Eugenics and List of metahumans in DC Comics: Difference between pages

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== A ==
[[Image:Eugenics congress logo.png|right|thumb|275px|"Eugenics is the self-direction of human evolution": Logo from the [http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/12/5/219 Second International Congress of Eugenics], 1921, depicting it as a tree which unites a variety of different fields.]]
*Agni (member of the [[Onslaught (DC Comics)|Jihad]])
*[[Air Wave]]
*[[Amazing Man]]
*[[Apparition (comics)|Apparition]]
*[[Aquagirl#Lorena Marquez|Aquagirl]] (Lorena Marquez)
*[[Argus (comics)|Argus]]
*[[Atom (Al Pratt)|Atom]] (Al Pratt)
*[[Atomic Skull]]
*[[Albert Rothstein|Atom Smasher]]
 
== B ==
'''Eugenics''' is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of [[human]] [[hereditary]] traits through various forms of intervention.<ref name="Osborn1937">The exact definition of ''eugenics'' has been a matter of debate since the term was coined. The definition of it as a "social philosophy" (that is, a philosophy with implications for social order) is not meant to be definitive, and is taken from "Development of a Eugenic Philosophy" by [[Frederick Osborn]] in ''[[American Sociological Review]]'', Vol. 2, No. 3 (Jun., 1937) , pp. 389-397.</ref> The goals of various groups advocating eugenics have included the creation of healthier, more [[intelligence (trait)|intelligent]] people, to save society's [[economics|resources]], and lessen human [[suffering]], as well as racially based goals or desires to breed for other specific qualities, such as fighting abilities.
* Ballistic (member of the [[Blood Pack (comics)|Blood Pack]]
* [[Baron Blitzkrieg]]
Earlier proposed means of achieving these goals focused on [[selective breeding]], while modern ones focus on [[prenatal testing]] and [[fetal screening|screening]], [[genetic counseling]], [[birth control]], [[in vitro fertilization]], and [[genetic engineering]]. Opponents argue that eugenics is [[immoral]] and is based on, or is itself, [[pseudoscience]]. Historically, eugenics has been used as a justification for coercive state-sponsored [[discrimination]] and human rights violations, such as [[forced sterilization]] of persons who appear to have - or are claimed to have - genetic defects, the killing of the [[Institutionalisation|institutionalized]] and, in some cases, outright [[genocide]] of races perceived as inferior.
* Barracuda ([[Aquaman]] nemesis)
* Battalion (memeber of [[Team Titans]])
* [[Beast Boy]]
* [[Big Sir]] (member of the [[Forever People]])
* [[Black Canary|Black Canary]] (Dinah Laurel Lance)
* [[Black Condor#Richard Grey Jr.|Black Condor]] (Richard Grey Jr.)
* [[Black Condor#Ryan Kendall|Black Condor]] (Ryan Kendall)
* [[Manchester Black|Black, Manchester]]
* [[Black Mass (comics)|Black Mass]]
* [[Blacksmith (comics)|Blacksmith]]
* Blimp (of [[Inferior Five]])
* Blindside (member of [[Relative Heroes]])
* [[Blockbuster (comics)#Mark Desmond|Blockbuster]] (Mark Desmond)
* [[Blockbuster (comics)#Roland Desmond|Blockbuster]] (Roland Desmond)
* Blue Trinity (enemies of [[Red Trinity]])
* [[Bolt (DC Comics)|Bolt]]
* [[Bouncing Boy]]
* Ben Boxer
* Brahma (member of the [[Supermen of America]])
* [[Brainwave (comics)#Henry King, Sr.|Brainwave]] (Henry King, Sr.)
* [[Brainwave (comics)#Henry King, Jr.|Brainwave]] (Henry King, Jr.)
* [[Brick (comics)|Brick]]
* [[Brother Blood]]
* [[Bulleteer]]
* [[Bulletman and Bulletgirl|Bulletgirl]]
* [[Bulletman and Bulletgirl|Bulletman]]
* [[Bumblebee (comics)|Bumblebee]] (Karen Beecher-Duncan)
 
