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Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 |
the English liberal J. Bentham, his suggestion about the low class children in England:
"An inspection-house, to which a set of children had been consigned from their birth, might afford experiments enough. What say you to a foundling-hospital upon this principle?" Bentham, Works, vol. 4, p. 64.
[You] "may even clap them up in an inspection-house, and then you make of them what you please. You need never grudge the parents a peep behind the curtain in the master's lodge . . . you might keep up a sixteen or eighteen years separation between the male and female part of your young subjects" Bentham, Works, vol. 4, pp. 64-5.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.212.102.169 ( talk) 05:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
An editor added a "lead too long" clean up tage to the article, which I reverted. Cleanup tags represent the opinion of a single editor, and if they are disputed, they are not immune from the necessity of discussion, just like any other disputed edit.
I do not believe that the lead to this article is too long. Eugenics is a complex subject, and summarizing the complexities in a way that the reader can easily understand requires some length. I invite the editor to explain here why they think the lead is too long as specifically as possible. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 22:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Although I am loath to wade into this, I would like to see any academic support for the claim that eugenics is considered pseudoscience. For instance, the Annals of Human Genetics, a high impact factor good journal in the fields of genetics, use to be entitled the Annals of Eugenics and was renamed for political reasons. R. A. Fisher, one of the founders of modern evolutionary biology, was a prominent eugenicist. It would be quite odd to regard him as a Fringe or pseudoscientific voice. There is some room for nuanced debate here, but I am unaware of any consensus opinion in the field of human genetics condemning eugenics as pseudoscience. So could you provide any academic support for your opinions?
LarryBoy79 (
talk) 08:16, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
So, is anybody still trying to provide citations supporting the idea that geneticists consider eugenics psudoe-medicine? If some citation cannot be provided in the next week I'm inclined to just remove the side bar. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 08:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Carl Fredrik: You seem to be the most vocal opposition to the idea of removing the side bar. I've explained to you that I feel that the genetics community, by and large, does not view eugenics as pseudo-medicine, and provided a list of citations to modern discussions of eugenics within medical and genetic literature. I still do not understand why you feel so certain that geneticists consider eugenics pseudo-medicine. Will you please engage me in constructive discussion by articulating your position? LarryBoy79 ( talk) 14:35, 11 September 2018
Eugenics is an applied science based on genetics, similar to how engineering is an applied science based on physics. The fact that many past ideas in physics were wrong does not mean physics or engineering is pseudoscience. Similarly, the fact that many past ideas in genetics were wrong does not make genetics or eugenics pseudoscience.
The spectre of Hitler has led some scientists to stray from "ought" to "is" and deny that breeding for human qualities is even possible. But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not one-dimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice. - Richard Dawkins [1]
Dawkins, one of the 21st century's most famous evolutionary biologist, says eugenics is valid science. This link is in the article, and there are more links in the article that state eugenics is valid science than say it is a pseudoscience. I think some who say eugenics was and always will be pseudoscience, are confusing eugenics for Aryan race ideology. In the early twentieth century, the two ideologies overlapped in some ways, but they are just as distinguishable as the overlap between the Progressive Era and eugenics. Waters.Justin ( talk) 00:48, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Please only include reliable, preferably modern (post-1945) sources. Keep comments to a minimum. I'll confine myself to three sources for now, until someone else adds some. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 11:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Notes: I removed a reference to a newspaper article as non-notable. I think we should confine references to serious scholarly works only, preferably those that make a serious attempt to examine the veracity of eugenics, rather than simply mentioning it in passing within some other context. Some of the sources I've incorporated from PaleoNeonate's list are slightly more oblique than I would consider ideal, but I've incorporated them for now in order to fairly represent PaleoNeonate's contribution. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 09:19, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
What is unusual is the rejection of a theory that is essentially correct. It is my objective in this book to establish that this is what occurred in the twentieth century with regard to eugenics.
Richard Lynn, "Eugenics, A Reassessment"
It should be noted that Richard Lynn might be considered a fringe source. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 11:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Some opponents have dismissed eugenics as a pseudo-science that attracted extremists, but the reality is far more complicated. Were the movement that simple, it would perhaps have been short-lived and more limited, and it was anything but. Not only do we still find ourselves facing ethical arguments over reproduction and heredity today, but the huge reach of this movement—throughout the Americas and Asia, across Europe, and in the Middle East as well as the Pacific and parts of Africa—and its persistence in science and in social policy throughout the twentieth century, even after the defeat of Nazism, dictate that we take it seriously.
Philippa Levine, "Eugenics, A very short introduction."
The difficulty in evaluating the eugenics movement in retrospect is that because it is such an extreme embarrassment to American biological science, there is a strong tendency to ignore it, deny it, or revise it. Eugenics was, in fact, a mainstream movement in the scientific community, cross-cutting political lines in its utopian vision of a crime-free society. Virtually all members of the genetics community were in favor of eugenics through the mid-1920s.
