Hitler Eugenics Research Paper

Eugenics was introduced by sir Francis galton who, interestingly enough, was a cousin of Charles Darwin. It began as a way to better the human race and stop negative genetic traits from continuing on generation to generation. Eugenics may have started out as a way to better humans but it became something much worse.

Lack of scientific knowledge about genetic biology was the primary reason why eugenics movement died out towards the latter half of the 20th century. It was concluded that there was actually no significant way to identify “fit” families. The eugenics movement unjustly called people unfit without reason. The primary downside to the eugenics movement in the United States is that scientist paid too much attention to the genetic correlations between class and genes, but rarely looked at the environmental factors that affected the class. Essentially what the eugenics movement did was called families that were alcoholics and thieves due to your genes. An argument could have been very easily made that these families were

According to Edwin Black, eugenics is “the effort to create a white, blue-eyed, blond-haired, Nordic master race in the United States, and wipe away the existence of everyone who did not fit that ideal”. Black goes further by explaining the implementation of this ideal, saying “Now who did they want to wipe away? They wanted to wipe away Mexicans, Italians. They wanted to wipe away the Asians the Jews, those who they believed were feeble minded, the Deaf, the poor.”

Eugenics is a taboo science, but back in 1883 it was a modern advancement, discovered by Francis Galton (Carlson). Galton’s original mission was to improve humanity by encouraging the best and healthiest couples to simply have more children; Galton created positive eugenics (Carlson). However, with the positive comes the inevitable negative. Negative Eugenics was more set on preventing the least able from reproducing, in order to preserve the fitness of the

History throughout the United States has multiple positive and negative attributions that reflect onto today’s society. One circumstance that has been partially neglected was the eugenics movement in America; the notion of eugenics occurring in the United States is infrequently brought up today. According to Dr. Laura Rivard, the average person most likely does not even know what eugenics is. An English intellectual named of Francis Galton is responsible for starting this movement. Eugenics can briefly be defined as exploiting the fundamentals of genetics and heredity for the benefit of superiorizing the human race.

Future eugenicists can extort their knowledge and use it to their advantage. Eugenics is an interesting subject that is co-dependent on society; the future holds great possibilities for acknowledgment in this field of science.

The Idea of eugenics became popular and moved forward in the United Sates during the 1920 for several reasons. The first being the disconnection to Europe; the United States did not have a connection to what was occurring in Europe with Nazi concentration camps. The idea and popularity of eugenics also pre dates those events. It wasn’t till World War II that the United States then lost some of its belief in eugenics.

The world is well aware that the acts of the Nazis were atrocious. This is not something one has to affirm, and is due, in large part, to an understanding of World War II and Hitler’s attempts to achieve “Aryan” purity. Germans have taken responsibility and shown remorse for their government’s actions. The United States’ role as leaders in the eugenics movement of the early 1900’s remains unknown by most Americans, even to many American scholars. The American eugenics movement, is at least partially responsibility for Hitler’s actions, at it laid

Before analyzing history, the term Eugenics should first be defined. The term “eugenics” was defined by Sir Francis Galton. He quoted, “EUGENICS is the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage” (Galton 1904). In a simple form, he meant that Eugenics is a movement

There is much bias and confusion surrounding the topic of eugenics. Many times the reason for this is the lack of understanding of what the term means, where it states “In 1883, Sir Francis Galton, a respected British scholar, and cousin of Charles Darwin, first used the term eugenics, meaning ‘well-born.’ (Genetics Generation, 2015).” This term has evolved to encompass more than just “well-born” as can be seen in the encyclopedia. “The eleventh edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica defines eugenics as ‘the organic betterment of the race through wise application of the laws of heredity.’ (Court, 2004).” The meaning of the word eugenics, due to the way it has been used, confuses many people.

In 1833, Francis Galton coined the word eugenics, which means “good in birth” or “noble in heredity” in Greek (Selgelid 2013:3). Galton stated that those who were more suitable would prevail over the ones who were less suitable (Yudell 2011:4). The term eugenics is split into two different categories, positive and negative. When you are classified in the positive eugenics it means that you have desirable traits and they would want to use those traits to reproduce and increase the overall status of human beings. However, if you were in negative classification of eugenics, that indicates that the traits that you obtained as a human were not seen as “suitable”. Because those traits were not then as suitable, you were denied the right to reproduce by the force of sterilization, it generally affected criminals and those with mental disorders. This movement was prominent in North America. However, in Nazi Germany, they applied this ideology to create a desired civilization and as a result millions of people died (Yudell 2011:4). This horrific use of eugenics demonstrates how it was used to enforce prejudice attitudes and discriminating behaviours. Genetic testing for prenatal screening is used for the parent’s knowledge if their child will have a genetic condition or impairment. If it turns out the fetus does, the parents have the choice to abort the fetus or not. Some argue that this has the same premise as eugenics and it discriminates against individuals

Scientific racism continued to draw from the likings of anthropology, which eventually led to implementations of eugenics, compulsory sterilization, anti-miscegenation laws, and immigration restrictions in Europe and the United States after the Second World War in 1939. Hitler and the Nazi party made people see the dark side of eugenics after Hitler took things into his own hands believing that the Germanic race was the most superior; the master race, suitable for expulsion, enslavement or extermination and therefore needed to be selectively bred and ‘improved’. He enthusiastically started sterilization laws and restricted immigration. Six million people were killed under the Nazi regime on eugenic ground in attempt to justify eugenics and genocide on the grounds of inferiority. Eugenics became a global embarrassment and created a large re-think within society, discrediting scientific racism in academia as they were outraged by one of histories most horrific mass murder being justified because of a desired inequality between races, however racist legislation based upon scientific racism remain prevalent in some countries until the late

Eugenics Sterilization, developed by an eminent scientist, Francis Galton, is the science of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by controlling breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristic traits and decrease the occurrence of undesirable characteristic traits or genetical defects (Bergman, 2000). Eugenic sterilization refers to the involuntary sterilization of certain categories of individuals without their need for consent by those subjected to the procedure (Pozgar, 2012, p. 411). Eugenic Sterilization has ruined thousands of lives and impacted individual in multiple ways.

The definition of eugenics is to breed out undesirable traits. Based off of Austrian scientist Gregor Mendel’s studies, eugenics is accomplished through selective breeding. Dominant traits would replace recessive traits and the law of dominance would be ineffective. Originally, the idea behind eugenics was not completely bad. Over time though, problems surrounding it have been found. Dealing with positive and negative traits, questions have been asked about what constitutes as a negative trait and who decides which traits are

The roots of eugenics can be traced back to Britain in the early 1880’s when Sir Francis Galton generated the term from the Greek word for “well-born”. He defined eugenics as the science of improving stock, whether human or animal. According to the American Eugenics Movement, today’s study of eugenics has many similarities to studies done in the early 20th century. Back then, “Eugenics was, quite literally, an effort to breed better human beings – by encouraging the reproduction of people with "good" genes and discouraging those with "bad" genes.” (www.eugenicsarchive.org) According to Merriam-Webster, the modern day definition of eugenics is, a science that deals with the improvement (as by control of human mating) of