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Eugenics
From EvoWiki
Eugenics is a broad term for a variety of social programs that attempt to "breed out" certain undesirable biological traits from human society, or that "breed in" more desirable traits. Eugenics is essentially an outgrowth of Social Darwinism, as can be seen by the fact that it is discussed as a possible remedy for social problems more often than for medical or biological ones.
| See Eugenics in Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. |
The popularity of this concept reached its peak in the western world between the 1930s and 1950s; it featured prominently in many plans of the Nazi Party. Eugenics is different from natural selection because it replaces natural law with human desire as the driving force behind evolution. Eugenics proponents sometimes rationalize this replacement by arguing that natural selection is no longer applicable to modern society, due to the lack of elements that would kill off people who wouldn't survive in the wild. They then claim that since natural causes cannot perfom their jobs human beings should step in to keep evolution running. Besides its questionable scientific value the creation of an active program or policy based on eugenics would most likely be viewed as unethical by most modern day scientists as well as the general public.
Creationists often attack the theory of evolution by linking it to eugenics.
See Also
External Links
- Eugenics - at Wikipedia
- Darwinism and the Nazi race Holocaust - an example of creationists attacking evolution by linking it with eugenics and racism (from Answers in Genesis)
- [|http://www.eugenicsarchive.com/eugenics/]