It is a consequence of the movement’s popularity within the scientific community that eugenics was science, not pseudoscience [emphasis original]. If all the relevant scientists believed it, how could eugenics possibly be pseudoscience? If eugenics represented a corruption of certain scientific principles, it is hard to escape the conclusion, from simply examining the literature, that it was the scientists themselves who were the corruptors.
Kenneth Ludmerer, a historian of the movement, notes that of the founding members of the editorial board of the journal Genetics in 1916, every one was a supporter of eugenics. Indeed, “until the mid-1920’s no geneticist of note . . . publicly disputed [the claims of eugenics]."
One of the earliest notable biologists to fall away from eugenics was Columbia’s Thomas Hunt Morgan. While Princeton’s E. G. Conklin was laying out the platform of eugenics without the evangelical zeal of other scientists . . . .
Jonathan Marks, "Human Biodiversity, Genes, Race, and History."
Providing explanations for social inequalities as being rooted in nature is a classic pseudoscientific occupation. It has always been welcome, for it provides those in power with a natural validation of their social status. This was as true at the turn of the twentieth century as it is at the turn of the twenty-first-the groups change as the social issues evolve, but the arguments remain eerily unaltered.
Jonathan Marks, "Human Biodiversity, Genes, Race, and History."
Political opposition to eugenic breeding of humans sometimes spills over into the almost certainly false assertion that it is impossible. Not only is it immoral, you may hear it said, it wouldn’t work. Unfortunately, to say that something is morally wrong, or politically undesirable, is not to say that it wouldn’t work. I have no doubt that, if you set your mind to it and had enough time and enough political power, you could breed a race of superior body-builders, or high-jumpers, or shot-putters; pearl fishers, sumo wrestlers, or sprinters; or (I suspect, although now with less confidence because there are no animal precedents) superior musicians, poets, mathematicians or wine-tasters. The reason I am confident about selective breeding for athletic prowess is that the qualities needed are so similar to those that demonstrably work in the breeding of racehorses and carthorses, of greyhounds and sledge dogs. The reason I am still pretty confident about the practical feasibility (though not the moral or political desirability) of selective breeding for mental or otherwise uniquely human traits is that there are so few examples where an attempt at selective breeding in animals has ever failed, even for traits that might have been thought surprising. Who would have thought, for example, that dogs could be bred for sheep-herding skills, or ‘pointing’, or bull-baiting?
You want high milk yield in cows, orders of magnitude more gallons than could ever be needed by a mother to rear her babies? Selective breeding can give it to you. Cows can be modified to grow vast and ungainly udders, and these continue to yield copious quantities of milk indefinitely, long after the normal weaning period of a calf. As it happens, dairy horses have not been bred in this way, but will anyone contest my bet that we could do it if we tried? And of course, the same would be true of dairy humans, if anyone wanted to try. All too many women, bamboozled by the myth that breasts like melons are attractive, pay surgeons large sums of money to implant silicone, with (for my money) unappealing results. Does anyone doubt that, given enough generations, the same deformity could be achieved by selective breeding, after the manner of Friesian cows?
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, 2009.
Deleet ( talk) 00:41, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
The literature on pseudoscience has focused on idiosyncrasy in the treatment of the evidential aspects of rational belief. We have not spent much time analyzing idiosyncrasies in the treatment of values. The fact that values have some role means that the ways theories of rational belief can go wrong are more varied than the literature has tended to address. If we cannot simply dismiss the influence of values as distortion, then we have to tease out the range of potentially legitimate influences and point out idiosyncrasies where they can be identified. Further complications arise when we consider the interaction of values and evidence as warranted by some theories.
... If values have a proper input to rational inquiry, it is easier to understand how mistakes could be made and lead to improper inputs. For example, it is hard for us now to understand the acceptance of eugenic “science.” When, however, we consider the values that scientists held, it makes more sense. The belief was that science was not ethically neutral, but that it was on the side of progress for humanity. From there the belief in “scientifically” engineering the biological progress of humans was not so far, at least rhetorically speaking.
Nicholas Shackel, Philosophy of Pseudoscience Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Edited by Boudry and Pigliucci
His findings were surprising, even to Boas. As he expected, the behavior of the Sicilians after 10 years in the United States was markedly different than their behavior upon arrival. This cultural change was most profound among the children, many of whom behaved in ways identical to children whose families had been in America for generations. Clearly, cultural behavior was the product of the environment, and was independent of biology. The part of the study that was most unexpected, even to Boas, was that even the biology was subject to change. Cephalic index, once thought to be a static identifier of race, also changed among the Sicilian immigrants. Again, the most profound changes occurred among the children. Even biology, it seemed, was subject to modification from the environment.
Paul F. Brown, 21st century anthropology a reference hand book. Edited by Brix
An alternative way to view the effects that biotechnology and genetic engineering could have on a modern population requires the natural manipulation of individuals through human intervention (using eugenics and euthenics or proliferagenics). The desired or beneficial genetic results can now be accelerated with genetic engineering.
