Eugenics and Ethics

Neubarth

At the Ballpark July 30th
Nov 8, 2008
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Eugenics was essentially "born" as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age.

In 1863, a close cousin of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, theorized that if talented people married only other talented people, the obvious result would be continuing improvement in offspring. Just like breeding farm animals for improvement in certain features, humans could breed for intellect and artistic capacity.

In the Early 1900's, Galton's ideas were imported to the United States. That coincided with a revived interest in Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity.

It only seemed obvious that followers of eugenics belief would advocate that Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man. To the eugenicists, "Refined intelligent people were that way because they had evolved beyond the lower functioning masses of unwashed humanity.

Of course from that point forward many people added cultural and national biases to eugenics. That has tarnished the name, but the practice with noble goals still is seen as attractive by numerous groups of people around the world.
 
California historically is considered the epicenter of the American eugenics movement. Not only did they pass strong legislation, they started carrying out their aggressive program, a Program that was upheld by the US Supreme Court. A lot of people are not aware of this.

"California led the nation, performing nearly all sterilization procedures with little or no due process. In its first 25 years of eugenics legislation, California sterilized 9,782 individuals, mostly women. Many were classified as "bad girls," diagnosed as "passionate," "oversexed" or "sexually wayward." At the Sonoma State Home, some women were sterilized because of what was deemed an abnormally large clitoris or labia.

In 1933 alone, at least 1,278 coercive sterilizations were performed, 700 on women. The state's two leading sterilization mills in 1933 were Sonoma State Home with 388 operations and Patton State Hospital with 363 operations. Other sterilization centers included Agnews, Mendocino, Napa, Norwalk, Stockton and Pacific Colony state hospitals.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed aspects of eugenics. In its infamous 1927 decision, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles are enough." This decision opened the floodgates for thousands to be coercively sterilized or otherwise persecuted as subhuman. Years later, the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials quoted Holmes' words in their own defense.

Only after eugenics became entrenched in the United States was the campaign transplanted into Germany, in no small measure through the efforts of California eugenicists, who published booklets idealizing sterilization and circulated them to German officials and scientists."

Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

"Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood. "

After the Eugenics Laws were passed in California, the Nazi's used them to write their own laws.

Here is a tidbit that very few people know. The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German Racist Nordic Superiority eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz. "
 
Eugenics is never ethical.

How can you say that? If we could do prepregnancy testing to determine if a couple would have horribly mutated children if they bred, would it unethical to tell them that they should try to avoid that pregnancy by either birth control, or by finding another partner as a life companion..

It is believed by many medical professional that cancer is far more prevalent in people with certain DNA characteristics but that it is a recessive trait as passed on from parent to child at conception. What if we knew the DNA characteristics that caused Cancer and we could test in advance to determine if we should not breed with this or that person. Would that be unethical?

Avoiding the passing of defective DNA on to our children is eugenics. I would not want to knowingly pass on a defect to my children that would ruin their lives and kill them in a painful fashion. If I could prevent that by acting in advance, is that wrong? It is Eugenics.

How about passing on Schizophrenia. We know that it is a DNA inherited disease. How about blocking its spread with this generation so no future generations have to see their children placed in mental hospitals for the insane. Avoid the further transmission of mental illness is Eugenics and is very ethical in that regard.
 
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Need to breed the superior human ay?

Why is it the so called superior humans are always such moronic barbarians?
 
Eugenics is never ethical.

How can you say that? If we could do prepregnancy testing to determine if a couple would have horribly mutated children if they bred, would it unethical to tell them that they should try to avoid that pregnancy by either birth control, or by finding another partner as a life companion..

It is believed by many medical professional that cancer is far more prevalent in people with certain DNA characteristics but that it is a recessive trait as passed on from parent to child at conception. What if we knew the DNA characteristics that caused Cancer and we could test in advance to determine if we should not breed with this or that person. Would that be unethical?

Avoiding the passing of defective DNA on to our children is eugenics. I would not want to knowingly pass on a defect to my children that would ruin their lives and kill them in a painful fashion. If I could prevent that by acting in advance, is that wrong? It is Eugenics.

How about passing on Schizophrenia. We know that it is a DNA inherited disease. How about blocking its spread with this generation so no future generations have to see their children placed in mental hospitals for the insane. Avoid the further transmission of mental illness is Eugenics and is very ethical in that regard.

Breeding human beings like animals is not ethical, and only rabid statists would even consider it. Not to mention that one of the first defective gene that will be tossed is the one that gives us free will.
 
Dumb and ugly people rarely produce beautiful intelligent people. Part genetic (like a family where everyone is tall), and part being brought up by 2 dumb fucks.
 
Dumb and ugly people rarely produce beautiful intelligent people. Part genetic (like a family where everyone is tall), and part being brought up by 2 dumb fucks.

You really should get over this bitterness toward your family. It's not healthy.
 
It just presented the "logic" behind the movement, and, like the previous thread, ignored the real world implications.
 
We're moving past eugenics and straight into gene manipulation.

It's gonna happen.

They'll start off by treating genetic traits leading to disease, but they won't stop there.

The seductive possibility of creating a race of superhumans will be too tempting.
 
Eugenics was essentially "born" as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age.

In 1863, a close cousin of Charles Darwin, Sir Francis Galton, theorized that if talented people married only other talented people, the obvious result would be continuing improvement in offspring. Just like breeding farm animals for improvement in certain features, humans could breed for intellect and artistic capacity.

In the Early 1900's, Galton's ideas were imported to the United States. That coincided with a revived interest in Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity.

It only seemed obvious that followers of eugenics belief would advocate that Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man. To the eugenicists, "Refined intelligent people were that way because they had evolved beyond the lower functioning masses of unwashed humanity.

Of course from that point forward many people added cultural and national biases to eugenics. That has tarnished the name, but the practice with noble goals still is seen as attractive by numerous groups of people around the world.


[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Darwin-Hitler-Evolutionary-Eugenics-Germany/dp/1403965021?tag=amaz98-20]Amazon.com: From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (9781403965028): Richard Weikart: Books[/ame]
 

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