**Trigger Warning: This post discusses eugenics, forced sterilizations, and the Holocaust
While reading the chapter, “Science, Space and Nature,” in Interdisciplinarity, one topic I found interesting was the idea of social Darwinism. Charles Darwin used his Four Postulates to explain the concept of evolution. In order for a population to evolve, there must be variation between individuals in the environment, these variations are heritable, there must be more offspring produced than can survive to reproduce, and the individuals that do reproduce have the most fit genes to survive. Evolution is almost unanimously accepted by the scientific community as true. In the late 19th century, scholars began applying these concepts to human society, calling it Social Darwinism. Theoretically, the individuals most fit to survive will be the ones to reproduce, meaning they will pass on their “superior” genes. Although Darwin did not want to apply natural selection to humans, many people did anyway. They argued that groups of people are subject to the same laws of natural selection as plants or animals. They used this logic to justify imperialism, political conservatism, and the domination of “savage” peoples.
I am currently taking an evolutionary biology class, and one of the topics that we discussed is the history of the science of eugenics. Eugenics is the idea that one can improve the human population by controlling breeding and selecting for traits that are the most “favorable” heritable characteristics. This would encourage individuals with favorable traits to reproduce while other individuals, who may have low IQ, a genetic disorder, be a criminal, or in the case of the Nazis, be a disfavored minority group, are discouraged to reproduce.
In the late 19th century, scientist Francis Galton (who was actually cousins with Darwin) hoped to better mankind with the spread of the British elite. His ideas never really took hold in England, but they did spread to the United States. In 1896, Connecticut made it illegal for anyone with epilepsy or who was “feeble-minded” to marry. In the early 1900’s, a biologist named Charles Davenport founded the the Eugenics Record Office (ERO) at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island “to improve the natural, physical, mental, and temperamental qualities of the human family.” These scientists were determined to eradicate the “undesirable” characters from the population, which lead them to push for the legalization of the forced sterilization of certain individuals. By 1931, 33 states legalized forced sterilizations. This led to over 64,000 people being sterilized against their will because they were disabled, a criminal, or poor. Eugenics occurred in the United States until 1976. Between 25 and 50 percent of Native Americans were sterilized between 1970 and 1976, and it’s thought some sterilizations happened without the individual’s consent during other surgical procedures such as an appendectomy. Some Native American mothers were even denied medical care to their children unless they agreed to be sterilized.
Although horrific, the American eugenics program pales in comparison to Adolf Hitler’s. He believed that non-Aryan races, such as Jews and gypsies, were “inferior” and should be eradicated at all costs, so the gene pool could be pure. By 1940, hundreds of thousands of Germans were either forcibly sterilized or killed if they were undesirable. This included Jews, people with mental or physical disabilities, if they were blind or deaf, and anyone else who didn’t fit Hitler’s idea of the superior race. In all, it is estimated over 11 million people were killed during the Holocaust in the name of eugenics.
After World War II forced sterilization still occurred, but eugenics lost most of its momentum. Modern eugenics, or human genetic engineering, is used to change or remove genes that could possibly cause disease or helps to improve the individual in some way. If perfected, this could allow many life threatening genetic illnesses to be cured. However, this could mean potentially getting rid of any trait a person finds undesirable. Many people believe a person has a right to be born regardless of disease.
Obviously, it is incredibly immoral for an individual to be sterilized or killed due to their traits. In Darwin’s publication of The Descent of Man, he states, “During many years I collected notes on the origin or descent of man, without any intention of publishing on the subject, by rather with the determination not to publish, as I thought that I should thus only add to the prejudices against my views.” He recognizes that the evolution of humans would be an very complex, controversial topic. Breakthroughs in modern genetics has the potential to save many lives, however it is important for scientists to reflect on the horrors caused by eugenics and be mindful not to repeat the past.
Citations:
Black, Edwin. “The Horrifying American Roots of Nazi Eugenics.” History News Network. N.p., Sept. 2003. Web. 28 Nov 2018. <http://hnn.us/article/1796>.
“Eugenics Movement Reaches Its Height 1923.” Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). N.p., 1998. Web. 28 Nov 2018.
Freeman, Scott, and Jon C. Herron. Evolutionary Analysis. Benjamin Cummings, 2012.
History.com Editors. “Eugenics.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Nov. 2017, www.history.com/topics/germany/eugenics.
Remsberg, Rich. “Found In The Archives: America’s Unsettling Early Eugenics Movement.” National Public Radio. N.p., 01 June 2011. Web. 28 Nov 2018.