From a historical perspective, humankind long ago began to alter the process of natural selection of animals and plants to yield beneficial results. Now, with the advent of genetic engineering, humankind has the ability to accelerate that process even more. In fact, one can speculate that humankind may eventually possess control over its own evolution.
The possibility that humankind may have direct control over its own evolution, by using genetic engineering and DNA nanotechnology, is known as emerging teleology.
John K. Grandy, 21st century anthropology a reference hand book. Edited by Brix
A breif comment on this one: It is interesting to note that Grandy's definition of emerging teleolgy, "that humankind may have direct control over its own evolution, by using genetic engineering and DNA nanotechnology" is virtually identical to the definition emblazoned on the logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference "Eugenics is the self direction of human evolution". Lending support to Black's claim that human genetics is simply eugenics re-branded. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 10:05, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
After Hitler, eugenics did not disappear. It renamed itself. What had thrived loudly as eugenics for decades quietly took postwar refuge under the labels human genetics and genetic counseling.
The transition was slow and subtle and spanned decades. Some defected from American eugenics as early as the twenties, prompted by a genuine revulsion over a movement that had deteriorated from biological utopianism into a campaign to destroy entire groups. For others who defected in the thirties and early forties, it was the shock of how Adolf Hitler applied eugenics. For America’s eugenic holdouts, it was only the fear of guilt by scientific association with genocide that reshaped their memories and guided their new direction.
Edwin Black, War Against the Weak
Eugenic belief presupposes that there are superior and inferior ehtnic groups; it also holds that both physical and metaphysical characterisitcs of an individul or “race” are determined by the quality and character of their ancestory. Whatever chaacterisitcs a person or groups is born with are predetemined and permanent: no amount of social amelioration can change a persons's circumstances. …. Once thought of as “good science”, the tenets of eugenics have since been shown to be baseless and without merit from either a scientific or humanistic point of view.
Brian Regal, Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia
I concur that the discussion on the appropriateness alternative medical sidebar is not productive, but I think we need to concentrate on how it would be possible to build consensus. I'd like to make a clear statement of my position to avoid confusion: I believe that we should remove the sidebar labeling eugenics as pseudoscience. I would argue against categorizing eugenics as pseudo-science because it is unarguable that humans are genetically changing over time, and that we could, at least in theory, direct that genetic change in some directions that we desire. R=h^2*s, a basic equation of quantitative genetics, means that any trait with (narrow-sense) heritable variation will respond to selection, no matter how ineptly that selection is applied. Now, surely much of the historical eugenics literature was really just racism masquerading as science, and therefore it is tempting to label eugenics as a whole as pseudoscience, but I think we need to be careful not to imply that humans are somehow exempt from the evolutionary laws that govern other species. While it may be appropriate to label eugenics as pseudo-science within a paragraph carefully discussing what is meant by that classification, I'm afraid that a sidebar classifying eugenics as pseudo-science will imply that taking the top 20% of tallest, most athletic, or most musically gifted humans would fail to produce a cohort of h^2*20% taller, more athletic, or more musically gifted humans in a casual readers mind. We know that a huge variety of human traits have robust heritabilities, and you can equivocate about what eugenics really is, but I think most people will come away believing that you couldn’t change quantitative traits in human populations through selective breeding even if you wanted to. I feel that I have done my duty to the community and presented my honest, informed opinion, and presented a shallow but not unrepresentative list of citations, and been met only with dismissive attacks which place my position beyond the window of debate. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 13:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
It’s clear that America is under a coordinated, communist-influenced techno-tyranny ATTACK that’s systematically taking down all pro-Trump, pro-America content.
[…]
We are in a state of war. We are under an intense, coordinated attack being run by hate-filled, anti-America tyrants and co-conspirators. They have decided that no one will be allowed to speak unless they support the globalist destruction of the American Republic.
— http://www.freedom.news/2018-08-14-infowars-down-alex-jones-issues-red-alert-coordinated-treason-attack-on-america-under-way-right-now.html
So here are some related sources (not all necessarily using "pseudoscience"):
... was based on the pseudoscience of eugenics ...