== C ==
Breeding of human beings was suggested at least as far back as [[Plato]], but the modern field and term was first formulated by Sir [[Francis Galton]] in 1865, drawing on the recent work of his cousin [[Charles Darwin]]. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent thinkers, including [[Alexander Graham Bell]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], and [[Winston Churchill]]. Financial support for the advocacy of eugenics came from the [[Ford Foundation]], the [[Rockefeller Foundation]], and the [[E.H. Harriman|Harriman]] interests.<ref>Linder, Rep. John, [http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20070218-100445-1207r.htm "Global Warming theory and the eugenics precedent"], ''Washington Times'', February 19, 2007</ref> Eugenics was an academic discipline at many colleges and universities. Its scientific reputation started to tumble in the 1930s, a time when [[Ernst Rüdin]] began incorporating eugenic rhetoric into the [[Racial policy of Nazi Germany|racial policies]] of [[Nazi Germany]].
* [[Owen Mercer|Captain Boomerang]] (Owen Mercer)
* [[Captain Carrot]]
* [[Captain Comet]]
* Carapax
* Carcharo
* Carnivora
* Carom
* [[Snapper Carr|Carr, Snapper]]
* Catalyst
* [[Centrix]]
* [[Enemies of Captain Marvel (DC Comics)|Chain Lightning]]
* [[Killer Moth|Charaxes]]
* [[Chase (comics)|Chase, Cameron]]
* [[Johnny Quick (Johnny Chambers)|Chambers, Johnny]]
* [[Chemical King]]
* Chiller
* Chimera
* [[Legion of Substitute Heroes|Chlorophyll Kid]]
* [[Chunk (comics)|Chunk]]
* [[Betty Clawman|Clawman, Betty]]
* [[Clayface#Sondra Fuller|Clayface]] (Sondra Fuller)
* [[Clayface#Matt Hagen|Clayface]] (Matt Hagen)
* [[Clayface#Basil Karlo|Clayface]] (Basil Karlo)
* [[Clayface#Cassius "Clay" Payne|Clayface]] (Cassius Payne)
* [[Clayface#Preston Payne|Clayface]] (Preston Payne)
* [[Clayface#Claything|Claything]]
* [[Cobalt Blue]]
* Codename: Assassin
* Coldsnap
* [[Coldcast]]
* Colonel Computron
* [[Color Kid]]
* [[Gim Allon|Colossal Boy]]
* Corrosive Man
* [[Cosmic Boy]]
* [[Cosmic King]]
* [[Count Vertigo]]
* [[Crazy Jane]]
* [[Crimson Fox]]
* [[Crowbar (comics)|Crowbar]]
* Crystallex
* [[Cyclone (DC Comics)|Cyclone]]
* [[Cyclotron (comics)|Cyclotron]]
* Cyclotronic Man
 
== D ==
Starting in the postwar period, both the public and the scientific community generally associated eugenics with [[Nazism|Nazi]] abuses, which included enforced [[racial hygiene]], [[human experimentation]], and the [[extermination]] of undesired population groups. Developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century, however, have raised many new ethical questions and concerns about what exactly constitutes the meaning of ''eugenics'' and what its ethical and moral status is.
* [[Damage (comics)|Damage]]
* [[Dan the Dyna-Mite]]
* [[Deadline (DC Comics)|Deadline]]
* [[Deathbolt]]
* Deep Blue (daughter of [[Neptune Perkins]])
* Dervish
* Diamondette (member of [[Hero Hotline]])
* [[Doctor Light (Arthur Light)|Doctor Light]] (Arthur Light)
* [[Doctor Light (Kimiyo Hoshi)|Doctor Light]] (Kimiyo Hoshi)
* [[Doctor Mid-Nite#Beth Chapel|Doctor Midnight]] (Beth Chapel)
* [[Doctor Mid-Nite#Charles McNider|Doctor Mid-Nite]] (Charles McNider)
* [[Doctor Mid-Nite#Pieter Cross|Doctor Mid-Nite]] (Pieter Cross)
* [[Doctor Phosphorus]]
* [[Doctor Polaris]]
* Doctor Regulus (enemy of [[Sun Boy]])
* [[Doll Girl]]
* [[Doll Man#Darrell Dane|Doll Man]] (Darrell Dane)
* [[Doll Man#Lester Colt|Doll Man]] (Lester Colt)
* [[Dolphin (comics)|Dolphin]]
* [[Inferior Five|Dumb Bunny]]
* Dust Devil (Member of the [[Blasters (comics)|Blasters]])
 
