A 1930s exhibit by theEugenics Society. Some of the signs read "Healthy and Unhealthy Families", "Heredity as the Basis of Efficiency" and "Marry Wisely".
Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/yoo-JEN-iks; from Ancient Greekεύ̃ (eû)'good, well' and -γενής (genḗs)'born, come into being, growing/grown')[1] is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve thegenetic quality of ahuman population.[2][3][4] Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various humanphenotypes by inhibiting the fertility of people and groups they considered inferior, or promoting that of those considered superior.[5]
The contemporaryhistory of eugenics began in the late 19th century, when a popular eugenics movement emerged in the United Kingdom,[6] and then spread to many countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia,[7] and most European countries (e.g.Sweden andGermany). In this period, people from across the political spectrum espoused eugenic ideas. Consequently, many countries adopted eugenic policies, intended to improve the quality of their populations' genetic stock.
Historically, the idea ofeugenics has been used to argue for a broad array of practices ranging fromprenatal care for mothers deemed genetically desirable to the forced sterilization and murder of those deemed unfit.[5] Topopulation geneticists, the term has included the avoidance ofinbreeding without alteringallele frequencies; for example, British-Indian scientistJ. B. S. Haldane wrote in 1940 that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent."[8] Debate as to what exactly counts as eugenics continues today.[9] Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with factors of measuredintelligence that often correlated strongly with social class.
Although it originated as aprogressive social movement in the 19th century,[10][11][12][13] in contemporary usage in the 21st century, the term is closely associated withscientific racism. New,liberal eugenics seeks to dissociate itself from old, authoritarian eugenics by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice.[14]
Lester Frank Ward wrote the early paper: "Eugenics, Euthenics and Eudemics", making yet further distinctions.[15]
Eugenic programs included bothpositive measures, such as encouraging individuals deemed particularly "fit" to reproduce, andnegative measures, such as marriage prohibitions andforced sterilization of people deemed unfit for reproduction.[5][16][17]: 104–155
In other words, positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged, for example, the eminently intelligent, the healthy, and the successful. Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses,in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning.[18] 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.[18] Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive; in Nazi Germany, for example, abortion was illegal for women deemed by the state to be fit.[19]
Ellen Swallow Richards (left), the first female student and instructor at MIT, was one of the first to use the term, whileJulia Clifford Lathrop (right) continued to promote it in the form of an interdisciplinary academic program later to be mostly absorbed into the field ofhome economics.
In aNew York Times article of May 23, 1926, Rose Field notes of the description, "the simplest [is] efficient living".[21] It is also described as "a right to environment",[22] commonly as dual to a "right of birth" that correspondingly falls under the purview of eugenics.[23]
Euthenics is not normally interpreted to have anything to do with changing the composition of the human gene pool by definition, although everything that affects society has some effect on who reproduces and who does not.[24]
The influential historian of educationAbraham Flexner questions its scientific value in stating:
[T]he “science” is artificially pieced together of bits of mental hygiene, child guidance, nutrition, speech development and correction, family problems, wealth consumption, food preparation, household technology, and horticulture. A nursery school and a school for little children are also included. The institute is actually justified in an official publication by the profound question of a girl student who is reported as asking, “What is the connection of Shakespeare with having a baby?” The Vassar Institute of Euthenics bridges this gap![25]
EugenicistCharles Benedict Davenport noted in his article "Euthenics and Eugenics," reprinted inPopular Science Monthly:
Thus the two schools of euthenics and eugenics stand opposed, each viewing the other unkindly. Against eugenics it is urged that it is a fatalistic doctrine and deprives life of the stimulus toward effort. Against euthenics the other side urges that it demands an endless amount of money to patch up conditions in the vain effort to get greater efficiency. Which of the two doctrines is true?
The thoughtful mind must concede that, as is so often the case where doctrines are opposed, each view is partial, incomplete and really false. The truth does not exactly lie between the doctrines; it comprehends them both.
