A world with out Eugenics?

What could have the world become with out the perverse science of Eugenics ever making it onto the world stage? Can it be prevented from coming to the forefront? Or is it in man's nature to create something this evil?
 
Which kind of Eugenics, the more innocent kind that promoted Scientists and Athletes reproducing, the bad (but not as bad as things got) kind that made various people involuntarily sterile or the racist kind that believed in the notion of a 'Master Race'?
 
Which kind of Eugenics, the more innocent kind that promoted Scientists and Athletes reproducing, the bad (but not as bad as things got) kind that made various people involuntarily sterile or the racist kind that believed in the notion of a 'Master Race'?

both, the idea in general does not take hold.
 
both, the idea in general does not take hold.

That was actually three kinds (two bad kinds, one moderate bad and one very bad).

Anyways, you can't really prevent them all, the idea of Europeans being superior really started to become a thing in the early 19th century (and really, if you go back you can find ideas like that held by various groups throughout history in different places), which was pushed forward by the fact that Europeans had become more technologically advanced and quite a bit of Africa was lacking state-level societies, which was really the result of geography (large swathes of Africa are just not capable of developing major states without modern technology) and demography (major population movements over the prior centuries, warfare etc.).

Even if you prevent the worst kinds and supremism some kind is going to develop since the idea of self betterment and betterment of society is universal, and encouraging those seen to have positive traits to pass them on is going to be something pretty obvious in terms of development.
 
I really can't see it being possible to totally get rid of it after the theory of evolution becomes established.
Its quite inevitable that once people know we are developed from lesser creatures that they would wonder about whether we can develop further.
 
You also need to prevent the discovery of genes.

even further back i think, humans have been domesticating & breeding animals/ plants for a long time. sooner or later a bright light is going to think of applying that to humans even is there no theory about it.

Mendel posed his findings in 1865/66, need to get rid of that too then
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendelian_inheritance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_genetics

also read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics
it just shows how far back these thoughts go
 
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But... Doesn't it go on since... well... ever? I mean- even Spartans had (reportedly) been throwing kids from the rock if they weren't good enough. Eugenics isn't new idea, it's been around always- and even instinct prevents breeding with someone considered not attractive. Or mothers leaving their deformed babies (or even killing them) somewhere. Sure- idea of actually breeding "good genes with good genes" might not be written, but to actually remove it from conscience, one would have to change the very nature of humanity.
 
Come to think of it, actually, Plato advocated something similar in the Republic. So, I think that some people are probably going to support eugenics no matter what.

Still, the fact remains that the idea did seem to take off in the late 19th century more than it had before. Thinking the matter over, I wonder if the cause might be the increased... scientificisation (for want of a better word) of human nature, which held/holds that human affairs can be governed according to regular, "scientific" principles, and that it's both possible and desirable for a country's intellectual elite to learn these principles and use them to run society. (It's probably no coincidence that eugenics and Marxism became popular at roughly the same time.) Remove this worldview, and you'd probably butterfly away eugenics as well.
 
Is the idea of nobility a form of Eugenics? Only those born into the nobility are fit to be part of it, and only those of noble birth can marry and legitimately reproduce with others of noble birth. In practice nobles tried hard to keep nobility to themselves.
 
Come to think of it, actually, Plato advocated something similar in the Republic. So, I think that some people are probably going to support eugenics no matter what.

Still, the fact remains that the idea did seem to take off in the late 19th century more than it had before. Thinking the matter over, I wonder if the cause might be the increased... scientificisation (for want of a better word) of human nature, which held/holds that human affairs can be governed according to regular, "scientific" principles, and that it's both possible and desirable for a country's intellectual elite to learn these principles and use them to run society. (It's probably no coincidence that eugenics and Marxism became popular at roughly the same time.) Remove this worldview, and you'd probably butterfly away eugenics as well.

Yes, Positivism has much to do as a philosophical background for many of the wrongs commited in the 19th century. The general idea that science could explain and reach anything (which predates Positivism anyway) explains the "scientific" part in Marx' socialism, but certainly not its spread, which had more to do with actual social conditions and indirectly with the dominance of the german culture over continental Europe after the franco-prussian war (before this, in most european romance speaking countries the most accepted socialist thinker was Proudhom) Anyway, the word scientific had different nuances at the time that we don't have today, thus Marx or Freud used the term without being called out.

In order to avoid "scientific" eugenics we probably need deep differences in the ways science was percieved in the late 19th century and the role it played in the general ideological composite, so to speak. But also more subtile changes in the ways concepts like fitness, corporal ideals of perfection and beauty and general the relations between people and theur bodies worked. You can track back certain of these things to Leonardo's Canon, to put a ckear example. In order to achieve this we probably need an early POD to create a totally different Modernity, and that's a can of butterflies. Otherwise, if there is a way to block the ascendance if positivist ideals, to avoid social darwinism (you don't need to avoid the theory of ecolution, but avoid certain political circles coopting Darwin's positions) and even avoiding also latter malthussian terrors perhaps eugenics goes to the dustbin of heterodox and gorrible theories nobody ever cared about except some loons or in the worst case it shares the fate of
her cousin the Frenology.

Anyway, considering the global situation in the late 19th century and the kind of "knowlodge" it was necessary to legitimize the political aims of the main powers (nationalism, imperialism, social question...) it's a hard challenge. We have to cut very precise wires and hope the thing doesn't explode.
 
Is the idea of nobility a form of Eugenics? Only those born into the nobility are fit to be part of it, and only those of noble birth can marry and legitimately reproduce with others of noble birth. In practice nobles tried hard to keep nobility to themselves.

No, that's a way to monopolice and sheltter power and privileges for and by a small elite. Eugenics is a total different animal, though it has been also a tool of power.
 
As already mentioned eugenics have nothing to do with the theory of evolution and the knowledge of genes. Eugenics are merely the application to humankind of practices of animal and plant breeders for tens of centuries. The idea of purposely 'breeding' strong and obedient workers, super-soldiers, talented dancers or singers, even philosophers... doesn't need ASB intervention. It was not hard to observe, for instance, that in unhealthy environments people (slaves, e.g.) coming from a similar climate / background had a better survival.
 
But... Doesn't it go on since... well... ever? I mean- even Spartans had (reportedly) been throwing kids from the rock if they weren't good enough. Eugenics isn't new idea, it's been around always- and even instinct prevents breeding with someone considered not attractive. Or mothers leaving their deformed babies (or even killing them) somewhere. Sure- idea of actually breeding "good genes with good genes" might not be written, but to actually remove it from conscience, one would have to change the very nature of humanity.

True.
There's even stuff like cats eating deformed kittens and the like so...could even say its a fundamental part of nature.
 
True.
There's even stuff like cats eating deformed kittens and the like so...could even say its a fundamental part of nature.

That form of cannibalistic behaviour has a different purpose in terms of evolutionary biology, namely it's to help the mother and offspring to survive by providing energy.
 
It's almost ASB that eugenics haven't been more widely practiced.

Humans do this everyday to domesticated animals and have been for thousands of years. Nowhere is this more extreme than in the breeding of horses. Some of them we have records or their ancestors going back centuries, with detailed records of their physical characteristics so that conformation to breed can be maintained. The Nazis never got even close to the kind of meticulousness a horse breeder goes through.
 
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