==E==
==Meanings and types of eugenics==
* Earthworm ([[Batman]] villain)
The word ''eugenics'' [[etymology|etymologically]] derives from the [[Greek language|Greek]] word ''eus'' (''good'' or ''well'') and the suffix ''-genēs'' (''born''), and was coined by [[Francis Galton]] in 1883.
* Echo (member of the [[The Conglomerate (comics)|Conglomerate]])
* Edge (A New Blood)
* [[El Dorado (superhero)|El Dorado]]
* [[Elasti-Girl]]
* Electron
* [[Electrocutioner]]
* Elephant Man
* [[Elongated Man]]
* Epsilon (Teen Titans villain)
* [[Hank Hall|Extant]]
 
== F ==
Eugenics has, from the very beginning, meant many different things to many different people. Historically, the term has referred to everything from prenatal care for mothers to forced sterilization and euthanasia. Much debate took place in the past, and takes place today, as to what exactly counts as eugenics.<ref>A discussion of the shifting meanings of the term can be found in Diane Paul, ''Controlling human heredity: 1865 to the present'' (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995). ISBN 1-57392-343-5.</ref>
* [[Faith (comics)|Faith]]
Some types of eugenics, such as race-based eugenics and class-based eugenics, are sometimes
* [[Fastball (comics)|Fastball]]
called 'pseudo-eugenics' by proponents of strict eugenics that deals only with beneficial and detrimental
* [[Father Time (DC Comics)|Father Time]]
intrinsic traits.
* Fever (member of the [[Doom Patrol]])
* [[Fire (DC Comics)|Fire]]
* Firebird (member of [[Soyuz (comics)|Soyuz]])
* [[Firebrand (DC Comics)|Firebrand]]
* [[Firehawk (comics)|Firehawk]]
* [[Firestorm (comics)|Firestorm]] (Ronald Raymond)
* [[Firestorm (Jason Rusch)|Firestorm]] (Jason Rusch)
* [[Flash (Barry Allen)|Flash]] (Barry Allen)
* [[Bart Allen|Flash]] (Bart Allen)
* [[Flash (Jay Garrick)|Flash]] (Jay Garrick)
* [[Wally West|Flash]] (Wally West)
* [[Flex Mentallo]]
* [[Floronic Man]]
* Fog (Nazi villain WWII)
* [[Folded Man]]
* [[Freedom Beast]]
* Frostbite (member of Young Heroes in Love)
 
== G ==
The term ''eugenics'' is often used to refer to movements and social policies that were 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.
* [[Geist (comics)|Geist]]
* [[Gemini (DC Comics)|Gemini]]
* General Computron
* [[Geomancer (comics)|Geomancer]]
* [[Gloss (comics)|Gloss]]
* [[Godiva (comics)|Godiva]]
* [[Goldface]]
* Goraiko (member of the [[Ultramarine Corps]])
* [[Gorgon (DC Comics)|Gorgon]]
* [[Gunfire (comics)|Gunfire]]
* [[Gypsy (comics)|Gypsy]]
 
== H ==
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]]''.
* [[Halo (comics)|Halo]]
Ideological [[social determinism|social determinists]], some of which have obtained college degrees in fields relevant to eugenics, often describe eugenics as a pseudoscience.
* [[Hector Hammond|Hammond, Hector]]
Modern inquiries into the potential use of genetic engineering have led to an increased invocation of the history of eugenics in discussions of [[bioethics]], most often as a cautionary tale. Some [[bioethics|ethicists]] suggest that even non-coercive eugenics programs would be inherently unethical, though this view has been challenged by such thinkers as [[Nicholas Agar]].<ref>For example, [[Nicholas Agar]], ''Liberal Eugenics: In Defence of Human Enhancement'' (Blackwell, 2004).</ref>
* [[Harbinger (DC Comics)|Harbinger]]
* Hardrock (ally of [[Superboy]])
* [[Harm (comics)|Harm]]
* Harpy (member of the [[Hybrid (comics)|Hybrid]])
* [[Heat Wave (comics)|Heat Wave]]
* [[Hellgrammite (comics)|Hellgrammite]]
* [[Hitman (comics)|Hitman]]
* Hook (a New Blood)
* [[Hourman]] (Rex Tyler)
* [[Hourman (Rick Tyler)|Hourman]] (Rick Tyler)
* [[Human Bomb]]
* [[Hyena (comics)#Summer Day|Hyena]] (Summer Day)
* [[Hyena (comics)#Jivan Shi|Hyena]] (Jivan Shi)
 
