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Science, Eugenics, and Bioethics

Original Article

In the late nineteenth century, a movement emerged among scientists and physicians that advocated the improvement of human heredity. Francis Galton, a respected British scientist who founded this movement, named this new field of endeavor eugenics. Galton claimed that this field was founded on scientific principles. He first formulated his ideas about eugenics while reading the Origin of Species, written by his cousin Charles Darwin. In that book, Darwin argued that hereditary change together with natural selection would produce new species. Because eugenics was based on Darwinian theory, many eugenicists feared that modern institutions, such as medicine and social welfare, were spawning biological degeneration among humans. By softening the struggle for existence, modern society allowed the “inferior” to reproduce. The purpose of eugenics was to reverse this degenerative trend, so humans could foster evolutionary progress instead.

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Richard Weikart

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Richard Weikart is Emeritus Professor of History, California State University, Stanislaus, and author of seven books, including From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler’s Ethic, The Death of Humanity, and Hitler’s Religion. His most recent book is Darwinian Racism: How Darwinism Influenced Hitler, Nazism, and White Nationalism (2022). His PhD dissertation, Socialist Darwinism, earned the biennial prize of the Forum for History of Human Sciences as best dissertation in that field. He has lectured at many universities and other venues in the US and Europe. He also has been interviewed on dozens of radio shows, podcasts, and TV, and appeared in seven documentaries, including Expelled. Some of his lectures and interviews are available on YouTube.