[...] [I]n the generations to come, the teachings and practice of euthenics [...] [may] yield greater result because of the previous practice of the principles of eugenics.[26]
Along similar lines argued psychologist and earlyintelligence researcherEdward L. Thorndike some two years later for an understanding that better integrates eugenic study:
The more rational the race becomes, the better roads, ships, tools, machines, foods, medicines and the like it will produce to aid itself, though it will need them less. The more sagacious and just and humane the original nature that is bred into man, the better schools, laws, churches, traditions and customs it will fortify itself by. There is no so certain and economical a way to improve man's environment as to improve his nature.[27]
Giuseppe Diotti'sThe selection of the infant Spartans (1840)
According toPlutarch, inSparta every proper citizen's child was inspected by the council of elders, theGerousia, which determined whether or not the child was fit to live.[28] If the child was deemed incapable of living a Spartan life, the child was usually killed in a chasm near theTaygetus mountain known as theApothetae.[29][30] Further trials intended to discern a child's fitness included bathing them inwine and exposing them to the elements to fend for themselves, with the intention of ensuring that only those considered strongest survived and procreated.[31]
The lack of sources by contemporary Greeks mentioning Spartan eugenics and the lack of archeological evidence has brought ideas about Spartan eugenics into question. Whileinfanticide was practiced by Greeks, no contemporary sources support Plutarch's claims of mass infanticide motivated by eugenics.[32] 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.[33][34]
Plato's political philosophy included the belief that human reproduction should be cautiously monitored and controlled by the state.[35] He advocated thatselective breeding should be applied to both humans and animals. Plato recognized that this form of government control would not be readily accepted, and proposed the truth be concealed from the public via a fixed lottery. Mates, in Plato'sRepublic, would be chosen by a "marriage number" in which the quality of the individual would be quantitatively analyzed, and persons of high numbers would be allowed to procreate with other persons of high numbers. This would then lead to predictable results and the improvement of the human race. Plato acknowledged the failure of the "marriage number" since "gold soul" persons could still produce "bronze soul" children.[36] Plato's ideas may have been one of the earliest attempts to mathematically analyzegenetic inheritance, prefiguring some of what would much later become known asMendelian genetics.[37]
The geographerStrabo (c. 64 BCE –c. 24 CE) stated that theSamnites would take tenvirgin women and ten young men who were considered to be the best representation of theirsex andmate them. Any selected male committing a dishonorable act would be separated from his partner.[38]
InAncient Rome,Seneca the Younger discussed selective infanticide, saying "We put down mad dogs; we kill the wild, untamed ox; we use the knife on sick sheep to stop their infecting the flock; we destroy abnormal offspring at birth; children, too, if they are born weak or deformed, we drown. Yet this is not the work of anger, but of reason – to separate the sound from the worthless."[39]
Francis Galton (1822–1911) was a British polymath who coined the term "eugenics".
The termeugenics and its modern field of study were first formulated byFrancis Galton in 1883,[40][41][42][a] directly drawing on the recent work delineatingnatural selection by his half-cousinCharles Darwin.[44][45][46][b] He published his observations and conclusions chiefly in his influential bookInquiries 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".[48] The first to systematically apply Darwinism theory to human relations, Galton believed that various desirable human qualities were alsohereditary ones, although Darwin strongly disagreed with this elaboration of his theory.[49]
Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities and received funding from various sources.[50] Organizations were formed to win public support for and to sway opinion towards responsible eugenic values in parenthood, including the BritishEugenics Education Society of 1907 and theAmerican Eugenics Society of 1921. Both sought support from leading clergymen and modified their message to meet religious ideals.[51] In 1909, the Anglican clergymenWilliam Inge andJames Peile both wrote for the Eugenics Education Society. Inge was an invited speaker at the 1921International Eugenics Conference, which was also endorsed by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New YorkPatrick Joseph Hayes.[51]
ThreeInternational 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.[52] Eugenic policies also took root in France, Germany, and Great Britain.[53] Later, in the 1920s and 1930s, the eugenic policy ofsterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries including Belgium,[54] Brazil,[55]Canada,[56]Japan andSweden.
