User:PanosKratimenos/sandbox/BASC0001/2020-21/Thursday2-3/Week2TheHistoryofEugenics

The History of Eugenics
Eugenics, as James noted in his lecture, is dead. However, for a period in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was a relatively popular discipline. What was eugenics? Why did the discipline rise and fall? What, if any, impact has its History had on academia, institutions, or society more broadly? And, fundamentally, what happens to the currents of thought that underpin a discipline when that discipline dies?

Over to you all...

Introduction
Eugenics was a practice based on the selective breeding of humans with traits perceived to be desirable and genetically-determined, such as intelligence, wealth and integrity. The purpose of eugenics was to improve the general genetic fitness of the population, based on the notion that certain groups of people (notably criminals, Blacks, homosexuals, the poor and the uneducated) are genetically inferior and the population should be cleansed of these undesirable traits by preventing their propagation and instead encouraging the preservation and propagation of desirable traits.

The rise and fall of eugenics
Eugenics was first practiced in Ancient Greece and Rome; during the Roman Republic, by law, children would have to be killed by their fathers if they were deemed unfit to live. Some historians even argue that Eugenics dates back to the first hominids, where children with disabilities were killed by its tribes because of the physical and economical cost they involved, preventing the tribe to grow and develop at faster rates. The peak of the eugenics movement was during the late 19th to early 20th century starting in the United Kingdom, eventually spreading to the United States and much of Europe. The movement was initiated by Francis Galton based on Darwin’s theory of natural selection, however, it became strongly based upon the fundamental ideas of genetic determinism, suggesting that one’s character is innate, unaffected by environmental factors such as access to education.

During the Holocaust, eugenics was practiced on a mass scale, however, in the following years, its practice was questioned, predominantly from an ethical perspective as there became a greater focus on human rights within society. This resulted in the start of the death of eugenics as a movement; various countries began to abolish their existing eugenic policies, specifically those which were underlined by negative eugenics such as sterilization, as this was directly violating the human right to reproduce. Eugenics was also criticized in relation to the genetic health of the human population; selective breeding would reduce genetic diversity, leading to inbreeding depression and the loss of general fitness, resulting in an increased susceptibility to disease and lack of ability to adapt to the environment.

The impact on institutions, academia and society
As eugenics became an established academic discipline, it grew vastly as a topic of interest, with colleges and universities receiving much funding for their research - a prominent research body in eugenics was the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Multiple worldwide academic conferences were held, academic texts on eugenics were published and eugenic policies were implemented in many countries. Preservation and propagation of “superior” genetic traits were applied in eugenic policies; positive eugenics would consist of encouraging those with desirable traits to marry and reproduce, while negative eugenics resulted in those with undesirable traits to often encounter marriage prohibitions or be forced to undergo sterilization as a means of preventing the propagation of unfit traits.

What happens to the currents of thought that underpin a discipline once it dies?
The practice of eugenics faces much criticism from society, and although it is no longer an officially practiced discipline, the underlying ideas still influence the pursuit of certain disciplines and practices, notably biological anthropology and new reproductive technology. When investigating human biological diversity, some scientists continue to search for genetic differences between different races with no consideration of its underlying social construction. Without careful phrasing, these publications may be interpreted as a justification for eugenics and used to legitimize and reproduce racial inequality. Furthermore, eugenic ideas appear to resurge when concerning the controversial practice of new reproductive technologies, including human cloning and prenatal screening, as these often result in desirable traits being selected for a child, or the abortion of a foetus with undesirable traits.

Gene Editing and the New Eugenics
Genome editing is a technique that allows scientists to change, add or remove segments of DNA to precisely modify its sequence, changing the characteristics of an organism. The most efficient and developed technique during the last years is (CRISPR Cas9). This field has brought back the debate about the benefits and ethical implications of perfecting a human being and the idea of physical and psychological correction.

An example of the application of this technique is the case of the Chinese biophysicist Jiankui He, who claimed the 25 of November of 2018 to have created genetically engineered babies designed to resist HIV, smallpox, and cholera. This was a very controversial case in the scientific community, and at last, he was sentenced to three years in prison for his experiment. The argument against Genome editing that links this experiment to Eugenics is that it did not have a therapeutic purpose, but a eugenic one. Skeptical scientists claim that the use of genome editing techniques such as CRISPR Cas9 will eventually lead to embryological enhancement, which would result in medical, social, and economic disparity. In addition to that, genome editing proposes a debate about disability and ableism, where the genetic erasure of a disability could be seen as counterproductive to the promotion of the acceptance and integration of disabled citizens