By Philippa Levine
In 1883, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the be aware "eugenics" to specific his dream of perfecting the human race via making use of the legislation of genetic heredity. Adapting Darwin's concept of evolution to human society, eugenics quickly turned a robust, overseas flow, devoted to utilizing the foundations of heredity and information to motivate fit and discourage dangerous copy. Early within the 20th century and internationally, medical professionals, social reformers, and politicians became to the hot technology of eugenics as a method to enhance and increase their populations. Eugenics advocates claimed their equipment may lead to more fit, more fit infants and may dramatically restrict human suffering.
The truth was once a distinct tale. within the identify of medical development and of human development, eugenicists distinctive the vulnerable and the in poor health, triggering coercive laws on concerns as disparate as race, gender, immigration, euthanasia, abortion, sterilization, intelligence, psychological disorder, and disorder keep watch over. Nationalists eagerly embraced eugenics as a way to legitimize their nations' superiority and racialized assumptions, and the Nazis notoriously used eugenics to form their "final solution."
In this lucid quantity, Philippa Levine tackles the tricky and debatable heritage of eugenics, masterfully synthesizing the large diversity of guidelines and experiments performed within the identify of eugenics all over the world through the 20th century. She questions the frequent trust that eugenics disappeared after international battle II and evaluates the influence of eugenics on present reproductive and genetic sciences. Charting the improvement of such debatable practices as man made insemination, sperm donation, and inhabitants keep an eye on, this booklet bargains a strong, terribly well timed mirrored image at the common interaction among genetics and ethics. Eugenics could now not be a family note, yet we believe its results even today.
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Extra resources for Eugenics: a very short introduction
Sample text
The scale was translated into Turkish in 1915 and Lithuanian in 1927, and was 31 Eugenic intelligence Binet and Simon’s scale was rapidly translated into many languages and was in use in Germany, Italy, and Belgium shortly after publication of the first test. Henry Goddard used an English translation of the Binet-Simon test at the Vineland School (founded in 1888 as the New Jersey Home for the Education and Care of Feebleminded Children) in 1908. By the 1920s psychometric testing was in use, if locally and spottily, in Switzerland and the Netherlands; across North America; and in Spain, Brazil, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, India, and South and East Africa.
Not only did it offer legitimacy from an official body, but it pioneered a cheaper mass product that did not require hands-on work with every test subject. Although the Army declined to continue testing after the war, the team created a National Intelligence Test in 1919 with the help of Rockefeller money. It was soon adopted by universities and businesses as well as schools and courtrooms. Within a year of publication, more than half a million copies had been sold. Eugenics The first analysis of the huge military datasets compiled between late 1917 and early 1919 appeared in a large volume issued by the National Academy of Sciences in 1921.
46 Chapter 3 Eugenic reproduction Driven by the dream of improving humanity down the generations, the management of reproduction was the core activity for which eugenics strived. Although they had many different visions, eugenicists all agreed that their central task was to create for the future a fitter world through healthier reproduction. That task began almost everywhere with marriage, one of the earliest and most widespread of eugenic crusades, and was designed to prevent the spread of diseases such as syphilis and tuberculosis and of hereditary defects, both physical and mental.