Eugenics

Logo from the Second International Eugenics Conference, 1921, depicting eugenics as a tree which unites a variety of different fields.

Eugenics (/juːˈdʒɛnɪks/; from Greek eu 'good/well' and -genēs 'born') is the belief and practice of improving the genetic quality of the human population. It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human genetic traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of people with desired traits (positive eugenics), and reduced reproduction of people with less-desired or undesired traits (negative eugenics).

History

Nazi propaganda for their compulsory "euthanasia" program: "60,000 Reichsmark is the lifetime cost of this hereditarily diseased man to the Volksgemeinschaft. Fellow German, that is your money, too."

Main article: History of eugenics

Eugenics, as a modern concept, was originally developed by Francis Galton. It has roots in France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States in the 1860s-1870s.

American William Goodell (lived from 1829 to 1894) advocated castration and spaying of the insane. Mortality rates from "Battey's operation", the surgical removal of healthy ovaries, was as high as one in five deaths at the time, but the surgery kept being performed.

Francis Galton had read his half-cousin Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which sought to explain the development of plant and animal species, and desired to apply it to humans. Galton believed that desirable traits were hereditary based on biographical studies. In 1883, one year after Darwin's death, Galton gave his research a name: "eugenics". Throughout its recent history, eugenics has remained a controversial concept. As a social movement, eugenics reached its greatest popularity in the early decades of the 20th century. At this point in time, eugenics was practiced around the world and was promoted by governments, and influential individuals and institutions. Many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programmes, including: genetic screening, birth control, promoting differential birth rates, marriage restrictions, segregation (both racial segregation and segregation of the mentally ill from the rest of the population), compulsory sterilization, forced abortions or forced pregnancies, and genocide. Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive or restrictive, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labelled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance.

The methods of implementing eugenics varied by country; however, some of the early 20th century methods involved identifying and classifying individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, deaf, developmentally disabled, promiscuous women, homosexuals, and racial groups (such as the Roma and Jews in Nazi Germany) as "degenerate" or "unfit", the segregation or institutionalization of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, euthanasia, and their mass murder. The practice of euthanasia was carried out on hospital patients in the Aktion T4 centers such as Hartheim Castle.

Hartheim Euthanasia Centre in 2005

Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities, and received funding from many sources. Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States. Later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in other countries, including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and Sweden. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin used eugenics as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany. Nevertheless, in Sweden the eugenics program continued until 1975.

In addition to being practiced in a number of countries, eugenics was internationally organized through the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations. Its scientific aspects were carried on through research bodies such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, the Cold Spring Harbour Carnegie Institution for Experimental Evolution, and the Eugenics Record Office. Its political aspects involved advocating laws allowing the pursuit of eugenic objectives, such as sterilization laws. Its moral aspects included rejection of the doctrine that all human beings are born equal, and redefining morality purely in terms of genetic fitness. Its racist elements included pursuit of a pure "Nordic race" or "Aryan" genetic pool and the eventual elimination of "less fit" races.

By the end of World War II, eugenics by means of coerced sexual sterilization had been largely abandoned, having become associated with Nazi Germany; their approach to genetics and eugenics was focused on Eugen Fischer's concept of phenogenetics and the Nazi twin study methods of Fischer and Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. Both the public and some of the scientific community have associated eugenics with Nazi abuses, such as enforced "racial hygiene", human experimentation, and the extermination of "undesired" population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century are raising for some persons numerous new questions regarding the ethical status of eugenics, effectively creating a resurgence of interest in the subject.

The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also proclaims "the prohibition of eugenic practices, in particular those aiming at selection of persons".

