Eugenics if no Hitler

[Alfred001]

I was reading about eugenics and was shocked how much support it apparently had and how widely accepted it was in early 20th century. There wasn't at all an outrage, apparently, about it.

There's this quote from wikipedia:

 

 

n the United States, the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular
and political support by the end of the 1930s while forced
sterilizations mostly ended in the 1960s with the last performed in
1981.

 

In 1981 a sterilization was performed in US!!!

 

So apparently eugenics started becoming taboo after the Nazis, and it just got me thinking, what do you think would have happened had the Nazis never happened?

Again, today, we are revolted by the notion of eugenics, but, apparently, then, it didn't raise an eyebrow, so what would have changed it had it not been for the Nazis. What if eugenics were to have proceeded exclusively in a "civil" manner of just sterilizing folks?

[EdEarl]

IMO, there would have been a civil rights movement to prevent it. When, IDK.

[ajb]

So apparently eugenics started becoming taboo after the Nazis, and it just got me thinking, what do you think would have happened had the Nazis never happened?

It is hard to say, but I imagine that one could make scientific studies of race, eugenics and similar without the fear of being branded a "Nazi". The question must be has this slowed down the development of medical science?

[John Cuthber]

Science has done the research. The concept of "race" has been largely discredited.

So, the effect of the taboo was to delay proving the non- existence of something which nobody was researching.

Not sure how that could have slowed medical science done at all.

[ajb]

So, the effect of the taboo was to delay proving the non- existence of something which nobody was researching.

Looks like you have answered my question!

[Moontanman]

Was eugenics strictly a racial thing? I know Black people were experimented on more than most due to their lack of rights as human beings but the term eugenics isn't attached to race necessarily is it?

[EdEarl]

Was eugenics strictly a racial thing? I know Black people were experimented on more than most due to their lack of rights as human beings but the term eugenics isn't attached to race necessarily is it?

I think it was not intended to be racial, but bigots used it as if it were. Blacks may be been experimented on more in the US than others, but I think Nazis focused on Jews and handicapped people.

.

[Delta1212]

Was eugenics strictly a racial thing? I know Black people were experimented on more than most due to their lack of rights as human beings but the term eugenics isn't attached to race necessarily is it?

Eugenics largely deals with manipulating the genome towards (someone's idea of) perfection. That is, and was even moreso at the time, defined largely by someone's personal bias as to what represents a "good" quality. And, again especially then but even now, a lot of people would base their idea of a perfect human on racial differences, at least in part.

 

Eugenics is entirely based on subjective criteria for what makes an idealized human, and it is very difficult to remove racial bias from the equation when determining what an ideal human is as a result.

[krash661]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I_-j2S-QNk

 

when will people learn race of human species is irrelevant to anything.

[John Cuthber]

Probably about the same time they realise that biodiversity is good for humans too.

[SamBridge]

Again, today, we are revolted by the notion of eugenics, but, apparently, then, it didn't raise an eyebrow, so what would have changed it had it not been for the Nazis. What if eugenics were to have proceeded exclusively in a "civil" manner of just sterilizing folks?

Regardless of who says it, Eugenics is still merely a petty bias in personal standards of who deserves to live and die or if not death, who deserves to be born in what specific way from arbitrary selection. If you truly think humanity needs to evolve, then let evolution take it's course itself, it's been around for 3.8 billion years and it obviously doesn't need help. That's what I say anyway, and similar lines are likely what many would say, it would most likely be deemed unethical through the UN if Hitler never came to power seeing how something like human cloning is deemed unethical.

Edited May 29, 2013 by SamBridge

[Ringer]

Regardless of who says it, Eugenics is still merely a petty bias in personal standards of who deserves to live and die or if not death, who deserves to be born in what specific way from arbitrary selection. If you truly think humanity needs to evolve, then let evolution take it's course itself, it's been around for 3.8 billion years and it obviously doesn't need help. That's what I say anyway, and similar lines are likely what many would say, it would most likely be deemed unethical through the UN if Hitler never came to power seeing how something like human cloning is deemed unethical.

While I agree with most of what you're saying there is a flaw in your logic. The people who promoted positive and negative eugenics didn't tend to care about the actual scientific evidence, and only tried to promote ideology by cutting and pasting. It's tough to have a coherent argument with people like that because most of the time evidence doesn't matter.