Why Is Galton's Eugenic Vision Of Breeding Out Of The Human Race

After delving deeper into the study of heredity, Galton proposed a eugenic vision consisting of breeding “undesirable traits” out of the human race. Because Galton supposed that characteristics such as talent and intellect were genetically determined — not environmentally — he thought it would be possible to construct a society consisting of only the most “moral" and intelligent humans. In 1904, Galton said, “what nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.” Galton wanted to breed ignorance, physical deformities, and mental deficiencies out of the worldwide population, expecting crime rates to be lowered. Interestingly, if Galton envisioned a nation lacking extreme traits, like tallness or obesity,
Not only did Galton’s eugenic vision of outbreeding the inferior apply to those with physical or intellectual ailments, but he also wanted to “give to the more suitable races… a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.” As a white man from an esteemed family of bankers, Galton believed that the human population would fare better if all families resembled his own. In a letter to The Times in 1873, he wrote that “the gain would be immense” if wealthy, white people worked together to “outbreed and finally displace” the native Africans. In 1904, Galton instituted a research fellowship program at the University College London, called the Eugenics Record Office, and in the following year, in 1905, Galton’s followers created a branch in the Record Office named the German Society for Race Hygiene. There, Galton and his supporters tried to quantify the superiority of the white race, basing their reasoning on Darwin’s hypotheses. However, even though Galton was supported by some, he also faced opposition due to his racism. For example, Benjamin Kidd, a British sociologist, said that Galton’s “eugenic practices might renew, in the name of science, tyrannies that it took long ages of social revolution to emerge from.” For
Adolf Hitler (1889-1949, leader of the Nazi Party and the Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, wanted to ethnically cleanse the German race of the “unfit” — such as Jews, gypsies, and disabled people — in pursuit of a homogenous Aryan nation. Hitler was quite similar to Galton in that he believed undesirable traits could be bred out of a nation. The Nazis enacted many laws to pursue this, such as banning marriages between the “hereditarily healthy” and those genetically “unfit,” prohibiting Jews in universities, research institutes, and hospitals, banning “genetic poisons” (like alcohol and tobacco) that the Nazis claimed to be linked to birth defects, and forcing those with “genetic diseases” such as feeblemindedness and schizophrenia to be sterilized. By 1939, Jews were forcibly removed from their homes and put into ghettos simply because they were not of the Aryan race. Eventually, Jews were put in labor and concentration camps, and millions of Jews were killed by the means of gas, cremation, gunfire, or other horrific methods. Not only were Jews the targets of mass murder, but as were other racial minorities, gypsies, homosexuals, and those with mental illnesses or physical deformities. Defected infants were evaluated and — usually before even examined by a physician — were selected to be killed. From 1939 to 1945, more than 5,000 boys and girls were killed at