Clearly, cultural behavior was the product of the environment, and was independent of biology.Other interesting pages: 77, 250, 379-382, 669, 887, 941, 961-968
— Paleo Neonate – 15:28, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Finally, equating Aspergers with psychopathy is offensive, and potentially harmful to people with Aspergers.This, in particular is possibly the worst offender. How you could read my comments and come away with the impression that I was "equating" the two is simply unfathomable to me. It's an ignorant comment on other levels as well, but you can be forgiven for not knowing that I have been diagnosed with borderline Asperger's syndrome myself. If you want to contribute to this discussion, you really need to work on your ability to read and comprehend what others are saying. I'm not trying to be rude, but your comments here are just completely off base and entirely out of left field. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:24, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the idea that science is whatever scientist do is rather reasonableMost scientists fuck. Therefore, fucking is science, and thus the most accomplished scientist in the history of mankind is some well-hung drunk with a medical history that reads like a comprehensive list of STDs repeating a pick up line in a bar somewhere for the five thousands time. Think on that. I may or may not respond to the rest of your comment later, but you should really read WP:CRUSH and sealioning and understand that the other editors here have read them multiple times and know how to respond to them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
You claim that “The logic contained with it is not that of Marks, but of the supporters of eugenics whom he was channeling...” is simply false. Are you perhaps looking at a pdf and think that the block quote given on page 85 is continuing onto page 86? It does not.You need to read both the source and my comment far more carefully. Seriously. I don't care what's on page 85, I didn't read it (today, anyways). I started reading the book at page 86, and read it in context by reading what prefaces the quote and continuing to read to see what is said in authorial voice afterwords. So I found further quotes such as "While Princeton's E. G. Conklin was layoing out the platform of eugenics without the evangelical seal of other scientists in Heredity and Environment, he was nevertheless thoroughly uncritical of its central assumptions of racial rankings, immigration restriction and feeblemindedness." Remember this is Marks, we're talking about here. Further, Marks goes on to quote Thomas Hunt Morgan as saying "our familiarity with the process of social inheritance is responsible, in part, for a widespread inclination to accept uncritically every claim that is advanced as furnishing evidence that bodily and mental changes are also transmitted." and "competent specialists are needed to push forward scientific investigation- since other methods have signally failed." and finally "I believe that they will not much longer leave their problems in the hands of amateurs and alarmists, whose stock in trade is to gain notoriety by an appeal to human fears and prejudices-an appeal to the worst and not to the best sides of our nature."
{{
Alternative medicine sidebar|fringe}}
was put near the top of this article, then moved to near the bottom with the rest of the nav stuff, then removed. The issue I have is that this article is in the navbox, and it's standard operating procedure to thus put it on this page somewhere. Multiple people (self included) object to having it near the top. So, absent some compelling
WP:IAR rationale, it either needs to be put back near the page bottom, or this article needs to be removed from the navbox. I lean toward the latter, since it's a poor fit, topically.
Alternative medicine refers to medical beliefs and practices, not to politicized "improving the race" (or "improving our race in particular") stuff just because it sometimes incidentally involves something medical, like forced sterilization. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 13:31, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
The template: {{ Fringe medicine and conspiracy theories sidebar}} has been changed. Please comment, Richard Keatinge, Maunus.
This article is part of a series on |
Alternative medicine |
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I have my doubts about broadening the sidebar to include all of eugenics. The trouble is that "eugenics" includes some genuine science and some genuinely effective techniques, some of which seem acceptable to modern ethics. Anyway, until an appropriate version of the sidebar appears, the sidebar should not be part of this article. Richard Keatinge ( talk) 17:50, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I think the discussion above about whether the article should include the "alternative medicine" sidebar has reached a conclusion, and that the conclusion is that the sidebar should be removed. The following outcomes favor its removal:
It seems clear from the direction of the discussion on this page that the sidebar is going to be removed, but I think it's important to be as clear as possible about how consensus favors that outcome, to make sure it isn't added back. Deleet ( talk) 23:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Some guy in China recently used CRISPR to modify CCR5 to attempt to confer HIV resistance. It's genetically modified twins. This should be included as an example of eugenics right? Alexandria Poklonskaya ( talk) 20:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
The source says that it has origins in white supremacism but it may be an overgeneralization to just label it as such, especially in the short description. — Paleo Neonate – 15:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Coming back to this: other than origins in Nazi policies (on the basis that some people were genetically superior, others inferior) and Social Darwinism (seeing eugenics as hastening natural selection), other early origins would be in the US with Henry Goddard (who believed that the Kallikak clan had degraded morally and socially after a "degenerate tavern girl" was impregnated) and supported the alcohol prohibition... There was degenerationism belief; then there were also the sterilizations in US mental institutions (and a similar movement in Europe based on Mendel's inheritence). There also was the early 1800s work of Galton also with a focus on race and Plato's idea of improving stock like for livestock/artificial selection... And today the term eugenics is sometimes even used in the context of sperm selection in banks by women for artificial fertilization; and early disease detection in embryos to allow parents to decide to keep it, or to attempt early medical interventions. So the short description should probably not mention white supremacism, which seems to only be one of the contexts, although very notable. Including it would be possible but in a much longer sentence for context... One very clear thing is the ethical debate which exists for all aforementioned topics, probably this could be included in the form of "controversial" or such. In at least one encyclopedia, half of the eugenics article is the "ethical considerations" section. — Paleo Neonate – 01:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Implementation methods sections needs further elaboration as the whole section is derived from one book by Lynn (2001). Samarthsbhatt ( talk) 04:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 |
the English liberal J. Bentham, his suggestion about the low class children in England:
"An inspection-house, to which a set of children had been consigned from their birth, might afford experiments enough. What say you to a foundling-hospital upon this principle?" Bentham, Works, vol. 4, p. 64.
