Eugenics

By Sfetcu, Nicolae

Book Id: WPLBN0100301791
Format Type: PDF eBook:
File Size: 0.1 MB
Reproduction Date: 2/4/2019

Title:	Eugenics
Author:	Sfetcu, Nicolae
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Non Fiction, Philosophy, Ethics
Collections:	Authors Community, Sociology
Historic Publication Date:	2019
Publisher:	MultiMedia Publishing

Member Page:	Nicolae Sfetcu
Citation APA MLA Chicago Sfetcu, B. N. (2019). Eugenics. Retrieved from http://gutenberg.cc/

Description
The main concern of the first eugenists, such as Karl Pearson and Walter Weldon of University College London , were the perceived intelligence factors considered to be correlated with the social class. In his speech "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics", Karl Pearson equates eugenics with a field of medicine. Some areas of medicine that are not commonly recognized as eugenic affect the human genes background. These include sterilization and surgical techniques that allow the functioning of reproductive organs. Even medicines that do not directly involve reproductive organs can alter the gene pool. Genetic abnormalities in such individuals are thus duplicated, modifying the genetic background. On this basis, such practices are widely accepted as more radical eugenic processes.

Summary
The main concern of the first eugenists, such as Karl Pearson and Walter Weldon of University College London , were the perceived intelligence factors considered to be correlated with the social class. In his speech "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics", Karl Pearson equates eugenics with a field of medicine. Some areas of medicine that are not commonly recognized as eugenic affect the human genes background. These include sterilization and surgical techniques that allow the functioning of reproductive organs. Even medicines that do not directly involve reproductive organs can alter the gene pool. Genetic abnormalities in such individuals are thus duplicated, modifying the genetic background. On this basis, such practices are widely accepted as more radical eugenic processes.

Excerpt
The term eugenics as a practice and field of study was invented by Francis Galton in 1883, in his book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (F. Galton 1983) based on the recent work of his cousin, Charles Darwin, the Mendelian genetics and August Weismann's theory of germ plasma, that says that hereditary information is transmitted only by germ cells from the gonads (ovaries and testicles), not somatic cells. (Blom 2008) Galton defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations." Eugenics was later described as a social movement to improve the human species by using technology. (Harding 2012) The term has a strong negative valence due to its historical connotations about selective reproductive programs, concentration camps, and medical experiments and mass extermination promoted by the German Nazi regime in the Second World War. (Sara 2014)