The sequencing and mapping of the human genome and its medical implications has caused some, such as UC Berkeley sociologist Troy Duster, to claim that modern genetics is a back door to eugenics. This view is shared by White House Assistant Director for Forensic Sciences, Tania Simoncelli, who claimed in a 2003 publication by the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College, that advances in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) are moving society to a "new era of eugenics", and unlike the Nazi eugenics, modern eugenics is consumer driven and market based, "where children are increasingly regarded as made-to-order consumer products." In a 2006 newspaper article, Richard Dawkins said that discussion was inhibited by the shadow of Nazi misuse, to the extent that some scientists would not admit that breeding humans for abilities was at all possible, but in his view this was not physically different from breeding domestic animals for traits such as speed or herding skill. He felt that enough time had elapsed to at least ask just what the ethical differences were between breeding for ability versus training athletes or forcing children to take music lessons, though he could think of persuasive reasons to draw the distinction. Some such as Nathaniel C. Comfort from Johns Hopkins University, claim that the change from state-led reproductive-genetic decision-making to individual choice has moderated the worst abuses of eugenics by transferring the decision-making from the state to the patient and their family. Dr. Comfort suggests that "[t]he eugenic impulse drives us to eliminate disease, live longer and healthier, with greater intelligence, and a better adjustment to the conditions of society; and the health benefits, the intellectual thrill and the profits of genetic biomedicine are too great for us to do otherwise." Others, such as bio-ethicist Stephen Wilkinson of Keele University and Honorary Research Fellow Eve Garrard at the University of Manchester, claim that some aspects of modern genetics can be classified as eugenics, but this classification does not inherently make modern genetics immoral. In a co-authored publication by Keele University, they stated that "[e]ugenics doesn't seem always to be immoral, and so the fact that PGD, and other forms of selective reproduction, might sometimes technically be eugenic, isn't sufficient to show that they're wrong."

Meanings and types

Galton in his later years

The modern field and term were first formulated by Francis Galton in 1883, drawing on the recent work of his half-cousin Charles Darwin. Galton published his observations and conclusions in his book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development.

The origins of the concept began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance, and the theories of August Weismann. The word eugenics is derived from the Greek word eu ("good" or "well") and the suffix -genēs ("born"), and was coined by Galton in 1883 to replace the word "stirpiculture", which he had used previously but which had come to be mocked due to its perceived sexual overtones. Galton defined eugenics as "the study of all agencies under human control which can improve or impair the racial quality of future generations". Galton did not understand the mechanism of inheritance.

Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things. Historically, the term has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. To population geneticists, the term has included the avoidance of inbreeding without altering allele frequencies; for example, J. B. S. Haldane wrote that "the motor bus, by breaking up inbred village communities, was a powerful eugenic agent". Debate as to what exactly counts as eugenics has continued to the present day. Some types of eugenics deal only with perceived beneficial or detrimental genetic traits. These types have sometimes been called "pseudo-eugenics" by proponents of strict eugenics.

The term eugenics is often used to refer to movements and social policies influential during the early 20th century. In a historical and broader sense, eugenics can also be a study of "improving human genetic qualities". It is sometimes broadly applied to describe any human action whose goal is to improve the gene pool. Some forms of infanticide in ancient societies, present-day reprogenetics, preemptive abortions and designer babies have been (sometimes controversially) referred to as eugenic. Because of its normative goals and historical association with scientific racism, as well as the development of the science of genetics, the western scientific community has mostly disassociated itself from the term "eugenics", although one can find advocates of what is now known as liberal eugenics. Despite its ongoing criticism in the United States, several regions globally practice different forms of eugenics.

Edwin Black, Journalist and author of War Against the Weak, claims eugenics is often deemed a pseudoscience because what is defined as a genetic improvement or a desired trait is often a cultural choice rather than a matter that can be determined through objective scientific inquiry. The most disputed aspect of eugenics has been the definition of "improvement" of the human gene pool, such as what is a beneficial characteristic and what is a defect. This aspect of eugenics has historically been tainted with scientific racism.

Early eugenists were mostly concerned with perceived intelligence factors that often correlated strongly with social class. Some of these early eugenists include Karl Pearson and Walter Weldon, who worked on this at the University College, London. Many eugenists took inspiration from the selective breeding of animals (where purebreds are often striven for) as their analogy for improving human society. The mixing of races (or miscegenation) was usually considered as something to be avoided in the name of racial purity. At the time this concept appeared to have some scientific support, and it remained a contentious issue until the advanced development of genetics led to a scientific consensus that the division of the human species into unequal races is unjustifiable.

Eugenics also had a place in medicine. In his lecture "Darwinism, Medical Progress and Eugenics", Karl Pearson said that everything concerning eugenics fell into the field of medicine. He basically placed the two words as equivalents. He was supported in part by the fact that Francis Galton, the father of eugenics, also had medical training. Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of hereditary diseases such as hemophilia and Huntington's disease. However, there are several problems with labeling certain factors as genetic defects. In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what constitutes a genetic defect. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or individual choice. What appears to be a genetic defect in one context or environment may not be so in another. This can be the case for genes with a heterozygote advantage, such as sickle-cell disease or Tay-Sachs disease, which in their heterozygote form may offer an advantage against, respectively, malaria and tuberculosis. Although some birth defects are uniformly lethal, disabled persons can succeed in life. Many of the conditions early eugenists identified as inheritable (pellagra is one such example) are currently considered to be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental conditions. Similar concerns have been raised when a prenatal diagnosis of a congenital disorder leads to abortion (see also preimplantation genetic diagnosis).

Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories. Positive eugenics is aimed at encouraging reproduction among the genetically advantaged,for example the reproduction of the intelligent, the healthy, and the successful Possible approaches include financial and political stimuli, targeted demographic analyses, in vitro fertilization, egg transplants, and cloning. Negative eugenics aimed to eliminate, through sterilization or segregation, those deemed physically, mentally, or morally "undesirable". This includes abortions, sterilization, and other methods of family planning. Both positive and negative eugenics can be coercive. Abortion for fit women was illegal in Nazi Germany.

Implementation methods

There are three main ways by which the methods of eugenics can be applied.:

• Authoritarian eugenics, in which the government mandates a eugenics program.

Some examples of authoritarian eugenics include:

1. Government aid being used means of leverage over marginalized groups seeking help. They use this leverage to allocate funds in the name of protection of the State’s financial interests. While not explicit demands for sterilization or extermination, the regulation of anti-fertilization medication in exchange for welfare benefits, and anti-immigration movements can be traced back to motives aligned with eugenics. Scientific publications like The Bell Curve that consider a genetically inherent difference of intelligence and therefore socioeconomic status is used as the justification for prejudices based on race, ability, criminal background, sexuality, mental health, etc..
2. Women in slavery faced sexual abuse in the form of involuntary sterilization similar to that endured by incarcerated women today. Legislation concerning women’s reproductive rights traditionally protects upper class white women. These women are less likely to be incarcerated which leaves minroity women unprotected because they exist outside the bounds of the law.
3. Madrigal v Quilligan has been understood in light of the thousands of unwanted sterilizations reported in the United States from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s (Stern 2005, 1128). In Indiana in 1907 the first sterilization law was passed. This law was the beginning of what became “a legal massacre”. There were over 20,000 of operations performed between the years of 1909-1979.
4. Buck v. Bell was a case in where the courts saw sterilization as a “good thing” for the public. In this case, the law sought to protect the people by sterilizing those who “would not be able to survive” in the real world. Judge Holmes wrote in his decision of the case of Buck v. Bell (1927), “[…] The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough” (Noren 2013, 12) The “law” saw to protect those with disabilities by not letting them live in a world where they were bound to “fail and die” without the help of others.

• Promotional voluntary eugenics, in which eugenics is voluntarily practiced and promoted to the general population, but not officially mandated. This is a form of non-state enforced eugenics, using a liberal or democratic approach, which was mostly seen in the 1900s.

Some examples of promotional voluntary eugenics include:

1. Women played a significant role in the production of research and promotion of eugenics as many thought that they were best suited for the job. Their perspective was valued in the study of mating and mate selection. Eugenicists also sought women support by appealing to women’s clubs that, over time, became proponents of progressive child rights reforms. The members of women’s clubs were often wealthy, white and influential, so adding eugenics to their political agenda became important to the passing of laws that segregated and eliminated mentally disabled, or otherwise undesirable children.
2. From 1870-1940, there had been numerous efforts to expand and reinforce eugenics. Through photographs, advertisements, public fairs and festivals, supporters of eugenics promoted the idea that racially mixed marriages were impure and therefore, were doomed to fail. With advertisements such as these, Americans were discouraged to marry, procreate and even come near people outside their race. Propaganda was designed to convince Americans that non-whites had specific characteristics that differed from those who were superior. Some of these characteristics, as demonstrated in the images were height, shapes of skulls, face complexions etc..

• Private eugenics, which is practiced voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general population.

Some examples of private eugenics include:

1. Mexican-Americans during the 1900’s were given IQ tests and results were compared to the results of White children. These exams indicated that White children performed better than Mexican-American children. However, the circumstances under which the exams were taken were different between Mexican-American and White children. Unlike White children, Mexican-American children were not native english speakers and had not received the same education as White test takers. These confounding factors were included as possible reasons to why some performed better than others. This was used to justify segregation of minority children who were reported as less intelligent.
2. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) has been use to prevent the birth of children with intersex conditions/disorders of sex development. This method has been used in unethical terms by profiling embryos before fertilizing. This technology is available around the U.S. in health centers and hospitals for those who can afford the process. This process tends to be very pricey, therefore, it is often only used by upper middle class families.

