Eugenics

Nowhere were the far-reaching consequences of such cosmogenic mythology more evident than in the pseudo-science of eugenics.[1] Eugenics hypothesized that the gene pool was being corrupted by the less fit genes of inferior people. As Michael Crichton has pointed out, the theory of eugenics postulated that “the best human beings were not breeding as rapidly as the inferior ones—the foreigners, immigrants, Jews, degenerates, the unfit, and the ‘feeble-minded’…The plan was to identify individuals who were feeble-minded—Jews were agreed to be largely feeble minded, but so were many foreigners, as well as blacks—and stop them from breeding by isolation in institutions or by sterilization.”[2]

The logical progression from evolution to eugenics was hardly a surprise. What is breathtaking, however, is the vast rapidity with which this baseless theory was embraced by the cultural elite. Crichton notes that its supporters ranged from President Theodore Roosevelt to Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. Eugenics research was funded through philanthropies such as the Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations and carried out at prestigious universities such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

Legislation to address the “problem” posed by eugenics was passed in blue states ranging from New York to California. Eugenics was even backed by the National Academy of Sciences and the American Medical Association. Those who resisted eugenics were considered backward and ignorant. Conversely, German scientists who gassed the “feeble-minded” were considered forward thinking and progressive and were rewarded with grants from such institutions as the Rockefeller Foundation right up to the onset of World War II.

It wasn’t until the ghastly reality of eugenics reached full bloom in the genocidal mania of German death camps that it quietly vanished into the night. Indeed, after World War II few institutions or individuals would even own up to their fastidious belief in eugenics. Nor did the cultural elite ever acknowledge the obvious connection between eugenics and evolution.

Eugenics has faded into the shadowy recesses of history. The tragic consequences of the evolutionary dogma that birthed it, however, are yet with us today.
[1] My source for the following brief overview of the history of eugenics is Michael Crichton, “Why Politicized Science is Dangerous,” Appendix 1 from his novel State of Fear (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2004), 575-80.
[2] Crichton, State of Fear, 576.