== I ==
Eugenicists advocate specific policies that (if successful) would lead to a perceived improvement of the human gene pool. Since defining what improvements are desired or beneficial is perceived by many as a [[cultural]] choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively (e.g., by empirical, scientific inquiry), eugenics has often been deemed a [[pseudoscience]]. 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]].
*[[Ice (comics)|Ice]]
*[[Icemaiden]] (alias Sigrid Nansen)
*[[Icicle (comics)|Icicle I & II]]
*[[Impala (DC Comics)|Impala]]
*[[Inertia (DC Comics)|Inertia]]
*[[Inferno (DC Comics)|Inferno]]
*[[Insect Queen (DC Comics)|Insect Queen]] I & II (see also [[Lana Lang]])
*[[Invisible Kid]]
*[[Iron Munro]]
 
== J ==
Early eugenicists were mostly concerned with perceived [[intelligence (trait)|intelligence]] factors that often correlated strongly with [[social class]]. Many eugenicists took inspiration from the [[selective breeding]] of animals (where [[purebred]]s are often strived 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. Some see this as an ideological consensus, since equality, just like inequality, is a [[cultural]] choice rather than a matter that can be determined objectively.
*[[Jack B. Quick]]
*Jackal
*Jaculi I & II (members of the [[Onslaught (comics)|Onslaught]])
*[[Jade (comics)|Jade]]
*Jamm (New Blood)
*[[Jericho (comics)|Jericho]]
*[[Jesse Quick]]
*[[Jet (comics)|Jet]] (alias Celia Windward)
*[[Jinx (DC Comics)|Jinx]]
*[[Johnny Quick (Johnny Chambers)|Johnny Quick]]
*[[John Henry Irons]] ([[Steel (comics)|Steel]])
*Jonni Thunder
*[[Josiah Power]]
 
== K ==
Eugenics has also been concerned with the elimination of [[hereditary diseases]] such as [[haemophilia]] and [[Huntington's disease]]. However, there are several problems with labeling certain factors as "genetic defects":
*Kalki (father of [[Celsius (comics)|Celsius]])
* In many cases there is no scientific consensus on what a "genetic defect" is. It is often argued that this is more a matter of social or individual choice.
*Karma (member of the Doom Patrol)
* 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 anemia]] or [[Tay-Sachs disease]], which in their [[Zygosity|heterozygote]] form may offer an advantage against, respectively, [[malaria]] and [[tuberculosis]].
*Kid Slick (member of the Doom Patrol)
* Although some birth defects are uniformly lethal, some disabled persons can succeed in life.
*[[Killer Croc]]
* Many of the conditions early eugenicists identified as inheritable ([[pellagra]] is one such example) are currently considered to be at least partially, if not wholly, attributed to environmental conditions.
*[[Killer Frost]] I & II
Similar concerns have been raised when a [[prenatal diagnosis]] of a [[congenital disorder]] leads to [[abortion]] (see also [[preimplantation genetic diagnosis]]).
*[[Killer Moth]] I & II
*[[Killer Wasp]] I & II
*[[Killowat]]
*[[Kole]] (alias Kole Weathers)
*Krag (New Blood)
*[[Kryptonite Man]]
*[[Kung (comics)|Kung]]
 
