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Efn As to its accuracy, its production company, Sony Pictures, consulted with a gene therapy researcher and prominent critic of eugenics known to have stated that "[w]e should not step over the line that delineates treatment from enhancement",<ref>Anderson, W. French (1990). "Genetics and Human Malleability." The Hastings Center Report, 20(1), 21–24. {{#invoke:doi|main}} p.24</ref> W. French Anderson, to ensure that the portrayal of science was realistic. Disputing their success in this mission, Philim Yam of Scientific American called the film "science bashing" and Nature's Kevin Davies called it a "surprisingly pedestrian affair", while molecular biologist Lee Silver described its extreme determinism as "a straw man".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="Kirby20002">Template:Cite journal</ref>
In his 2018 book Blueprint, the behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin writes that while Gattaca warned of the dangers of genetic information being used by a totalitarian state, genetic testing could also favor better meritocracy in democratic societies which already administer a variety of standardized tests to select people for education and employment. He suggests that polygenic scores might supplement testing in a manner that is essentially free of biases.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
See alsoEdit
- Ableism
- Bioconservatism
- Culling
- Dor Yeshorim
- Dysgenics
- Eugenic feminism
- Genetic engineering
- Genetic enhancement
- Hereditarianism
- Heritability of IQ
- Mendelian traits in humans
- Moral enhancement
- Project Prevention
- Social Darwinism
- Wrongful life
- Eugenics in France
ReferencesEdit
NotesEdit
External linksEdit
Template:Sister project Template:Sister project Template:Wikisource portal
- H-Eugenics, H-Net's network on the history of eugenics from Michigan State University
- Eugenics: Its Origin and Development (1883–Present) by the National Human Genome Research Institute (30 November 2021)
- Eugenics and Scientific Racism Fact Sheet by the National Human Genome Research Institute (3 November 2021)
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- International Conference on Population and Development
- Population Action International
- Population Connection
- Population Matters
- United Nations Population Fund
- United Nations world population conferences
- Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
- World Population Conference
- World Population Day
- World Population Foundation
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