[You] "may even clap them up in an inspection-house, and then you make of them what you please. You need never grudge the parents a peep behind the curtain in the master's lodge . . . you might keep up a sixteen or eighteen years separation between the male and female part of your young subjects" Bentham, Works, vol. 4, pp. 64-5.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.212.102.169 ( talk) 05:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
An editor added a "lead too long" clean up tage to the article, which I reverted. Cleanup tags represent the opinion of a single editor, and if they are disputed, they are not immune from the necessity of discussion, just like any other disputed edit.
I do not believe that the lead to this article is too long. Eugenics is a complex subject, and summarizing the complexities in a way that the reader can easily understand requires some length. I invite the editor to explain here why they think the lead is too long as specifically as possible. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 22:30, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Although I am loath to wade into this, I would like to see any academic support for the claim that eugenics is considered pseudoscience. For instance, the Annals of Human Genetics, a high impact factor good journal in the fields of genetics, use to be entitled the Annals of Eugenics and was renamed for political reasons. R. A. Fisher, one of the founders of modern evolutionary biology, was a prominent eugenicist. It would be quite odd to regard him as a Fringe or pseudoscientific voice. There is some room for nuanced debate here, but I am unaware of any consensus opinion in the field of human genetics condemning eugenics as pseudoscience. So could you provide any academic support for your opinions?
LarryBoy79 (
talk) 08:16, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
So, is anybody still trying to provide citations supporting the idea that geneticists consider eugenics psudoe-medicine? If some citation cannot be provided in the next week I'm inclined to just remove the side bar. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 08:00, 6 September 2018 (UTC)
Carl Fredrik: You seem to be the most vocal opposition to the idea of removing the side bar. I've explained to you that I feel that the genetics community, by and large, does not view eugenics as pseudo-medicine, and provided a list of citations to modern discussions of eugenics within medical and genetic literature. I still do not understand why you feel so certain that geneticists consider eugenics pseudo-medicine. Will you please engage me in constructive discussion by articulating your position? LarryBoy79 ( talk) 14:35, 11 September 2018
Eugenics is an applied science based on genetics, similar to how engineering is an applied science based on physics. The fact that many past ideas in physics were wrong does not mean physics or engineering is pseudoscience. Similarly, the fact that many past ideas in genetics were wrong does not make genetics or eugenics pseudoscience.
The spectre of Hitler has led some scientists to stray from "ought" to "is" and deny that breeding for human qualities is even possible. But if you can breed cattle for milk yield, horses for running speed, and dogs for herding skill, why on Earth should it be impossible to breed humans for mathematical, musical or athletic ability? Objections such as "these are not one-dimensional abilities" apply equally to cows, horses and dogs and never stopped anybody in practice. - Richard Dawkins [1]
Dawkins, one of the 21st century's most famous evolutionary biologist, says eugenics is valid science. This link is in the article, and there are more links in the article that state eugenics is valid science than say it is a pseudoscience. I think some who say eugenics was and always will be pseudoscience, are confusing eugenics for Aryan race ideology. In the early twentieth century, the two ideologies overlapped in some ways, but they are just as distinguishable as the overlap between the Progressive Era and eugenics. Waters.Justin ( talk) 00:48, 13 September 2018 (UTC)
Please only include reliable, preferably modern (post-1945) sources. Keep comments to a minimum. I'll confine myself to three sources for now, until someone else adds some. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 11:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Notes: I removed a reference to a newspaper article as non-notable. I think we should confine references to serious scholarly works only, preferably those that make a serious attempt to examine the veracity of eugenics, rather than simply mentioning it in passing within some other context. Some of the sources I've incorporated from PaleoNeonate's list are slightly more oblique than I would consider ideal, but I've incorporated them for now in order to fairly represent PaleoNeonate's contribution. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 09:19, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
What is unusual is the rejection of a theory that is essentially correct. It is my objective in this book to establish that this is what occurred in the twentieth century with regard to eugenics.
Richard Lynn, "Eugenics, A Reassessment"
It should be noted that Richard Lynn might be considered a fringe source. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 11:00, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Some opponents have dismissed eugenics as a pseudo-science that attracted extremists, but the reality is far more complicated. Were the movement that simple, it would perhaps have been short-lived and more limited, and it was anything but. Not only do we still find ourselves facing ethical arguments over reproduction and heredity today, but the huge reach of this movement—throughout the Americas and Asia, across Europe, and in the Middle East as well as the Pacific and parts of Africa—and its persistence in science and in social policy throughout the twentieth century, even after the defeat of Nazism, dictate that we take it seriously.
Philippa Levine, "Eugenics, A very short introduction."
The difficulty in evaluating the eugenics movement in retrospect is that because it is such an extreme embarrassment to American biological science, there is a strong tendency to ignore it, deny it, or revise it. Eugenics was, in fact, a mainstream movement in the scientific community, cross-cutting political lines in its utopian vision of a crime-free society. Virtually all members of the genetics community were in favor of eugenics through the mid-1920s.