Frederick Osborn's 1937 journal article "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" framed eugenics as asocial philosophy—a philosophy with implications forsocial order.[57] That definition is not universally accepted. Osborn advocated for higher rates ofsexual reproduction among people with desired traits ("positive eugenics") or reduced rates of sexual reproduction orsterilization of people with less-desired or undesired traits ("negative eugenics").
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.[47][66][67]
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[68] various eugenics policies, including:genetic screenings,birth control, promoting differential birth rates,marriage restrictions, segregation (bothracial segregation and sequestering the mentally ill),compulsory sterilization,forced abortions orforced pregnancies, ultimately culminating ingenocide. By 2014, gene selection (rather than "people selection") was made possible through advances ingenome editing,[69] leading to what is sometimes callednew 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.[70]
Several biologists were also antagonistic to the eugenics movement, includingLancelot Hogben.[75] Other biologists who were themselves eugenicists, such asJ. B. S. Haldane andR. 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.[76]
Among institutions, theCatholic Church was an opponent of state-enforced sterilizations, but accepted isolating people with hereditary diseases so as not to let them reproduce.[77] Attempts by the Eugenics Education Society to persuade the British government to legalize voluntary sterilization were opposed by Catholics and by theLabour Party.[78] TheAmerican Eugenics Society initially gained some Catholic supporters, but Catholic support declined following the 1930 papal encyclicalCasti connubii.[51] 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."[79]
In fact, more generally, "[m]uch of the opposition to eugenics during that era, at least in Europe, came from the right."[17]: 36 The eugenicists' political successes inGermany andScandinavia were not at all matched in such countries asPoland andCzechoslovakia, even though measures had been proposed there, largely because of the Catholic church's moderating influence.[80]
Dysgenics refers to any decrease in the prevalence of traits deemed to be either socially desirable or generally adaptive to their environment due toselective pressure disfavouring their reproduction.[81]
In 1915 the term was used byDavid Starr Jordan to describe the supposed deleterious effects of modern warfare on group-level genetic fitness because of its tendency to kill physically healthy men while preserving the disabled at home.[82][83] Similar concerns had been raised by early eugenicists andsocial Darwinists during the 19th century, and continued to play a role in scientific and public policy debates throughout the 20th century.[84]
Despite these concerns, genetic studies have shown no evidence for dysgenic effects in human populations.[86][88][89][90] Reviewing Lynn's book, the scholar John R. Wilmoth notes: "Overall, the most puzzling aspect of Lynn's alarmist position is that the deterioration of average intelligence predicted by the eugenicists has not occurred."[91]
Compulsory sterilization, also known as forced or coerced sterilization, refers to any government-mandated program toinvoluntarilysterilize a specific group of people. Sterilization removes a person's capacity to reproduce, and is usually done by surgical orchemical means.
Forced sterilization can also occur as a form ofracial discrimination. While not always mandated by law (de jure), there are cases where forced sterilization has occurred in practice (de facto). This distinction highlights the difference between official policies and actual implementation, wherecoerced sterilization take place even without explicit legal authorization.
Several countries implemented sterilization programs in the early 20th century.[92] Although such programs have been made illegal in much of the world, instances of forced or coerced sterilizations still persist.
Eugenic feminism was a current of thewomen's suffrage movement which overlapped with eugenics.[93] Originally coined by the Lebanese-British physician and vocal eugenicistCaleb Saleeby,[94][95][96] the term has since been applied to summarize views held by prominent feminists of Great Britain and the United States. Some early suffragettes in Canada, especially a group known asThe Famous Five, also pushed for various eugenic policies.
Eugenic feminists argued that if women were provided with more rights and equality, thedeteriorating characteristics of a given race could be averted.