Dysgenics

Main articles: Dysgenics and Fertility and intelligence

Research has suggested that in the modern world, the relationship between fertility and intelligence is such that those with higher intelligence have fewer children, one possible reason being more unintended pregnancies for those with lower intelligence. Several researchers have argued that the average genotypic intelligence of the United States and the world are declining which is a dysgenic effect. This has been masked by the Flynn effect for phenotypic intelligence. The Flynn effect may have ended in some developed nations, causing some to argue that phenotypic intelligence will or has started to decline.

Similarly, Richard Lynn argued that genetic health (due to modern health care) and genetic conscientiousness (criminals have more children than non-criminals) are declining in the modern world. This has caused some, like Lynn, to argue for voluntary eugenics. Richard Lynn and John Harvey suggest that designer babies may have an important eugenic effect in the future. Initially, this may be limited to wealthy couples, who may possibly travel abroad for the procedure if prohibited in their own country, and then gradually spread to increasingly larger groups. Alternatively, authoritarian states may decide to impose measures such as a licensing requirement for having a child, which would only be given to persons of a certain minimum intelligence. The Chinese one-child policy is an example of how fertility can be regulated by authoritarian means.

Criticism

Doubts on traits triggered by inheritance

The first major challenge to conventional eugenics based upon genetic inheritance was made in 1915 by Thomas Hunt Morgan, who demonstrated the event of genetic mutation occurring outside of inheritance involving the discovery of the hatching of a fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with white eyes from a family red-eyes. Morgan claimed that this demonstrated that major genetic changes occurred outside of inheritance and that the concept of eugenics based upon genetic inheritance was, to some extent, not completely scientifically accurate. Additionally, Morgan criticized the view that subjective traits, such as intelligence and criminality, were caused by heredity because he believed definitions of these traits varied and accurate work in genetics could only be done when the traits being studied were accurately defined. In spite of Morgan's public rejection of eugenics much of his genetic research was absorbed by eugenics.

Diseases vs. traits

See also: List of congenital disorders

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology there is at this point no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Some diseases such as sickle-cell disease and cystic fibrosis respectively confer immunity to malaria and resistance to cholera when a single copy of the recessive allele is contained within the genotype of the individual. Reducing the instance of sickle-cell disease in Africa where malaria is a common and deadly disease could indeed have extremely negative net consequences. On the other hand, genetic diseases like haemochromatosis can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions, which provides some incentive for people to re-consider some elements of eugenics.

Ethics

A common criticism of eugenics is that "it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical". Although historical examples of misused or misunderstood eugenics may have existed, this argument sounds like a slippery slope fallacy. A hypothetical scenario posits that if one racial minority group is perceived on average less intelligent than the racial majority group, then it is more likely that the racial minority group will be submitted to a eugenics program rather than the least intelligent members of the whole population. H. L. Kaye wrote of "the obvious truth that eugenics has been discredited by Hitler's crimes". R. L. Hayman argued "the eugenics movement is an anachronism, its political implications exposed by the Holocaust".

Steven Pinker has stated that it is "a conventional wisdom among left-leaning academics that genes imply genocide". He has responded to this "conventional wisdom" by comparing the history of Marxism, which had the opposite position on genes to that of Nazism:

But the 20th century suffered "two" ideologies that led to genocides. The other one, Marxism, had no use for race, didn't believe in genes and denied that human nature was a meaningful concept. Clearly, it's not an emphasis on genes or evolution that is dangerous. It's the desire to remake humanity by coercive means (eugenics or social engineering) and the belief that humanity advances through a struggle in which superior groups (race or classes) triumph over inferior ones.

Genetic diversity

Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of genetic diversity, in which case a culturally accepted "improvement" of the gene pool could very likely, as evidenced in numerous instances in isolated island populations (e.g. the Dodo, Raphus cucullatus, of Mauritius) result in extinction due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. A long-term species-wide eugenics plan might lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition.

