Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Provided from editor : "In 1883, Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, coined the word "eugenics" to express his dream of perfecting the human race by applying the laws of genetic heredity. Adapting Darwin's theory of evolution to human society, eugenics soon became a powerful, international movement, committed to using the principles of heredity and statistics to encourage healthy and discourage unhealthy reproduction. Early in the twentieth century and across the world, doctors, social reformers, and politicians turned to the new science of eugenics as a means to improve and strengthen their populations. Eugenics advocates claimed their methods would result in healthier, fitter babies and would dramatically limit human suffering. The reality was a different story. In the name of scientific progress and of human improvement, eugenicists targeted the weak and the sick, triggering coercive legislation on issues as disparate as race, gender, immigration, euthanasia, abortion, sterilization, intelligence, mental illness, and disease control. Nationalists eagerly embraced eugenics as a means to legitimize their countries' superiority and racialized assumptions, and the Nazis notoriously used eugenics to shape their "final solution."

Eugenics

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Eugenics.

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

An A-to-Z overview of eugenics - one of the most controversial scientific and cultural movements of the last century Eugenics - the theory that we can improve future generations of humans through selective breeding - was one of the most controversial movements of the early 20th century. Often tied to racist beliefs and nativist desires to limit immigration, the eugenics movement attracted some of the most prominent scientists and social reformers of the day. This encyclopedia brings into one place concise descriptions of the leading figures, organizations, events, legislation, publications, concepts, and terms of this vitally important historical movement. Although focused on the United States during the heyday of the movement, the encyclopedia includes material on international events as well as connections to important contemporary issues such as genetic engineering, "family balancing," and the possibility of human cloning. Provides an A-to-Z overview of eugenics--the science of "improving" humans through heredity--one of the most controversial scientific and cultural movements of the last century. The Eugenics Movement covers almost 200 years of history and includes over 250 entries on such topics as: "inherited conditions" such as alcoholism, prostitution, poverty, and criminality that eugenicists thought could be eliminated by following eugenic methods; concepts such as "feeblemindedness," "race degeneracy," and "race suicide" that were pervasive during the era of the eugenics movement; tools that eugenicists relied on, such as laws that allowed forced sterilizations of the "unfit"; organizations that encouraged the "fit" to produce more children; the continued acceptance of attempts to improve future generations through genetic testing and treatment. The book includes photographs, a chronology of events, and an extensive bibliography of works for further information.. Examines a controversial aspect of scientific history. Discusses how contemporary controversies over genetic engineering relate to the eugenics theories of the past.

Eugenics

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Eugenics

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Since the publication of my work on Hereditary Genius in 1869, I have written numerous memoirs, which are scattered in various publications. They may have appeared desultory when read in the order in which they appeared, but as they had an underlying connection it seems worth while to bring their substance together in logical sequence into a single volume. I have revised, condensed, largely re-written, transposed old matter, and interpolated much that is new; but traces of the fragmentary origin of the work still remain. My general object has been to take note of the varied hereditary faculties of different men, and of the great differences in different families and races, to learn how far history may have shown the practicability of supplanting inefficient human stock by better strains, and to consider whether it might not be our duty to do so by such efforts as may be reasonable, thus exerting ourselves to further the ends of evolution more rapidly and with less distress than if events were left to their own course. The subject is, however, so entangled with collateral considerations that a straightforward step-by-step inquiry did not seem to be the most suitable course. I thought it safer to proceed like the surveyor of a new country, and endeavour to fix in the first instance as truly as I could the position of several cardinal points. The general outline of the results to which I finally arrived became more coherent and clear as this process went on"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved).

Eugenics.