American eugenicists generally pursued more public-facing work and accordingly became widely known for their racismin particular. Along these lines, they were often harshly criticized by their British counterparts.[97]
While its American practice was ostensibly about improving genetic quality, it has been argued that eugenics was more about preserving the position of the dominant groups in the population. Scholarly research has determined that people who found themselves targets of the eugenics movement were those who were seen as unfit for society—the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill, and specific communities of color—and a disproportionate number of those who fell victim to eugenicists' sterilization initiatives were women who were identified as African American, Asian American, or Native American.[98][99] As a result, the United States' eugenics movement is now generally associated with racist andnativist elements, as the movement was to some extent a reaction to demographic and population changes, as well as concerns over the economy and social well-being, rather than scientific genetics.[100][99]
Following theMexican Revolution, the eugenics movement gained prominence in Mexico. Seeking to change the genetic make-up of the country's population, proponents ofeugenics in Mexico focused primarily on rebuilding the population, creating healthy citizens, and ameliorating the effects of perceived social ills such as alcoholism, prostitution, and venereal diseases. Mexican eugenics, at its height in the 1930s, influenced the state's health, education, and welfare policies.[101]
Mexican elites adopted eugenic thinking and raised it under the banner of “the Great Mexican family” (Spanish:la gran familia mexicana).[102]
Unlike in other countries, the eugenics movements in Latin America were largely founded on the idea ofneo-Lamarckian eugenics.[103] Neo-Lamarckian eugenics stated that the outside effects experienced by an organism throughout its lifetime changed its genetics permanently, allowing the organism to pass acquired traits onto its offspring.[104] In the Neo-Lamarckian genetic framework, activities such as prostitution and alcoholism could result in the degeneration of future generations, amplifying fears about the effects of certain social ills. However, the supposed genetic malleability also offered hope to certain Latin American eugenicists, as social reform would have the ability to transform the population more permanently.[103]
The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time whenErnst Rüdin used eugenics as a justification for theracial policies of Nazi Germany.Adolf Hitler had praised and incorporated eugenic ideas inMein Kampf in 1925 and emulated eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States once he took power.[105] Some common early 20th century eugenics methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled,promiscuous women, homosexuals, andracial groups (such as theRoma andJews in Nazi Germany) as "degenerate" or "unfit", and therefore led to segregation, institutionalization, sterilization, and evenmass murder.[106] The Nazi policy of identifying German citizens deemed mentally or physically unfit and then systematically killing them with poison gas, referred to as theAktion T4 campaign, is understood by historians to have paved the way for theHolocaust.[107][108][109]
"All practices aimed at eugenics, any use of the human body or any of its parts for financial gain, andhuman cloning shall be prohibited."
By the end ofWorld War II, many eugenics laws were abandoned, having become associated withNazi Germany.[111]H. G. Wells, who had called for "the sterilization of failures" in 1904,[112] stated in his 1940 bookThe 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 onmutilation, sterilization,torture, and any bodily punishment".[113] 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 theConvention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[114] TheCharter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".[115]
Lee Kuan Yew, thefounding father ofSingapore, actively promoted eugenics as late as 1983.[116] 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.[117] 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, theSocial Development Network, remains active.[118][119][120]
Liberal eugenics, also called new eugenics, aims to make genetic interventions morally acceptable by rejecting coercive state programs and relying on parental choice.[121][14] BioethicistNicholas Agar, who coined the term, argues for example that the state should intervene only to forbid interventions that excessively limit a child’s ability to shape their own future.[122] Unlike "authoritarian" or "old" eugenics, liberal eugenics draws on modern scientific knowledge ofgenomics to enable informed choices aimed at improving well-being.[14]Julien Savulescu further argues that some eugenic practices, likeprenatal screening forDown syndrome, are already widely practiced, without being labeled "eugenics", as they are seen as enhancing freedom rather than restricting it.[123]
Some critics, such asUC Berkeley sociologistTroy Duster, have argued that modern genetics is a "back door to eugenics".[124] 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 atHampshire College that advances inpre-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".[125] The United Nations'International Bioethics Committee also noted that whilehuman genetic engineering should not be confused with the20th 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.[126]
In 2025, geneticistPeter Visscher published a paper inNature, 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.[127][128] A response argued that human embryo genetic editing is "unsafe and unproven".[129]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".[128]
In the decades afterWorld War II, the term "eugenics" had taken on a negative connotation and as a result, the use of it became increasingly unpopular within the scientific community. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy which spawned them, as whenEugenics Quarterly was renamedSocial Biology in 1969.