== L ==
Eugenic policies have been conceptually divided into two categories: ''positive eugenics'', which encourage a designated "most fit" to reproduce more often; and ''negative eugenics'', which discourage or prevent a designated "less fit" from reproducing. Negative eugenics need not be coercive: a state might offer financial rewards to certain people who submit to sterilization, although some critics might reply that this incentive along with social pressure could be perceived as coercion. Positive eugenics can also be coercive. [[Abortion]] by "[[fit]]" women was illegal in [[Nazi Germany]], and William Shirer (in ''The Decline and Fall of the Third Reich'') mentioned unsubstantiated reports that Aryan women unwilling to become pregnant were often forced into pregnancy through state-supported rape.
*[[Clayface#Sondra Fuller|Lady Clay]]
*Lady Flash
*[[Lady Liberty (comics)|Lady Liberty]]
*Lady Lunar
*[[Lady Quark]]
*[[Spellbinder (DC Comics)#Lady Spellbinder|Lady Spellbinder]]
*Lady Zand
*Larvanaut
*Layla (New Blood)
*Leather
*[[Lilith (DC Comics)|Lilith]]
*[[Lion-Mane]]
*[[Livewire (DC Comics)|Livewire]]
*[[Looker (comics)|Looker]]
*[[Loose Cannon (comics)|Loose Cannon]]
 
== M ==
During the 20th century, many countries enacted various eugenics policies and programs, including:
*[[Madame Rouge]] (alias Laura DeMille)
*Genetic screening
*[[BirthMagenta control(comics)|Magenta]]
*[[Magno (Golden Age)]]
*Promoting differential birth rates
*[[Magno (comics)|Magno (Modern)]]
*Marriage restrictions
*[[Major Disaster]]
*[[Immigration]] control
*[[Mammoth (comics)|Mammoth]]
*Segregation (both [[racial segregation]] as well as segregation of the mentally ill from the normal)
*[[Man-Bat]]
*[[Compulsory sterilization]]
*[[Manchester Black]]
*Forced [[abortions]], or, conversely, forced pregnancies
*[[GenocideManfred Mota]]
*Manticore (member of the [[Global Guardians]])
*[[Más y Menos]] (see also [[Teen Titans (animated series)]])
*[[Matter Master]]
*[[Maxi-Man (comics)|Maxi-Man]]
*[[Maxwell Lord]]
*[[Max Mercury]]
*[[Mayflower (comics)|Mayflower]]
*[[Meloni Thawne]]
*Minddancer
*Mindboggler
*[[Mind-Grabber Kid]]
*[[Miss America (DC Comics)|Miss America]]
*[[Mist (comics)|Mist I & II]]
*Mister 104
*[[Mister Bones]]
*[[Mister Element]] I & II
*Mister ESPer
*[[Mister Freeze]]
*[[Mr. Nobody (comics)|Mister Nobody]]
*[[Molecule (comics)|Molecule]]
*Mongrel (member of the Blood Pack)
*Monsoon
*Morozko (member of Soyuz)
*[[Muhammad X]]
*[[Multi-Man]]
*[[Multiplex (comics)|Multiplex]]
*[[Mystek]]
 
== N ==
Most of these policies were later regarded as coercive, restrictive, or genocidal, and now few jurisdictions implement policies that are explicitly labeled as eugenic or unequivocally eugenic in substance (however labeled). However, some private organizations assist people in [[genetic counseling]], and [[reprogenetics]] may be considered as a form of non-state-enforced "liberal" eugenics.
*[[Naiad (comics)|Naiad]]
*[[Negative Man#Ted Bruder|Negative Man]] (Ted Bruder)
*[[Nemesis Kid]]
*[[Neon the Unknown]]
*Network
*Neutrax (Wi Kan Muur of Dryad)
*[[Neutron (DC Comics)|Neutron]]
*New-Wave (member of the [[Masters of Disaster (comics)|Masters of Disaster]])
*Night (partner of Fog)
*Nightblade (member of the [[Blood Pack (comics)|Blood Pack]]
*[[Nimbus (comics)|Nimbus]]
*[[Northwind (comics)|Northwind]]
*Nox (member of the [[New Olympians]])
*Nudge
 