It is a consequence of the movement’s popularity within the scientific community that eugenics was science, not pseudoscience [emphasis original]. If all the relevant scientists believed it, how could eugenics possibly be pseudoscience? If eugenics represented a corruption of certain scientific principles, it is hard to escape the conclusion, from simply examining the literature, that it was the scientists themselves who were the corruptors.
Kenneth Ludmerer, a historian of the movement, notes that of the founding members of the editorial board of the journal Genetics in 1916, every one was a supporter of eugenics. Indeed, “until the mid-1920’s no geneticist of note . . . publicly disputed [the claims of eugenics]."
One of the earliest notable biologists to fall away from eugenics was Columbia’s Thomas Hunt Morgan. While Princeton’s E. G. Conklin was laying out the platform of eugenics without the evangelical zeal of other scientists . . . .
Jonathan Marks, "Human Biodiversity, Genes, Race, and History."
Providing explanations for social inequalities as being rooted in nature is a classic pseudoscientific occupation. It has always been welcome, for it provides those in power with a natural validation of their social status. This was as true at the turn of the twentieth century as it is at the turn of the twenty-first-the groups change as the social issues evolve, but the arguments remain eerily unaltered.
Jonathan Marks, "Human Biodiversity, Genes, Race, and History."
Political opposition to eugenic breeding of humans sometimes spills over into the almost certainly false assertion that it is impossible. Not only is it immoral, you may hear it said, it wouldn’t work. Unfortunately, to say that something is morally wrong, or politically undesirable, is not to say that it wouldn’t work. I have no doubt that, if you set your mind to it and had enough time and enough political power, you could breed a race of superior body-builders, or high-jumpers, or shot-putters; pearl fishers, sumo wrestlers, or sprinters; or (I suspect, although now with less confidence because there are no animal precedents) superior musicians, poets, mathematicians or wine-tasters. The reason I am confident about selective breeding for athletic prowess is that the qualities needed are so similar to those that demonstrably work in the breeding of racehorses and carthorses, of greyhounds and sledge dogs. The reason I am still pretty confident about the practical feasibility (though not the moral or political desirability) of selective breeding for mental or otherwise uniquely human traits is that there are so few examples where an attempt at selective breeding in animals has ever failed, even for traits that might have been thought surprising. Who would have thought, for example, that dogs could be bred for sheep-herding skills, or ‘pointing’, or bull-baiting?
You want high milk yield in cows, orders of magnitude more gallons than could ever be needed by a mother to rear her babies? Selective breeding can give it to you. Cows can be modified to grow vast and ungainly udders, and these continue to yield copious quantities of milk indefinitely, long after the normal weaning period of a calf. As it happens, dairy horses have not been bred in this way, but will anyone contest my bet that we could do it if we tried? And of course, the same would be true of dairy humans, if anyone wanted to try. All too many women, bamboozled by the myth that breasts like melons are attractive, pay surgeons large sums of money to implant silicone, with (for my money) unappealing results. Does anyone doubt that, given enough generations, the same deformity could be achieved by selective breeding, after the manner of Friesian cows?
Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, 2009.
Deleet ( talk) 00:41, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
The literature on pseudoscience has focused on idiosyncrasy in the treatment of the evidential aspects of rational belief. We have not spent much time analyzing idiosyncrasies in the treatment of values. The fact that values have some role means that the ways theories of rational belief can go wrong are more varied than the literature has tended to address. If we cannot simply dismiss the influence of values as distortion, then we have to tease out the range of potentially legitimate influences and point out idiosyncrasies where they can be identified. Further complications arise when we consider the interaction of values and evidence as warranted by some theories.
... If values have a proper input to rational inquiry, it is easier to understand how mistakes could be made and lead to improper inputs. For example, it is hard for us now to understand the acceptance of eugenic “science.” When, however, we consider the values that scientists held, it makes more sense. The belief was that science was not ethically neutral, but that it was on the side of progress for humanity. From there the belief in “scientifically” engineering the biological progress of humans was not so far, at least rhetorically speaking.
Nicholas Shackel, Philosophy of Pseudoscience Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem. Edited by Boudry and Pigliucci
His findings were surprising, even to Boas. As he expected, the behavior of the Sicilians after 10 years in the United States was markedly different than their behavior upon arrival. This cultural change was most profound among the children, many of whom behaved in ways identical to children whose families had been in America for generations. Clearly, cultural behavior was the product of the environment, and was independent of biology. The part of the study that was most unexpected, even to Boas, was that even the biology was subject to change. Cephalic index, once thought to be a static identifier of race, also changed among the Sicilian immigrants. Again, the most profound changes occurred among the children. Even biology, it seemed, was subject to modification from the environment.
Paul F. Brown, 21st century anthropology a reference hand book. Edited by Brix
An alternative way to view the effects that biotechnology and genetic engineering could have on a modern population requires the natural manipulation of individuals through human intervention (using eugenics and euthenics or proliferagenics). The desired or beneficial genetic results can now be accelerated with genetic engineering.