In his original lecture "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics",Karl Pearson claimed that everything concerning eugenics fell into the field of medicine.[134] AnthropologistAleš Hrdlička said in 1918 that "[t]he growing science of eugenics will essentially become applied anthropology."[135] The economistJohn Maynard Keynes was a lifelong proponent of eugenics and described it as a branch of sociology.[136][137]
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.[138]
Amanda Caleb, Professor of Medical Humanities atGeisinger 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."[139]
The first major challenge to conventional eugenics based on genetic inheritance was made in 1915 byThomas Hunt Morgan. He demonstrated the event ofgenetic mutation occurring outside of inheritance involving the discovery of the hatching of afruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with white eyes from a family with red eyes,[47]: 336–337 demonstrating that major genetic changes occurred outside of inheritance.[47]: 336–337 [clarification needed] Additionally, Morgan criticized the view that certain traits, such asintelligence and criminality, were hereditary because these traits weresubjective.[140][d]
Pleiotropy occurs when onegene influences multiple, seemingly unrelatedphenotypic traits, an example beingphenylketonuria, which is a human disease that affects multiple systems but is caused by one gene defect.[143] Andrzej Pękalski, from theUniversity 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 withmyopia from breeding but has the unintended consequence of also selecting against high intelligence since the two go together.[144]
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 assickle-cell disease andcystic fibrosis respectively confer immunity to malaria and resistance tocholera 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.[133]
Edwin Black, journalist, historian, and author ofWar Against the Weak, argues that eugenics is often deemed apseudoscience 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.[2] This aspect of eugenics is often considered to be tainted withscientific racism and pseudoscience.[2][145]
In a book directly addressed at socialist eugenicistJ.B.S. Haldane and his once-influentialDaedalus,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."[147]
Environmental ethicistBill McKibben argued againstgerminal 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 toaging,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 seemmeaningful 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, usingMing China,Tokugawa Japan and the contemporaryAmish as examples.[148]
Bioethicist Stephen Wilkinsonhas said that some aspects of modern genetics can be classified as eugenics, but that this classification does not inherently make modern genetics immoral.[149]
HistorianNathaniel 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.[150][151]
In their book published in 2000,From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice, bioethicistsAllen Buchanan,Dan Brock,Norman Daniels andDaniel 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 maximizepublic health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural genetic endowments and unequal access to genetic enhancements.[17]
Incompletepedigree chart ofHouse Atreides from which one half of theKwisatz Haderach had been strategically bredIn the movie, "Gattaca" also refers to thefuturistic building complex that hosts the astronauts for an ongoingspace colonization program.
TheStar Trek franchise features a race of genetically engineered humans which is known as "Augments", the most notable of them isKhan Noonien Singh. These "supermen" were the cause of theEugenics 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.[153][e]
The filmGattaca (1997) provides a fictional example of adystopian society that uses eugenics to decide what people are capable of and their place in the world. The title alludes to the lettersG,A,T andC, the fournucleobases ofDNA, and depicts the possible consequences ofgenetic 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 overhuman genetic engineering in the public consciousness.[156][157][f] As to its accuracy, its production company,Sony Pictures, consulted with agene 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",[160]W. French Anderson, to ensure that the portrayal of science was realistic. Disputing their success in this mission, Philim Yam ofScientific American called the film "science bashing" andNature's Kevin Davies called it a "surprisingly pedestrian affair", whilemolecular biologistLee Silver described its extremedeterminism as "astraw man".[161][162]
In his 2018 bookBlueprint, thebehavioral geneticistRobert Plomin writes that whileGattaca warned of the dangers of genetic information being used by a totalitarian state, genetic testing could also favor bettermeritocracy in democratic societies which already administer a variety ofstandardized tests to select people for education and employment. He suggests thatpolygenic scores might supplement testing in a manner that is essentially free of biases.[163]
^Galton, Francis (2002) [1883]. Tredoux, Gavan (ed.).Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development(PDF). pp. 17, 30. Retrieved21 July 2023 – via Online Galton Archives.what is termed in Greek,eugenes namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words,eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The wordeugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one thanviriculture which I once ventured to use.... The investigation of human eugenics – that is, of the conditions under which men of a high type are produced – is at present extremely hampered by the want of full family histories, both medical and general, extending over three or four generations.
