re: #642 Mr Secul

The 20th century is full of examples of the two great evils — communism and fascism — misusing their own versions of “science” to support hideous social experiments centered on state coercion. There is NO DOUBT that the eugenics movement was based on an understanding of Darwin. Why was there no doubt? Because Francis Galton, Darwin’s kin was its founder
and explicitly identified Darwinism as its basis.

Rather than go to Hitler, why don’t we discuss some of the more popular US figures who supported eugenics for explicitly Darwinian reasons. When Oliver Wendall Holmes wrote in support of the sterilization of the mentally infirm in the US he wrote, “Three generations of idiots are enough.” His decision was based on culling “bad genes”.

Jonah Goldberg does an excellent job of discussing how the intelligentsia at Yale wanted to cull the bottom 5 percent of the US population by offering a welfare system in exchange for sterilization. This they thought would increase the average IQ of the nation making us “more fit”. Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist who wanted to provide contraception so that there would b e fewer “stupid people” and avoid having to provide compulsory abortions.

Much of this history has been rewritten in light of subsequent events.

None of it has anything to do with t he truth or falsity of evolutionary theory.