Eugenics Pros And Cons

Eugenics: Diversity Beware Eugenics is a word derived from the roots of the Greek words meaning “good” and “origin,” and originated from the author Francis Galton in the year 1869, in his book Hereditary Genius (Bouche and Rivard 2014). Eugenics is a form of artificial selection, and is the science of enhancing a population, specifically human populations, through regulated breeding of only those who are perceived to contain superior genes (Bouche and Rivard 2014). The idea behind the use of eugenics is to implement control over the desired traits to be inherited by the next generation of offspring, while less desired traits will not be passed down. Eugenics has a sordid history. It has been used in the past to justify mass genocides and forced sterilizations of whole populations of people, but today the human desire
Although the beginnings of eugenics were to create generations with only desired traits and to selectively breed only those believed to be genetically elite, it led to new forms of scientific thought and medical advances. Francis Galton and other advocates of eugenics, all had this notion that through selective breeding over many generations, the ideal society, or Utopia could be achieved through “the physical ‘improvement of mankind’” (Ruhr-Universitaet-Bochum 2016.) According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Utopia is defined as “an ideal commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions.” (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica 2009.) Eugenics was seen to be the key to achieving a utopian society because it would breed out all the diseased, unintelligent, disabled, and generally undesirable people, and leave only the strongest, intelligent, and all-around perfect specimens of the species. The goal of eugenics, from Francis Galton and the original advocates, of reaching a utopian society may have been the same, but