^English, Daylanne K. (28 June 2016)."Eugenics – African American Studies".Oxford Bibliographies.Archived from the original on 24 June 2019.Racially targeted sterilization practices between the 1960s and the present have been perhaps the most common topic among scholars arguing for, and challenging, the ongoing power of eugenics in the United States. Indeed, unlike in the modern period, contemporary expressions of eugenics have met with widespread, thoroughgoing resistance
^abcSpektorowski, Alberto; Ireni-Saban, Liza (2013).Politics of Eugenics: Productionism, Population, and National Welfare. London: Routledge. p. 24.ISBN9780203740231.Archived from the original on 19 October 2021. Retrieved16 January 2017.As an applied science, thus, the practice of eugenics referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. Galton divided the practice of eugenics into two types—positive and negative—both aimed at improving the human race through selective breeding.
^Hansen, Randall; King, Desmond (1 January 2001). "Eugenic Ideas, Political Interests and Policy Variance Immigration and Sterilization Policy in Britain and U.S".World Politics.53 (2):237–263.doi:10.1353/wp.2001.0003.JSTOR25054146.PMID18193564.S2CID19634871.
^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
^abc"Eugenics".Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.
^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.doi:10.1163/9789042028036_011.
^abcBuchanan, Allen; Brock, Dan W.; Daniels, Norman; Wikler, Daniel (2000).From Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. Cambridge University Press.ISBN9780521669771.OCLC41211380.
^Making Patriots byWalter 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;"
^Sneed (2021). "Disability and Infanticide in Ancient Greece".Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.90 (4): 747.doi:10.2972/hesperia.90.4.0747.S2CID245045967.
^Brumbaugh, Robert S. (1954). "Plato's Genetic Theory",Journal of Heredity, 45(4):191–196, doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.jhered.a106472
^Geographica,Strabo, Book 5, page 467. "And they say that among the Samnitae there is a law which is indeed honourable and conducive to noble qualities; for they are not permitted to give their daughters in marriage to whom they wish, but every year ten virgins and ten young men, the noblest of each sex, are selected, and, of these, the first choice of the virgins is given to the first choice of the young men, and the second to the second, and so on to the end; but if the young man who wins the meed of honour changes and turns out bad, they disgrace him and take away from him the woman given him."
^Hansen, Randall (2005)."Eugenics". In Gibney, Matthew J.; Hansen, Randall (eds.).Eugenics: Immigration and Asylum from 1990 to Present. ABC-CLIO. Retrieved23 September 2013.
^Barrett, Deborah; Kurzman, Charles (October 2004)."Globalizing Social Movement Theory: The Case of Eugenics"(PDF).Theory and Society.33 (5):487–527.doi:10.1023/b:ryso.0000045719.45687.aa.JSTOR4144884.S2CID143618054.Archived(PDF) from the original on 24 May 2013. Retrieved17 September 2013.Policy adoption: In the pre–World War I period, eugenic policies were enacted only in the United States, which was both the hotbed of international eugenics activism and unusually decentralized politically, so that sub-national state units could adopt such policies in the absence of central state approval.
^Goering, Sara (2014),"Eugenics", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2014 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University,archived from the original on 7 November 2020, retrieved4 May 2022
^Turda, Marius (2010). "Race, Science and Eugenics in the Twentieth Century". In Bashford, Alison; Levine, Philippa (eds.).The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford University Press. pp. 72–73.ISBN9780199888290.
^"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, 2010ISBN0199706530 (p. 200)
^"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.ISBN0520057635 (p. 166).
^Congar, Yves M.-J. (1953).The Catholic Church and the Race Question(PDF). Paris: UNESCO.Archived(PDF) from the original on 4 July 2015. Retrieved3 July 2015.4. The State is not entitled to deprive an individual of his procreative power simply for material (eugenic) purposes. But it is entitled to isolate individuals who are sick and whose progeny would inevitably be seriously tainted.
^Jordan, David Starr (2003).War and the Breed: The Relation of War to the Downfall of Nations (Reprint ed.). Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.ISBN978-1-4102-0900-9.
