Eugenics Explanatory Research Paper

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.

The movie “Gattaca” is a sci-fi movie that takes place in “the not-too-distant” future, where genetic engineering of humans is common. In this sci-fi future, class differences are construct is primarily determined by your DNA. In the movie society’s culture is ingrained with eugenics, evident by the clear institutionalized discrimination. Eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim at improving the genetic quality of the human population. Eugenics is not a “new” concept, people have been discriminating based on looks ever since prehistoric times. The movie inspired me to do some research on popular eugenics movements in the post-industrial age (1850-present). My primary goal of was to identify the motives behind early eugenics

Eugenics is the pseudoscience of obtaining desired traits in a population through controlled repopulation, specifically by preventing those deemed “unfit” by “Nordic stereotypes” from breeding. Most modern day Americans do not realize the origins of eugenics, which was planted by Charles Darwin and Sir Francis Galton and bloomed in America, and what effect it had on the attempt to create a master race in Nazi Germany. America played a very influential role in German eugenics by collaboration between scientists and funding from American corporations. The negative connotation associated with this science is usually directed towards the scientists of the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler, and not towards American scientists who also partook in horrific experiments and performed inhumane acts as well. This is absurd when you consider that the United States was the backbone of the eugenics movement internationally and only developed a negative perspective of the research when it became affiliated with the holocaust and the troubling actions of Nazi Germany.

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

that eugenics is what will in plain terms, make the world a better place. Its been said that

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.

Hansen and king go over several reason why eugenics became popular in the United States but not in the United Kingdom. Supporter of eugenics in England were mostly focused on people with mental illness and mental disorders. Though there were many supporters of eugenics, the idea did not catch on. One of the reasons being the European connection with the Nazis and their system of eugenics on people with mental illness in addition to people of other races and religions.

Race matters! Race has been probably the most dominating factor beneath the eugenics movement and the pseudo scientific experiments the Europeans physicians and scientists conducted on people of African origin and other races since the 18th century. The foundation for these studies can be associated with ancient Greece, the roots of today’s western values of knowledge, civilized, and democracy which are considered to be the basis for human development. Similarly to today’s Europeans, Ancient Europeans mustered enormous armies and naval forces that conquered and destroyed more advanced civilizations in the Near East, Asia Minor and Africa during which they destroyed records and stole ideas from the conquered people. Hence, the Europeans rewrote the history books to advance their concept of race superiority, which have been essential in the Atlantic world for the last five hundred years.

The world is well aware that the acts of the Nazis were atrocious. This is not something one has to affirm, and is due, in large part, to an understanding of World War II and Hitler’s attempts to achieve “Aryan” purity. Germans have taken responsibility and shown remorse for their government’s actions. The United States’ role as leaders in the eugenics movement of the early 1900’s remains unknown by most Americans, even to many American scholars. The American eugenics movement, is at least partially responsibility for Hitler’s actions, at it laid

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.

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 defined as the social movement that claims to improve the genetic features of human populations through selective breeding and sterilization, The word Eugenics is basically selective breeding and it is a Greek word for "good birth" which was made in the late 1800 's by Francis Galton, who is related to the "survival of the fittest" scientist Charles Darwin. Galton 's number one goal was that each generation contain the best people possible. His main fear was that the higher-class people were not adequately making children, so his response to the issue was to desire and prompt them to have more children (Geneletter, 1999). Then again, Galton 's view of a worthy individual may have been different but his techniques were not to deny the unworthy individuals from cultivating, nor did he result to executing to enhance the species. Having all said, the historical backdrop of the Eugenics Movement has influenced a lot of people all around the globe particularly in the state of North Carolina, amid the 1920 's through 1970 's forced sterilization on seventy-six hundred Americans. This paper will demonstrate data about the Eugenics improvement in North Carolina and how it influenced the individuals who are as yet continuing with its issue still right up 'til the present time.

Eugenics is a so-called “science” that claims that certain traits can be selected for by controlling what kind of people are allowed to reproduce and thus lead to an improvement of the human race. Much of eugenics is based the idea that the root causes of many of problems people had such as “poverty, feeble-mindedness-including manic depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, rebelliousness, criminality, nomadness, prostitution” were all caused by genetics and thus preventing the people who had these traits or illnesses from reproducing would prevent their children from having these illnesses and thus would improve society. (Cheney) Oliver Wendell Holmes summed up the idea of eugenics quite well when he (and all but one justice) ruled that forced

Eugenics has always been given such a notoriously bad connotation, and rightfully so. Eugenics is essentially the belief in controlling the human population by means of improving the gene pool through different processes, and increasing the likelihood of traits which are generally more desirable to the whole of the species. Now that probably sounds familiar, doesn 't it? People commonly connect the eugenics movement with the Aryan belief that Hitler infamously believed in. In fact, Hitler wrote a letter to one of the eugenics movements leadings proprietors, Madison Grant, praising his writing of his book “The Passing of the Great Race” calling it “his bible”. In Hitler’s famous autobiography

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