Caravels of Portugal wrote:
Eugenics is an outdated scientific principle which states only people with good genes can only breed and pass on the good genes to improve the genetic quality of humanity. Early concepts begin in the 400 BCE as Plato proposed it and the Spartans practiced it.
Francis Galton, a relative of Charles Darwin, defined the idea after reading his relatives theories on evolution. Eugenics slowly became an academic discipline at several universities and colleges in the United Kingdom and the United States. Eugenic policies became the mainstay of governments and received funding from several sources.
However, by the end of World War 2, eugenics became strongly associated with the horrors of Nazi Germany. Because of it, governments slowly phased it out to disassociate from the horrors of Nazi Germany.
What if the idea of eugenics remained popular and running? What would happen if eugenics programs still remained active and spread around the world?
Well things probably go pretty normally until the early 90s when one product of these practices known as Khan Noonien Singh rises to power eventually controlling more than a quarter of the Earth from Asia through the Middle East. Shortly thereafter several other Eugenically enhanced humans seize power in over 40 nations simultaneously only to fall to fighting themselves as the scientists that created them forgot that “Superior ability breeds superior ambition” resulting in the 90s being known as the “Eugenics Wars” and massive causalities until the “Supermen” were overthrown and destroyed. Upside is we get to Star Trek out of it, so there’s that…
More seriously Eugenics as defined is:
“
Eugenics, the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations, typically in reference to humans.”
(
https://www.britannica.com/science/eugenics-genetics)
THE problems with actually putting it into use was knowledge of actual rather than inferred “human genetics”, how that relates to “heritable characteristics” and actual knowledge of genetics on the microscopic and cellular scale. We had “evidence” of the successful, (and mind you unsuccessful as well) nature and “practice” of breeding plants and animals so it was assumed that it could be done with people as well. Arguably logical and sound but the main issue was that in addition to a lack of clear ‘traits’ that were suggested to breed FOR (note the article above shows that some of the ‘traits’ selected for were “men of distinction” and “women of wealth”) as well as a general lack of understanding of how genetics did or did not play a part in the traits being desired. (It’s quite easy to end up with a blonde haired, blue eyed moron after all)
And the actual premise is questionable since in fact “evolution” does not have any ‘end-goal’ nor is ‘perfection’ a part of or consideration in the process. Which to be honest is a still a major misunderstanding of the whole theory and process. But it DOES fit nicely into the idea that some people are ‘better’ than others and weeding out the ‘lesser’ people and there inborn ‘lesser traits’ would therefore “improve” the better people. The fact that doesn’t’ necessarily work and can be seen to have issues even in plants and animals was of course totally lost on the majority of people who supported human eugenics. Which meant that as practiced “eugenics” was simply a means to support racial, class and other discrimination's with a veneer of “science” while claiming to be for the ‘betterment’ of humanity as a whole.
When you don’t even know what “race” actually is nor how human genetics and such actually work and use political, prejudicial and social basis for determining ‘traits’ and factors you want passed on to future generations then the entire process is going to be unworkable and flawed. And it very much was.
Now an actual “positive” though fictional “eugenics” plan was created by Robert Heinlein in the “Howard Families” (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_families,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah's_Children) which using the known “science” of the time (19th Century) plausibly “bred” for longer life span. But the question even then is not only “what” you are breeding for, (long-life, intelligence, lack of certain inheritable flaws or disease factors are plausible) since some can be passed on but some are less clearly able directly to do so. And time is an issue since any ‘breeding” program doesn’t see results for (obviously) generations at best.
But the biggest “flaw” in the concept of Eugenics is simply that it implies and requires not only the enforcement of “breeding” of the “right” people but similarly requires that the “wrong” people not be allowed to breed. Which in and of itself implies either a fantastically good ‘incentive’ or more likely a horrifying amount of direct control over the lives of the individuals involved. Thus eugenics as a whole until the advent of advanced genetic manipulation was and is a very powerful and easy to abuse “tool” in social and individual control more than anything that could plausible be used for “bettering” mankind. And despite some arguably “noble” intentions from some small number of proponents “eugenics” is best and deservedly known as an excuse and means to assert total and full control over the life of people and society.
Even so as noted in the above Britannica article “Eugenics” is still very much a ‘thing’ but arguably less intrusive by society and more an individual decision. The main problem with ‘keeping’ eugenics is simply that it is far too easy to abuse and takes far longer (generations) than most people are capable of waiting to produce results. Couple that with the amount of social and individual control required to make it even marginally viable without early 21at Century genetic manipulation techniques and your only option is to ensure it never develops a ‘general’ following from the start but only a select and careful portion of the population who can avoid the obvious and dangerous dead-ends and wrong assumptions.
Randy