Eugenics Flaws

Every country, at some point or another, has undergone a dramatic, cynical stage. This may come as a surprise, but the United States of America is no different. A country that prides itself on equality, liberty, and freedom used to be a dark, morbid place. This is a period that you never learn about in history books. It falls under the title of “Eugenics”. At the time, Eugenics seemed like a very reasonable, intelligent thing to support. Looking back upon it today, we can see that it was flawed, unreasonable, and completely corrupt. Eugenics, according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, is “a science that deals with the improvement of hereditary qualities of a race or breed”. The people of this movement believed that flawed qualities

These close-minded people were very naïve, and unable to comprehend the complexity of human genetics, said Norrgard There was one famous pedigree at the time that was titled “Human Mental, Moral, and Physical Traits Inherited in Same Manner as Coat Color in Guinea Pigs” (Allen).There is absolutely no way that the complex human body is comparable to a guinea pigs coat color. A second flaw in Eugenics research is that the scientists focused on mental and behavioral traits. These are very subjective and hard to measure. IQ tests were commonly given, and the results were then falsely accepted as being an accurate measure if one was “fit” or “unfit” (Allen). The majority of the facts were obtained by unreliable sources. Eugenic research concluded that daily conditions like diets, customs, and routines would affect someone’s genes (Allen). This was based on the data that fruit flies undergo genetic changes at temperature changes. There is something seriously wrong with using guinea pigs and fruit flies to explain human genetics but they didn’t seem to think so at the

Now that there was research to support these genetic flaws, experts proceeded to take action to prevent genetic from occurring. Sterilization laws were created. Sterilization focused on the defective people whose reproduction represents a menace to society (Genetics Generation). By the end of the sterilization phase, approximately 33 states had permitted the involuntary sterilization of over 60,000 Americans (Genetics Generation). Now, let us fast forward a bit in history. Do you remember learning about World War II? It was caused by Nazi Germany, under leadership of Adolf Hitler, trying to eradicate the Jewish race. Well, most people view this time as being an unforgivable chain of events. However, the Nazi party actually received their ideas of racial sorting from the American Eugenics Movement (Black). It was this time in America that inspired some of Hitler’s