CONCEPTUAL BASIS OF EUGENICS

CONCEPTUAL BASIS OF EUGENICS
Genetics is the study of the structure and function of
genes. Genes are sections of helically structured
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which makes up chro-
mosomes. From within cellular nuclei, genes provide
instructions for producing proteins essential to physi-
ological growth and functioning. Genes are also
thought of as units of inheritance, because specific
forms (alleles) of genes inherited from one’s parents
in part determine one’s expressed traits (phenotype).
Thus, if one parent has brown eyes and passes that
trait (allele) to its offspring, the probability of brown
eyes in the offspring increases. Population alleles
fluctuate as a function of natural selection and other
processes; members of a species possessing features
that enable environmental adaptation are most likely
to survive, procreate, and increase the frequency of
their alleles in subsequent generations.
For thousands of years, humans applied fundamen-
tals of trait inheritance to animal husbandry, without
understanding its precise mechanisms. The mid- to
late-19th-century confluence of Darwin’s evolutionary
theories, rediscovery of Mendel’s postulate of single-
trait factors, and industrial-era interest in social reform
gave rise to eugenics. The amalgamation of these ideas
into social Darwinism fueled early-20th-century eugen-
ics movements in England and America. Social
Darwinism argued that the fittest exemplars of human-
ity would—and should—survive (“survival of the
fittest”): human endeavor could improve on natural
selection and assist the evolutionary process. The
tendency to attribute human failings to internal, not
external causes (blaming the victim) contributed to the
focus on eugenics over euthenics, or environmental
engineering. Euthenics proposes environmental change
as a method of social progress (i.e., welfare programs).
In addition to supporting social premises of eugen-
ics, many psychologists used psychometric methods
in eugenic research, including now discredited anthro-
pometric measures comparing racial phenotypes and
intelligence tests to distinguish fit from unfit. Unlike
theories of natural selection and genetics, however,
the premises of social Darwinism are now widely
repudiated, and many of its methods—such as scien-
tific racism (empiricism in support of theories of
racial hierarchy)—are considered pseudoscience