Eugenics : A Popular Political Movement

I support the guidelines outlined by Kitcher for the use of genetic information because of their responsible and ethical nature. I believe that future generations will benefit as a direct consequence of these guidelines. I shall begin by defining eugenics as the study of human genetics to improve inherited characteristics of the human race by the means of controlled selective breeding.

Eugenics is defined, in some way or the other, as the process of reshaping the human race by determining the kinds of people who will be born. As such, there is much debate in the field of eugenics, with authors, like Philip Kitcher, who support laissez-faire or a minimalist approach of eugenics in which eugenic decision-making should be limited only to avoid neurological illnesses and in which parental free choice is valued. Gregory Stock’s essay, The Enhanced and Un-Enhanced, presents otherwise by supporting the position of maximalist eugenics, allowing individuals the full extent in the selection of genes. On the other hand, the film, Gattaca, raises major ethical problems by illustrating a dystopian society resulted by extensive

The Oxford University Press defines eugenics as “the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics” with a further—and rather illuminating—explanation which states, “Developed largely by Francis Galton as a method of improving the human race, it fell into disfavor only after the perversion of its doctrines by the Nazis”.

Future eugenicists can extort their knowledge and use it to their advantage. Eugenics is an interesting subject that is co-dependent on society; the future holds great possibilities for acknowledgment in this field of science.

The eugenics movement was a very influential movement in America that was very prevalent during the early 1900’s. The premise of the eugenics movement was that society could be scientifically improved by classifying ranking members of society and trying to prevent those who were ranked low from reproducing. The eugenics movement was born out of the desire for the upper and middle classes of society to try and prove, scientifically, that they were superior to those who were in the lower classes. The people who typically made up the lower classes were usually immigrants and those who were of a different race. Eugenics was essentially the method that was used to try and exert control over the lower classes while validating the idea that those in the upper and middle classes were superior.

We have all heard of concentration camps, but we think about the Germans and the Jew. We usually never think of the Native Americans as being part of any type of concentration camps. But unfortunately they were. Back when the Germans started construction on their own camps in 1933 they based some ideas of them on some of the United States Civil War camps, the ending resolution was based on American Eugenics programs that were already working in the United States. You can obviously see there have been camps in the country for nearly 170 years. Even back before the Civil War we did the same exact thing to Native American Indians. One of the first "Happy Camps" was called Oklahoma.

As the title of the event suggests, the panel talked about the practice eugenics and scientific racism in the Pacific Northwest. More specifically there were three panelists: Dr. Kristin Johnson, who gave a brief overview of the Eugenics Movement in the United States; Michael Dicianna, an OSU 2012 graduate, who spoke on the Oregon State College’s history of eugenics; and Dr. Linda Richards, who presented on Linus Pauling, and whether he was a eugenicist. Overall, all three panelists did an amazing job in presenting their topics, and in an order that had a nice flow to it.

Beginning in the late 19th century, eugenics was a social and health reform movement aimed at refining the genetic quality of the human population. Although the apparent goal of the movement was improving the human race, a desire to preserve white middle and upper class power also existed. This is evident in the policies implemented, as the unfit were confined to institutions and stringent marriage laws were established. Even more aggressive measures were applied in the Progressive Era. As immigration increased and the birthrate of Anglo-Americans declined in the 20th century, compulsory sterilization of the unfit was constructed to combat the threatened merit of society.

The author name was Edwin Black, the publisher was History News Network and the URL link is http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/1796. The publication was made on September 2003.

In the Name of Eugenics by Daniel J. Kevles explores the history of the eugenics movement and several of the most influential eugenicists who impacted the field. The book focuses on the earliest years of the movement when it was used primarily as a way to try and determine who was and was not fit to marry and reproduce, as well as the later years of the movement where it was used to help understand and diagnose various medical problems passed down from parents to their children. Eugenics was primarily used as a way to classify different segments of society and was often used as an excuse to infringe upon the rights of different groups of people who did not fit the societal standard. The first eugenicist Kevles mentions is Francis Galton.

Throughout history, people have consistently tried to prove that groups with inborn qualities can either vastly improve or degenerate different races over time. This rhetoric has been proven multiple times throughout the course of the last century in the United States and Nazi-reigned Germany. Supposedly, this rhetoric has been disproven throughout the United States; however, there are proven accounts that the United States government has recently supported this theory of sterilization of minorities by supporting the eugenics movement, which was not only in Nazi Germany, but also on United States soil. The topic of improving the genetic makeup of different races has not only just become a common theme for many modern day countries to use to make their societies more genetically fit. However, it has adopted the basis for current racism that is clearly apparent in today’s society. If improving genetic fitness was not a concern to past societies, then people in general would be a lot more open to interracial and cross-cultural relationships rather than completely disregarding the idea of dating someone that is visibly genetically different.

The idea of eugenics was first introduced by Sir Francis Galton, who believed that the breeding of two wealthy and successful members of society would produce a child superior to that of two members of the lower class. This assumption was based on the idea that genes for success or particular excellence were present in our DNA, which is passed from parent to child. Despite the blatant lack of research, two men, Georges Vacher de Lapouge and Jon Alfred Mjoen, played to the white supremacists' desires and claimed that white genes were inherently superior to other races, and with this base formed the first eugenics society. The American Eugenics Movement attempted to unethically obliterate the rising tide of lower classes by immorally

Eugenics is very controversial. It is important to be informed on the subject to avoid making rash and hasty decisions on whether or not it is right or wrong. It is up to each individual to gain the knowledge necessary to determine the moral correctness or incorrectness of any topic. Often decisions are made without information to back them up. You must understand the term before understanding the action. In this way, we must understand eugenics in a general sense and in detail. We must start with defining the term eugenics.

The theory of Eugenics can be dated back all the way to 400 B.C. but was not popularized until the mid-1800s by an English scientist, Francis Galton. He researched and published the theory that aimed to improve the genetic quality of the human population through selective breeding (NC Office of Archives and History). As the half-cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton applied the Darwinism science (survival of the fittest) to heredity characteristics. Two types of Eugenics stemmed from the theory, positive and negative. Positive eugenics is encouraging the “best” people in the society based on financial and personal features to have more children while negative eugenics is picking people with flaws and defects from the population

The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of