From a historical perspective, humankind long ago began to alter the process of natural selection of animals and plants to yield beneficial results. Now, with the advent of genetic engineering, humankind has the ability to accelerate that process even more. In fact, one can speculate that humankind may eventually possess control over its own evolution.
The possibility that humankind may have direct control over its own evolution, by using genetic engineering and DNA nanotechnology, is known as emerging teleology.
John K. Grandy, 21st century anthropology a reference hand book. Edited by Brix
A breif comment on this one: It is interesting to note that Grandy's definition of emerging teleolgy, "that humankind may have direct control over its own evolution, by using genetic engineering and DNA nanotechnology" is virtually identical to the definition emblazoned on the logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference "Eugenics is the self direction of human evolution". Lending support to Black's claim that human genetics is simply eugenics re-branded. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 10:05, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
After Hitler, eugenics did not disappear. It renamed itself. What had thrived loudly as eugenics for decades quietly took postwar refuge under the labels human genetics and genetic counseling.
The transition was slow and subtle and spanned decades. Some defected from American eugenics as early as the twenties, prompted by a genuine revulsion over a movement that had deteriorated from biological utopianism into a campaign to destroy entire groups. For others who defected in the thirties and early forties, it was the shock of how Adolf Hitler applied eugenics. For America’s eugenic holdouts, it was only the fear of guilt by scientific association with genocide that reshaped their memories and guided their new direction.
Edwin Black, War Against the Weak
Eugenic belief presupposes that there are superior and inferior ehtnic groups; it also holds that both physical and metaphysical characterisitcs of an individul or “race” are determined by the quality and character of their ancestory. Whatever chaacterisitcs a person or groups is born with are predetemined and permanent: no amount of social amelioration can change a persons's circumstances. …. Once thought of as “good science”, the tenets of eugenics have since been shown to be baseless and without merit from either a scientific or humanistic point of view.
Brian Regal, Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia
I concur that the discussion on the appropriateness alternative medical sidebar is not productive, but I think we need to concentrate on how it would be possible to build consensus. I'd like to make a clear statement of my position to avoid confusion: I believe that we should remove the sidebar labeling eugenics as pseudoscience. I would argue against categorizing eugenics as pseudo-science because it is unarguable that humans are genetically changing over time, and that we could, at least in theory, direct that genetic change in some directions that we desire. R=h^2*s, a basic equation of quantitative genetics, means that any trait with (narrow-sense) heritable variation will respond to selection, no matter how ineptly that selection is applied. Now, surely much of the historical eugenics literature was really just racism masquerading as science, and therefore it is tempting to label eugenics as a whole as pseudoscience, but I think we need to be careful not to imply that humans are somehow exempt from the evolutionary laws that govern other species. While it may be appropriate to label eugenics as pseudo-science within a paragraph carefully discussing what is meant by that classification, I'm afraid that a sidebar classifying eugenics as pseudo-science will imply that taking the top 20% of tallest, most athletic, or most musically gifted humans would fail to produce a cohort of h^2*20% taller, more athletic, or more musically gifted humans in a casual readers mind. We know that a huge variety of human traits have robust heritabilities, and you can equivocate about what eugenics really is, but I think most people will come away believing that you couldn’t change quantitative traits in human populations through selective breeding even if you wanted to. I feel that I have done my duty to the community and presented my honest, informed opinion, and presented a shallow but not unrepresentative list of citations, and been met only with dismissive attacks which place my position beyond the window of debate. LarryBoy79 ( talk) 13:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC)
It’s clear that America is under a coordinated, communist-influenced techno-tyranny ATTACK that’s systematically taking down all pro-Trump, pro-America content.
[…]
We are in a state of war. We are under an intense, coordinated attack being run by hate-filled, anti-America tyrants and co-conspirators. They have decided that no one will be allowed to speak unless they support the globalist destruction of the American Republic.
— http://www.freedom.news/2018-08-14-infowars-down-alex-jones-issues-red-alert-coordinated-treason-attack-on-america-under-way-right-now.html
So here are some related sources (not all necessarily using "pseudoscience"):
... was based on the pseudoscience of eugenics ...