^Carlson, Elof Axel (2001).The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. pp. 189–193.ISBN9780879695873.
^Carlson, Elof Axel (2001).The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.ISBN9780879695873.
^abFischbach, Karl-Friedrich; Niggeschmidt, Martin (2022)."Do the Dumb Get Dumber and the Smart Get Smarter?".Heritability of Intelligence. Springer. pp. 37–39.doi:10.1007/978-3-658-35321-6_9.ISBN978-3-658-35321-6.S2CID244640696.Since the nineteenth century, a 'race deterioration' has been repeatedly predicted as a result of the excessive multiplication of less gifted people. Nevertheless, the educational and qualification level of people in the industrialized countries has risen strongly. The fact that the 'test intelligence' has also significantly increased, is difficult to explain for supporters of the dysgenic thesis: they suspect that the 'phenotypic intelligence' has increased for environmental reasons, while the 'genotypic quality' secretly decreases. There is neither evidence nor proof for this theory. Citations in original omitted.
^Neisser, Ulric (1998).The Rising Curve: Long-Term Gains in IQ and Related Measures. American Psychological Association. pp. xiii–xiv.ISBN978-1557985033.There is no convincing evidence that any dysgenic trend exists. . . . It turns out, counterintuitively, that differential birth rates (for groups scoring high and low on a trait) donot necessarily produce changes in the population mean.
^Webster University, Forced Sterilization. Retrieved on 30 August 2014."Women and Global Human Rights".Archived from the original on 7 September 2015. Retrieved29 October 2016.
^Rosario, Esther (13 September 2013)."Feminism".The Eugenics Archives. Archived fromthe original on 9 September 2019. Retrieved27 October 2018.
^Saleeby, Caleb Williams (1911)."First Principles".Woman and Womanhood A Search for Principles. New York: J. J. Little & Ives Co. MITCHELL KENNERLEY. p. 7.The mark of the following pages is that they assume the principle of what we may call Eugenic Feminism
^Gibbons, Sheila Rae."Women's suffrage".The Eugenics Archives. Retrieved31 October 2018.Dr. Caleb Saleeby, an obstetrician and active member of the British Eugenics Education Society, opposed his contemporaries – such as Sir Francis Galton – who took strong anti-feminist stances in their eugenic philosophies. Perceiving the feminist movement as potentially "ruinous to the race" if it continued to ignore the eugenics movement, he coined the term "eugenic feminism" in his 1911 text Woman and Womanhood: A Search for Principles
^Heron, D. (9 November 1913). "English expert attacks American eugenic work",New York Times, part V, 1
^Newman, Carla (Spring 2018). "Bartering from the Bench: A Tennessee Judge Prevents Reproduction of Social Undesirables; Historic Analysis of Involuntary Sterilization of African American Women".Georgetown Journal of Law & Modern Critical Race Perspectives.10 – via Gale OneFile: LegalTrac.
^abKluchin, Rebecca (2009).Fit to Be Tied: Sterilization and Reproductive Rights in America, 1950–1980. Rutgers University Press. pp. 10, 73, 91, 94,98–100, 102,182–183.
^Mukherjee, Siddhartha (2016).The Gene. Scribner. pp. 82–83.
^Burleigh, Michael (2000). "Psychiatry, German Society, and the Nazi "Euthanasia" Programme". In Bartov, Omer (ed.).Holocaust: Origins, Implementation, Aftermath. London:Routledge. pp. 43–57.ISBN0415150361.
^Snyder, Timothy (2010).Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York:Basic Books. pp. 256–258.ISBN9781441761460.
^Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed withthe 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.
^"Report of the IBC on Updating Its Reflection on the Human Genome and Human Rights"(PDF). International Bioethics Committee. 2 October 2015. p. 27.Archived(PDF) from the original on 8 October 2015. Retrieved22 October 2015.The goal of enhancing individuals and the human species by engineering the genes related to some characteristics and traits is not to be confused with the barbarous projects of eugenics that planned the simple elimination of human beings considered as 'imperfect' on an ideological basis. However, it impinges upon the principle of respect for human dignity in several ways. It weakens the idea that the differences among human beings, regardless of the measure of their endowment, are exactly what the recognition of their equality presupposes and therefore protects. It introduces the risk of new forms of discrimination and stigmatization for those who cannot afford such enhancement or simply do not want to resort to it. The arguments that have been produced in favour of the so-called liberal eugenics do not trump the indication to apply the limit of medical reasons also in this case.
