WI: Sir Francis Galton dies = No Eugenics?

[SPJ]

What butterflies could be created if Sir Francis Galton died sometime circa the 1860s, perhaps due to the effects of contracting a disease while in Africa? He is mainly known as the father of eugenics which is now known as a pseudoscience but also pioneered some theories of society and biology still accepted. Whithout his work what could become of the sciences and society's that his work effected?

[Space Oddity]

Given that a lot of eugenics was people cherrypicking Galton's statements on the subject to create a coherant ideology, I'm going to state that it will still happen. It was a bad idea who's time had, alas, come.

[mowque]

Originally Posted by Space Oddity

Given that a lot of eugenics was people cherrypicking Galton's statements on the subject to create a coherant ideology, I'm going to state that it will still happen. It was a bad idea who's time had, alas, come.

I agree. The rise of Darwinism, and it's dark doppelganger, Social Darwinism make it hard to stop. Even with some porminment Americans like WJ Bryan arguing against it, it flourished for decades.

[Hobbesian]

"hey you know animal husbandry? when we try to get the best offspring by picking the best animals we have and making them have babies instead of the weaklings? let's do that with each other! i mean that way we will get the best offspring too amirite?"

i think it's a very obvious idea after you figure out "strong breeds strong".

oh and google "procreative beneficence" for an up-to-date version of the same idea. it's still a debatable issue in bioethics. we have proven that the whole "race" idea has no scientific basis anyway and you want to work within a 21st century moral framework so now it's all about "the moral obligation of parents to have the healthiest children through all natural and artificial means available" (wikipedia).

[mrmandias]

Originally Posted by Space Oddity

Given that a lot of eugenics was people cherrypicking Galton's statements on the subject to create a coherant ideology, I'm going to state that it will still happen. It was a bad idea who's time had, alas, come.

Agreed. Darwinism and nationalism/imperialism made it almost certain that something like eugenics was going to arise.

In fact, I would argue that something similar to eugenics is going to pretty probable in any civilization that has domesticated animals and tries to breed them. And in fact people in europe and elsewhere did talk about good breeding. The rise of what we call eugenics was really the rise of (pseudo) scientific eugenics and coincided with the advent of scientific breeding of domesticates.