Proponents of eugenics argue that in any one generation any realistic program should make only minor changes in a fraction of the gene pool, giving plenty of time to reverse direction if unintended consequences emerge, reducing the likelihood of the elimination of desirable genes. Such people also argue that any appreciable reduction in diversity is so far in the future that little concern is needed for now. The possible reduction of autism rates through selection against the genetic predisposition to autism is a significant political issue in the autism rights movement, which claims autism is a form of neurodiversity.

Heterozygous recessive traits

In some instances efforts to eradicate certain single-gene mutations would be nearly impossible. In the event the condition in question was a heterozygous recessive trait, the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there still may be many carriers for the genes without, or with fewer, phenotypic effects due to that gene. With genetic testing it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous recessive traits. Under normal circumstances it is only possible to eliminate a dominant allele from the gene pool. Recessive traits can be severely reduced, but never eliminated unless the complete genetic makeup of all members of the pool was known, as aforementioned. As only very few undesirable traits, such as Huntington's disease, are dominant, one, from certain perspectives, may argue that the practicality of "eliminating" traits is quite low.

There are examples of eugenic acts that managed to lower the prevalence of recessive diseases, although not influencing the prevalence of heterozygote carriers of those diseases. The elevated prevalence of certain genetically transmitted diseases among the Ashkenazi Jewish population (Tay–Sachs, cystic fibrosis, Canavan's disease, and Gaucher's disease), has been decreased in current populations by the application of genetic screening.

Supporters and critics

Chesterton in 1905 by photographer Alvin Langdon Coburn

At its peak of popularity, eugenics was supported by a wide variety of prominent people, including Winston Churchill, Margaret Sanger, Marie Stopes, H. G. Wells, Norman Haire, Havelock Ellis, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, John Harvey Kellogg, Robert Andrews Millikan, Linus Pauling and Sidney Webb. Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was, however, Adolf Hitler, who praised and incorporated eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States.

The American sociologist Lester Frank Ward, the English writer G. K. Chesterton, and the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas were all early critics of the philosophy of eugenics. Ward's 1913 article "Eugenics, Euthenics, and Eudemics", Chesterton's 1917 book Eugenics and Other Evils and Boas' 1916 article "Eugenics" (in Scientific Monthly magazine) were all harshly critical of the rapidly growing movement.

Among institutions, the Catholic Church was an early opponent of state-enforced eugenics. In his 1930 encyclical Casti Connubii, Pope Pius XI explicitly condemned eugenics laws: "Public magistrates have no direct power over the bodies of their subjects; therefore, where no crime has taken place and there is no cause present for grave punishment, they can never directly harm, or tamper with the integrity of the body, either for the reasons of eugenics or for any other reason."

In popular media

• Galton and many others claimed that the less intelligent were more likely to procreate than the more intelligent. This is the basis of the movie Idiocracy, in which five hundred years in the future (2505) the dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society. The movie borrowed some of its plot from the 1951 science-fiction story The Marching Morons.
• In Star Trek, the Eugenics Wars were a series of conflicts fought on Earth between 1993 and 1996. The wars were the result of a scientific attempt to improve the human race through selective breeding and genetic engineering, and devastated parts of Earth, nearly plunging the planet into a new Dark Age. (TOS: "Space Seed"; ENT: "Borderland")
• In the 1988 movie Twins, a secret experiment was carried out at a genetics laboratory to produce the perfect human, using sperm donated by six different fathers. The experiment resulted in the birth of twins, named Julius and Vincent Benedict. While successful, the genetics program was considered a failure and shut down because one of the twins inherited the "desirable traits", while the other inherited the "genetic trash". The mother was told that her child died at birth, and the twins were raised separately from each other.
• In the dystopian movie Gattaca, the application of artificial selection is misused by employers, insurance companies, and even schools to screen out "in-valids". The protagonist, an "in-valid", attempts to reach his dream of being an astronaut.
• In Frank Herbert's "Dune," the Bene Gesserit breeding program (designed to produce a messiah) is eugenics on a massive scale, calculating the exact genetic pairings needed to produce a messiah over many generations. This was done without artificial insemination and, in some cases, without the knowledge of the participants.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Beyond This Horizon a republic in the future runs a eugenics program that is humane and based on voluntary participation and sophisticated scientific methods.