^Salgirli, S. G. (July 2011). "Eugenics for the doctors: Medicine and social control in 1930s Turkey".Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences.66 (3):281–312.doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrq040.PMID20562206.S2CID205167694.
^Keynes, John Maynard (1946)."The Galton lecture, 1946: Presentation of the society's gold medal".Eugenics Review.38 (1):39–40.PMC2986310.PMID21260495.On February I4th, I946, before a large gathering of Fellows, Members and guests at Manson house, London, Lord Keynes, On behalf of the Eugenics Society, presented the first Galton Medal... Opening the proceedings, Lord Keynes said: It is a satisfaction to take part in the presentation of the first Galton Gold Medal, both in piety to the memory of the great Galton and in recognition of a worthy and appropriate recipient of a medal established in his name.
^Caleb, Amanda (27 January 2023)."Eugenics and (Pseudo-) Science".The Holocaust: Remembrance, Respect, and Resilience. Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved18 February 2023.
^Carlson, Elof Axel (2002)."Scientific Origins of Eugenics".Image Archive on the American Eugenics Movement. Dolan DNA Learning Center, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Retrieved3 October 2013.
^Currell, Susan; Cogdell, Christina (2006).Popular Eugenics: National Efficiency and American Mass Culture in The 1930s. Athens, Ohio:Ohio University Press. p. 203.ISBN9780821416914.
^Comfort, Nathaniel (25 September 2012).The Science of Human Perfection: How Genes Became the Heart of American Medicine. New Haven: Yale University Press.ISBN9780300169911.
^Kirby, David A. (July 2000). "The New Eugenics in Cinema: Genetic Determinism and Gene Therapy in "GATTACA"".Science Fiction Studies.27 (2):193–215.JSTOR4240876.
^He concretely intended it to replace the word "stirpiculture", which he had used previously but which had come to be mocked due to its perceived sexual overtones.[43]
^He had identified eugenicists as a major obstacle to the eradication and cure of tuberculosis in his 1917 address "Consumption: Its Cause and Cure",[72]
^Despite Morgan's public rejection of eugenics, much of his genetic research was adopted by proponents of eugenics.[141][142]
^It has been cited by manybioethicists and laypeople in support of their hesitancy about, or opposition to, eugenics and thegenetic determinist ideology that may frame it.[158]
Accordingly,Lee M. Silver stated that "Gattaca is a film that all geneticists should see if for no other reason than to understand the perception of our trade held by so many of the public-at-large".[159]
Buchanan, Allen (2017).Better than Human: The Promise and Perils of Deliberate Biomedical Enhancement. "Philosophy in Action" series. Oxford University Press.ISBN9780190664046.
Gantsho, Luvuyo (2022). "The principle of procreative beneficence and its implications for genetic engineering."Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 43 (5):307-328.doi:10.1007/s11017-022-09585-0.
Harris, John (2009). "Enhancements are a Moral Obligation." In J. Savulescu & N. Bostrom (Eds.),Human Enhancement, Oxford University Press, pp. 131–154
Kamm, Frances (2010). "What Is And Is Not Wrong With Enhancement?" In Julian Savulescu & Nick Bostrom (eds.),Human Enhancement. Oxford University Press.
Ranisch, Robert (2022). "Procreative Beneficence and Genome Editing",The American Journal of Bioethics, 22(9), 20–22.doi:10.1080/15265161.2022.2105435.
Rosenkranz, E. Joshua (1987). "Custom kids and the moral duty to genetically engineer our children".High Technology Law Journal.2 (1):1–53.JSTOR24122379.PMID11659156.
Saunders, Ben (2015). "Why Procreative Preferences May be Moral – And Why it May not Matter if They Aren't."Bioethics, 29(7), 499–506.doi:10.1111/bioe.12147.
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