Clearly, cultural behavior was the product of the environment, and was independent of biology.Other interesting pages: 77, 250, 379-382, 669, 887, 941, 961-968
— Paleo Neonate – 15:28, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
Finally, equating Aspergers with psychopathy is offensive, and potentially harmful to people with Aspergers.This, in particular is possibly the worst offender. How you could read my comments and come away with the impression that I was "equating" the two is simply unfathomable to me. It's an ignorant comment on other levels as well, but you can be forgiven for not knowing that I have been diagnosed with borderline Asperger's syndrome myself. If you want to contribute to this discussion, you really need to work on your ability to read and comprehend what others are saying. I'm not trying to be rude, but your comments here are just completely off base and entirely out of left field. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 12:24, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
I think the idea that science is whatever scientist do is rather reasonableMost scientists fuck. Therefore, fucking is science, and thus the most accomplished scientist in the history of mankind is some well-hung drunk with a medical history that reads like a comprehensive list of STDs repeating a pick up line in a bar somewhere for the five thousands time. Think on that. I may or may not respond to the rest of your comment later, but you should really read WP:CRUSH and sealioning and understand that the other editors here have read them multiple times and know how to respond to them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:22, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
You claim that “The logic contained with it is not that of Marks, but of the supporters of eugenics whom he was channeling...” is simply false. Are you perhaps looking at a pdf and think that the block quote given on page 85 is continuing onto page 86? It does not.You need to read both the source and my comment far more carefully. Seriously. I don't care what's on page 85, I didn't read it (today, anyways). I started reading the book at page 86, and read it in context by reading what prefaces the quote and continuing to read to see what is said in authorial voice afterwords. So I found further quotes such as "While Princeton's E. G. Conklin was layoing out the platform of eugenics without the evangelical seal of other scientists in Heredity and Environment, he was nevertheless thoroughly uncritical of its central assumptions of racial rankings, immigration restriction and feeblemindedness." Remember this is Marks, we're talking about here. Further, Marks goes on to quote Thomas Hunt Morgan as saying "our familiarity with the process of social inheritance is responsible, in part, for a widespread inclination to accept uncritically every claim that is advanced as furnishing evidence that bodily and mental changes are also transmitted." and "competent specialists are needed to push forward scientific investigation- since other methods have signally failed." and finally "I believe that they will not much longer leave their problems in the hands of amateurs and alarmists, whose stock in trade is to gain notoriety by an appeal to human fears and prejudices-an appeal to the worst and not to the best sides of our nature."
{{
Alternative medicine sidebar|fringe}}
was put near the top of this article, then moved to near the bottom with the rest of the nav stuff, then removed. The issue I have is that this article is in the navbox, and it's standard operating procedure to thus put it on this page somewhere. Multiple people (self included) object to having it near the top. So, absent some compelling
WP:IAR rationale, it either needs to be put back near the page bottom, or this article needs to be removed from the navbox. I lean toward the latter, since it's a poor fit, topically.
Alternative medicine refers to medical beliefs and practices, not to politicized "improving the race" (or "improving our race in particular") stuff just because it sometimes incidentally involves something medical, like forced sterilization. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 13:31, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
The template: {{ Fringe medicine and conspiracy theories sidebar}} has been changed. Please comment, Richard Keatinge, Maunus.
This article is part of a series on |
Alternative medicine |
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I have my doubts about broadening the sidebar to include all of eugenics. The trouble is that "eugenics" includes some genuine science and some genuinely effective techniques, some of which seem acceptable to modern ethics. Anyway, until an appropriate version of the sidebar appears, the sidebar should not be part of this article. Richard Keatinge ( talk) 17:50, 21 September 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
I think the discussion above about whether the article should include the "alternative medicine" sidebar has reached a conclusion, and that the conclusion is that the sidebar should be removed. The following outcomes favor its removal:
It seems clear from the direction of the discussion on this page that the sidebar is going to be removed, but I think it's important to be as clear as possible about how consensus favors that outcome, to make sure it isn't added back. Deleet ( talk) 23:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)
Some guy in China recently used CRISPR to modify CCR5 to attempt to confer HIV resistance. It's genetically modified twins. This should be included as an example of eugenics right? Alexandria Poklonskaya ( talk) 20:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
The source says that it has origins in white supremacism but it may be an overgeneralization to just label it as such, especially in the short description. — Paleo Neonate – 15:29, 24 June 2019 (UTC)
Coming back to this: other than origins in Nazi policies (on the basis that some people were genetically superior, others inferior) and Social Darwinism (seeing eugenics as hastening natural selection), other early origins would be in the US with Henry Goddard (who believed that the Kallikak clan had degraded morally and socially after a "degenerate tavern girl" was impregnated) and supported the alcohol prohibition... There was degenerationism belief; then there were also the sterilizations in US mental institutions (and a similar movement in Europe based on Mendel's inheritence). There also was the early 1800s work of Galton also with a focus on race and Plato's idea of improving stock like for livestock/artificial selection... And today the term eugenics is sometimes even used in the context of sperm selection in banks by women for artificial fertilization; and early disease detection in embryos to allow parents to decide to keep it, or to attempt early medical interventions. So the short description should probably not mention white supremacism, which seems to only be one of the contexts, although very notable. Including it would be possible but in a much longer sentence for context... One very clear thing is the ethical debate which exists for all aforementioned topics, probably this could be included in the form of "controversial" or such. In at least one encyclopedia, half of the eugenics article is the "ethical considerations" section. — Paleo Neonate – 01:31, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
Implementation methods sections needs further elaboration as the whole section is derived from one book by Lynn (2001). Samarthsbhatt ( talk) 04:24, 5 September 2019 (UTC)