See also

• Selective breeding, Purebred, Culling
• Biological determinism
• Compulsory sterilization
• Eugenics in the United States
• Eugenics manifesto
• Euthenics
• Genetic determinism
• Genism
• History of the race and intelligence controversy
• Life unworthy of life
• Ova bank / Sperm bank
• Racial hygiene
• Social Darwinism
• Three-parent baby
• Transhumanism
• in-vitro embryo selection (PIGD)

Organizations:

• International Federation of Eugenics Organizations
• Alberta Eugenics Board
• Repository for Germinal Choice, a "high IQ" sperm bank

Template:Multicol-break Individuals:

• Karl Binding
• Katherine M. H. Blackford
• Alexis Carrel
• Charles Davenport
• Eugen Fischer
• Irving Fisher – The first president of the American Eugenics Society
• Ronald Fisher
• John Glad
• Hans Friedrich Karl Günther
• Alfred Hoche
• John M. MacEachran
• Bénédict Morel
• Alfred Ploetz
• Ernst Rüdin
• Margaret Sanger Associated and supported eugenicists in the US
• Marie Stopes
• Georges Vacher de Lapouge
• Lee Kuan Yew

References

• Black, Edwin (2003). War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. Four Walls Eight Windows. ISBN 1-56858-258-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Larson, Edward J. (2004). "Evolution". Modern Library. ISBN 0-679-64288-9. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Histories of eugenics (academic accounts)

• Carlson, Elof Axel (2001). The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea. Cold Spring Harbor NY: Cold Spring Harbor Press. ISBN 0-87969-587-0.
• Engs, Ruth C. (2005). The Eugenics Movement: An Encyclopedia. Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing. ISBN 0-313-32791-2.
• Farrall, Lyndsay (1985). The origins and growth of the English eugenics movement, 1865–1925. Garland Pub. ISBN 978-0-8240-5810-4.
• Kevles, Daniel J. (1985). In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-05763-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Largent, Mark (2008). Breeding Contempt: The History of Coerced Sterilization in the United States. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-4183-9.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (2004). "Deadly medicine: creating the master race".
• Wyndham, Diana (2003). Eugenics in Australia : striving for national fitness. London: Galton Institute. ISBN 978-0-9504066-7-1.

Histories of hereditarian thought

• Barkan, Elazar (1992). The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars. New York: Cambridge University Press. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ewen, Elizabeth; Ewen, Stuart (2006). Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (1st ed.). New York: Seven Stories Press. ISBN 978-1-58322-735-0.
• Gould, Stephen Jay (1981). The mismeasure of man. New York: Norton. ISBN 0-393-01489-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Gillette, Aaron (2007). The Nature-Nurture Debate in the Twentieth Century. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-230-10845-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Criticisms of eugenics

• Blom, Philipp (2008). The Vertigo Years: Change and Culture in the West, 1900–1914. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart. pp. 335–6. ISBN 978-0-7710-1630-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• D'Souza, Dinesh (1995). The End of Racism: Principles for a Multicultural Society. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-02-908102-5.
• Galton, David (2002). Eugenics: The Future of Human Life in the 21st Century. London: Abacus. ISBN 0-349-11377-7.
• Goldberg, Jonah (2007). Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning (1st ed.). New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-51184-1.
• Joseph, Jay (2004). The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope. New York: Algora. ISBN 978-0-87586-343-6. Archived from the original on 12 May 2009.
• Joseph, Jay (June 2005). "The 1942 "euthanasia" debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry" (PDF). History of Psychiatry. 16 (62 Pt 2): 171–9. PMID 16013119.
• Joseph, Jay (2006). The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes. New York: Algora. ISBN 978-0-87586-410-5. Archived from the original on 17 April 2009.
• Kerr, Anne; Shakespeare, Tom (2002). Genetic Politics: from Eugenics to Genome. Cheltenham: New Clarion. ISBN 978-1-873797-25-9.
• Maranto, Gina (1996). Quest for perfection: the drive to breed better human beings. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0-684-80029-2.
• Ordover, Nancy (2003). American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-3559-5.
• Shakespeare, Tom (1995). "Back to the Future? New Genetics and Disabled People". Critical Social Policy. 46 (44–45): 22–35. doi:10.1177/026101839501504402.
• Smith, Andrea (2005). Conquest : sexual violence and American Indian genocide. Cambridge, Massachusetts: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-743-9.
• Wahlsten, D. (1997). "Leilani Muir versus the Philosopher King: eugenics on trial in Alberta". Genetica. 99 (2–3): 185–198. doi:10.1007/BF02259522. PMID 9463073.