== O ==
There are 3 main ways by which the methods of eugenics can be applied. They are:
*[[Obsidian (comics)|Obsidian]]
*'''mandatory eugenics''', which is forced upon people by a government
*[[Off-Ramp]] (member of [[Young Heroes in Love]])
*'''promotional voluntary eugenics''', in which eugenics is voluntarily practiced and promoted to the general populace, but not forced onto people
*[[Offspring (comics)|Offspring]]
*'''private eugenics''', which is practiced voluntarily by individuals and groups, but not promoted to the general populace
*Ohm
*[[Omen (comics)|Omen]]
*[[Orca (comics)|Orca]]
*[[Outburst (comics)|Outburst]]
*Outlaw (member of the [[Suicide Squad]])
*[[Overthrow (comics)|Overthrow]]
*[[Owlwoman]]
 
== P ==
There are also different goals of eugenics.<ref>Intrinsic eugenics: most of the non-Nazi eugenics and eugenics supporters from the past,
*[[Peek-a-Boo (comics)|Peek-A-Boo]]
the eu-com and eugenics yahoo groups;
*Penny Dreadful (member of the Helix)
Racial eugenics: Nazi eugenics, early Swedish eugenics, Madison Grant and some other early eugenicists,
*Perun (member of [[Soyuz (comics)|Soyuz]])
at least 1 founder of The Pioneer Fund (a major eugenics organization),
*[[Phantasm (comics)|Phantasm]] (Danny Chase)
prometheans and cosmotheists, and many members of the e-l yahoogroup;
*[[Phobia (comics)|Phobia]] (alias Angela Hawkins III)
Extrinsic social eugenics: singaporean eugenics, goodgenes.com (a singles website),
*Planetmaster
California cryobank (a sperm bank), popular preferences at
*Plantmaster
sperm banks, many eugenicists on internet forums, popular advice for mate selection</ref> They are:
*[[Plasmus (comics)|Plasmus]] (alias Otto Von Furth)
*'''intrinsic eugenics''', which seeks to exclusively improve a person's genetic traits that are intrinsicly beneficial or detrimental to them, such as physical health, mental health, attractiveness, reproductive ability, physical aptitude, intelligence, and self-control
*[[Plastic Man]]
*'''racial eugenics''', which emphasizes selectively breeding a specific race or races
*[[Plastique (comics)|Plastique]]
*'''extrinsic social eugenics''', which selectively breeds people that have high social status and the genetic traits thereof, such as wealth, attendance at popular colleges, college degrees, popularity, extroversion, personality, and humour
*[[Pozhar]]
*Pravda (member of the [[People's Heroes]])
*Praxis (member of the Conglomerate)
*Professor Radium
*[[Professor Zoom]] (see [[Reverse-Flash]])
*Psilencer (member of the Young Supermen of America)
*[[Psi (comics)|Psi]]
*[[Psimon]]
*Pulse 8 (Ultramarine Corps)
*Pyrogen (member of the Young Supermen of America)
 
==History Q ==
*[[Quakemaster]]
===Pre-Galton eugenics===
 
== R ==
Selective breeding was suggested at least as far back as [[Plato]], who believed human reproduction should be controlled by government. He recorded these ideals in ''The Republic'': "The best men must have intercourse with the best women as frequently as possible, and the opposite is true of the very inferior." Plato proposed that the process be concealed from the public via a form of lottery. Other ancient examples include [[Sparta]]'s purported practice of [[infanticide]]. However, they would leave all babies outside for a length of time, and the survivors were considered stronger, while many "weaker" babies perished.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
*[[Radiant (comics)|Radiant]]
*Radiation Roy
*Radion
*[[Ram (comics)|Ram]] (Takeo Yakata)
*[[Rampage (DC Comics)|Rampage]]
*Rampart (member of [[Sovereign Seven]])
*[[Ray (comics)|Ray]] (Ray Terrill)
*Razorsharp (New Blood)
*Reactron
*[[Red Star (comics)|Red Star]]
*Redwing (Team Titans)
*[[Reflecto]]
*[[Resurrection Man (DC Comics)|Resurrection Man]]
*[[Vibe (comics)|Reverb]]
*[[Reverse-Flash]]
*[[Rising Sun (comics)|Rising Sun]]
*Rival (see [[Reverse-Flash]])
*[[Rhea Jones]] (aka Lodestone)
*Rusalka (member of Soyuz)
 
