What is Eugenics Anyway?

You Can Be Scientifically Superior To Everyone Else

How Eugenics Used Science to
Promote Fear in North America and Europe

A musical trip down culturally repressed memory lane with J. LeRoy

Eugenics Primer

J. LeRoy Eugenics Music Project

J. LeRoy Music

Links to Eugenics

Links to MP3 artists

Eugenics Primer

Eugenics was a pseudoscience given birth by Francis Galton in the mid 1800s (that's him up there). It taught that the human race could be improved by selective breeding and proper living. It took natural selection and religion and class consciousness and bigotry and made sort of a wacky pop-science pie out of them.

In the US, it swelled from the epicenter of Cold Spring Harbor - a genetics lab that is still in operation today and probably wishes Eugenics never happened. Among Eugenics' greatest hits were:

enforced sterilization of tens of thousands of genetically unfit people (blind, epileptic, habitual criminals, etc.)
institutionalization of generally fit people who had unwanted traits
sex education to teach young people (mostly women) of the dangers of risking their germ plasm on potential unfit mates
total biological / hereditary determinism - if your parents were rat eating child molesting bank robbing scuba divers, you too would be a rat eating child molesting bank robbing scuba diver.
divorce was perfectly acceptable if your mate might taint your otherwise nifty germ plasm
the aryan race was the best race ever
hygiene (sexual, mental, physical, etc.) -- a massive buzzword.

So Eugenics came along and disguised itself as a science. It used the methodologies and terminologies of anthropology, sociology, biology, criminology, psychology, medicine, chemistry, etc. to "prove" its assertions. And, to quote Frank Zappa, "The while people really like[d] it." Teddy Roosevelt liked it. The King of England liked it. Oliver Wendall Holmes liked it. It was hip. It was trendy.

So much so that there were these bizarre eugenics contests at state fairs where families would square off to prove who had the best pedigree. If I had a time machine, that would be a first stop for me.

So it was tremendously goofy and obviously methodologically flawed from the very beginning. But it was so reassuring to scared bigots - anxious to prove superiority in a way that allowed them to clense themselves with pity on the oppressed rather than scorn. Liberals did it. Conservatives did it. Communists did it. Capitalists did it. In general, those who didn't do it had it done to them.

So it bopped along, with the supreme court's blessing. Sterilizing people, incarcerating people and generally being a huge void in the world's ethics. All the way up until the mid 1930s when Hitler really got busy. By this time Mein Kampf was already 10 years old - but no one paid much attention. Until people noticed that Hitler's foundation was Eugenics.

Then we had World War II.

Then everyone forgot about Eugenics. But not until it had totally changed the world. In fact, they forgot about it to the point of denial. Until the 1970s, the state of Virginia regularly and routinely practiced sterilization of some types of "mental defectives". Even after this some people were unwillingly put through the treatment.

So, it is a very big part of world history. It had some positive impacts - better schools and institutions for the mentally challeneged, genetic and dna research, etc. But mostly its impacts were negative and ugly. Perhaps, to me, the most important thing about it is that it is our number one lesson to watch out for science with an agenda or science with questionable ethics.

	You Can Be Scientifically Superior To Everyone Else or How Eugenics Used Science to Promote Fear in North America and Europe
	A musical trip down culturally repressed memory lane with J. LeRoy

Eugenics Primer J. LeRoy Eugenics Music Project J. LeRoy Music Links to Eugenics Links to MP3 artists	Eugenics Primer Eugenics was a pseudoscience given birth by Francis Galton in the mid 1800s (that's him up there). It taught that the human race could be improved by selective breeding and proper living. It took natural selection and religion and class consciousness and bigotry and made sort of a wacky pop-science pie out of them. In the US, it swelled from the epicenter of Cold Spring Harbor - a genetics lab that is still in operation today and probably wishes Eugenics never happened. Among Eugenics' greatest hits were: enforced sterilization of tens of thousands of genetically unfit people (blind, epileptic, habitual criminals, etc.) institutionalization of generally fit people who had unwanted traits sex education to teach young people (mostly women) of the dangers of risking their germ plasm on potential unfit mates total biological / hereditary determinism - if your parents were rat eating child molesting bank robbing scuba divers, you too would be a rat eating child molesting bank robbing scuba diver. divorce was perfectly acceptable if your mate might taint your otherwise nifty germ plasm the aryan race was the best race ever hygiene (sexual, mental, physical, etc.) -- a massive buzzword. So Eugenics came along and disguised itself as a science. It used the methodologies and terminologies of anthropology, sociology, biology, criminology, psychology, medicine, chemistry, etc. to "prove" its assertions. And, to quote Frank Zappa, "The while people really like[d] it." Teddy Roosevelt liked it. The King of England liked it. Oliver Wendall Holmes liked it. It was hip. It was trendy. So much so that there were these bizarre eugenics contests at state fairs where families would square off to prove who had the best pedigree. If I had a time machine, that would be a first stop for me. So it was tremendously goofy and obviously methodologically flawed from the very beginning. But it was so reassuring to scared bigots - anxious to prove superiority in a way that allowed them to clense themselves with pity on the oppressed rather than scorn. Liberals did it. Conservatives did it. Communists did it. Capitalists did it. In general, those who didn't do it had it done to them. So it bopped along, with the supreme court's blessing. Sterilizing people, incarcerating people and generally being a huge void in the world's ethics. All the way up until the mid 1930s when Hitler really got busy. By this time Mein Kampf was already 10 years old - but no one paid much attention. Until people noticed that Hitler's foundation was Eugenics. Then we had World War II. Then everyone forgot about Eugenics. But not until it had totally changed the world. In fact, they forgot about it to the point of denial. Until the 1970s, the state of Virginia regularly and routinely practiced sterilization of some types of "mental defectives". Even after this some people were unwillingly put through the treatment. So, it is a very big part of world history. It had some positive impacts - better schools and institutions for the mentally challeneged, genetic and dna research, etc. But mostly its impacts were negative and ugly. Perhaps, to me, the most important thing about it is that it is our number one lesson to watch out for science with an agenda or science with questionable ethics.