The History of Eugenics

1
The History of Eugenics

• How many ideas have there been in the history of
  mankind which were unthinkable ten years before
  and which, when their mysterious hour struck
  suddenly appeared, and spread all over the earth?
• Dostoyevsky

2
Platos The Republic

• The best men must have intercourse with the best
  women as frequently as possible, and the opposite
  is true of the very inferior.
• Proposed the establishment of a fixed lottery in
  which each person was assigned a marriage
  number corresponding to a quantitative
  assessment of their fitness
• He believed this system would lead to a
  predictable improvement of the human race.

3
Evidence of Eugenics in History

• Sparta phenotypic selection through infanticide
• Weak or undesirable babies were abandoned
• Rome
• Fourth Table of Roman stated that deformed
  children would be put to death

4
Sir Francis Galton

• Inspired by Darwins Origin of Species
• He believed societies in favor of spending
  resources on the weak were in opposition to
  natural selection
• Defined eugenics as the science which deals
  with all influences that improve the inborn
  qualities of a race also with those that develop
  them to the utmost advantage.
• His approach to eugenics was based upon social
  statistics

5
Nazi Germany

• Practiced negative and positive eugenics
• Forced sterilization, euthanasia
• Awarded Aryan women for having many children with
  Aryan men
• Some argued that the Holocaust was "a vast
  dysgenic program to rid Europe of highly
  intelligent challengers to the existing Christian
  domination by a numerically and politically
  minuscule minority. Seymour W. Itzkoff

6
United States

• Alexander Graham Bell recommended deaf
  individuals not be allowed to marry
• Thirty states adopted legislation to perform
  forced sterilization on those deemed mentally
  unfit.

7
Eugenics Video

• http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid-290086292
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  0typesearchplindex7
• http//video.google.com/videoplay?docid4328629524
  891345415qeugenicshistorytotal41start0num
  10so0typesearchplindex0

8
Discussion

• In New York, incest between close relatives is a
  felony with a maximum penalty of four years in
  prison. Is this law a form of eugenics? What
  role, if any, should the state have in preventing
  unions that would inevitably lead to
  undesirable offspring?
• Some states require a blood test to check for
  venereal disease before issuing a marriage
  license. How would you feel about mandatory
  genetic testing for couples planning to marry?

9
References

• http//personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/eugenics/eugenics.
  html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
• http//www.eugenics.net/
• ftp//refugia.net/pub/DE2e_eugenic.pdf