Smart people can have really bad ideas – like selectively breeding human beings to improve the species. Put into practice, Galton's concept proved discriminatory, damaging, even deadly.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Eugenics
Displaying 1 - 20 of 38 articles
Is it really necessary to identify gifted children?
As editor of the magazine for 24 years, Du Bois featured articles about biology, evolution, archaeology in Africa and more to refute the rampant scientific racism of the early 20th century.
Concerned about the state of marriage – and thus the ability of whites to procreate – eugenicists were behind some of the earliest modern marriage manuals.
The US has a long history of forced sterilization campaigns that were driven by the bogus 'science' of eugenics, racism and sexism.
CRISPR isn't a tool to fix social problems.
To confront colonialism, universities must open their archives and let communities see their pasts, eugenics and all.
One judge must not be allowed to curtail parliament’s power to promote broader societal interests and protect people who are elderly, ill and disabled.
Imagine a future society where parents can choose the characteristics of their children. Does that turn babies into consumer products., and what choice does the child get?
Recent revelations of the coerced sterilization of Indigenous women in Canada are part of a long, complex and disturbing history -- in which feminism became a fight to keep one's own children.
A Chinese scientist has revealed he edited the DNA of twin girls born through in vitro fertilization. These girls are designed to be resistant to HIV. Is the edit a medical necessity or an enhancement?
If those who survive are the fittest, does that also make them the best? And if so, is engineering 'better' babies just evolution, or another step in a long history of eugenics?
Since US universities once stood at the forefront of the eugenics movement and its racist ideas, they should right the wrongs of the past by pursuing diversity on campus, two scholars argue.
It's been 100 years since a book written by Marie Stopes revolutionsed the way that people talked about sex.
About 20,000 Californians were once sterilized under state eugenics laws. New research shows Latinos were disproportionately targeted. Is there any opportunity today to address these wrongs?
What might first seem unarguable starts to look shaky when you bring twins into the equation.
Le Guin's father, Alfred Kroeber, was at a forefront of a movement that rejected social Darwinism and cultural superiority. In his daughter's fiction, we see these ideas come to life.
The Victorians believed that the shape and size of the skull could reveal details about a person’s demeanour. Now it's been put to the test.
Organic farming has roots in 20th century fascism, challenging the assumption that environmentalism and progressive politics are symbiotic.
From a certain perspective, we're already on the road to practicing a 'progressive eugenics' not a million miles away from what was imagined historically.
Top contributors
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PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge
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Honorary Senior Fellow, Department of Anatomy and Neuroscience, University of Melbourne; Associate, Centre for Health Law and Society, La Trobe University, University of Melbourne
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Richard Gunderman is a Friend of The Conversation.
Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
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Professor of Public Ethics, Centre for Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University
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Director of Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire
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Professor of Sexual Politics, University of Melbourne
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Visiting Professor in Biomedical Ethics, Murdoch Children's Research Institute; Distinguished Visiting Professor in Law, University of Melbourne; Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
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Lecturer in History of Medicine/Life Science, University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor in Law, University of Sydney
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Professor of Philosophy, La Trobe University
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Professor Emeritus of Applied Philosophy, Glasgow Caledonian University
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Professor of Health and Social Policy, University of Liverpool
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Lecturer in Education, University of Sheffield
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Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside
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Research Fellow in the History of Medicine, University of Oxford