===Galton's theory=S ==
*[[Sandy Hawkins|Sand]] (formerly Sandy the Golden Boy)
*Sandstorm (member of the Global Guardians)
*[[Sapphire (comics)|Sapphire]] (latent telekinetic)
*[[Savitar (comics)|Savitar]]
*Scirocco (member of the Hybrid)
*[[Scorch (DC Comics)|Scorch]]
*Seneca (Cadre of the Immortal)
*Shadowstryke (New Blood)
*[[Shakedown (comics)|Shakedown]]
*[[Shatterfist (DC Comics)|Shatterfist]]
*[[Shimmer (comics)|Shimmer]]
*Shockwave
*[[Shrike (comics)|Shrike I & II]]
*[[Vera Black|Sister Superior]]
*Sizematic Twins
*Skorpio
*Sledge
*Slingshot (New Blood)
*[[Snapper Carr]]
*Socialist Red Guardsman
*Solution (Teen Titans candidate)
*[[Sonar (comics)|Sonar I & II]]
*[[Sparkler (comics)|Sparkler]]
*Sparx (New Blood)
*[[Dorothy Spinner|Spinner, Dorothy]]
*[[Stalnoivolk]]
*[[Striker Z]]
*Sudden Death
*[[Sunburst (comics)|Sunburst]]
*[[Sun Girl (DC comics)|Sun Girl]]
*Sweet 16 (Teen Titans candidate)
 
== T ==
[[Image:Francis Galton 1850s.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Sir [[Francis Galton]] initially developed the ideas of eugenics using social statistics.]]
*Tao Jones (member of Helix)
*[[Tasmanian Devil (comics)|Tasmanian Devil]]
*[[Joshua Clay|Tempest]] (Joshua Clay)
*[[Thunder (comics)|Thunder II]]
*[[Thunderlord]]
*[[Thunder and Lightning (comics)|Thunder and Lightning]]
*[[TNT (comics)|TNT]]
*[[Tobias Whale]]
*[[Tokamak (comics)|Tokamak]]
*[[Top (comics)|Top]]
*Touch-N-Go (member of the Hybrid)
*[[Triumph (comics)|Triumph]]
*[[Tsunami (comics)|Tsunami]]
*[[Tuatara (comics)|Tuatara]]
*Tundra (member of the Global Guardians)
*[[Typhoon (comics)|Typhoon]]
*[[Tyroc]]
 
== U ==
During the 1860s and 1870s, Sir [[Francis Galton]] systematized these ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin [[Charles Darwin]]. After reading Darwin's ''[[Origin of Species]]'', Galton noticed an interpretation of Darwin's work whereby the mechanisms of [[natural selection]] were potentially thwarted by human [[civilization]]. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest. Only by changing these social policies, Galton thought, could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity", a phrase that he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "[[regression towards the mean]]".<ref>See Chapter 3 in [[Donald A. MacKenzie]], ''Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The social construction of scientific knowledge'' (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981).</ref>
*[[Ultra Boy]]
*[[Universo]]
 
== V ==
Galton first sketched out his theory in the 1865 article "Hereditary Talent and Character", then elaborated it further in his 1869 book ''Hereditary Genius''.<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1860-1869/galton-1865-hereditary-talent.pdf "Hereditary talent and character"], ''Macmillan's Magazine'' 12 (1865): 157-166 and 318-327; [[Francis Galton]], [http://www.mugu.com/galton/books/hereditary-genius/ ''Hereditary genius: an inquiry into its laws and consequences''] (London: Macmillan, 1869).</ref> He began by studying the way in which human intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. Galton's basic argument was that [[inheritance of intelligence|"genius" and "talent" were hereditary traits in humans]] (although neither he nor Darwin yet had a working model of this type of heredity). He concluded that, since one could use [[artificial selection]] to exaggerate traits in other animals, one could expect similar results when applying such models to humans. As he wrote in the introduction to ''Hereditary Genius'':
*[[Validus]]
*Vanquisher I & II
*Vapor (member of the Conglomerate)
*Vault
*[[Velvet Tiger (comics)|Velvet Tiger]]
*[[Vibe (comics)|Vibe]]
*Vikhor (member of Soyuz)
*[[Vixen (comics)|Vixen]]
*Volt (from Team Titans)
*[[Mal Duncan|Vox]] (Mal Duncan)
*[[Vulcan (DC Comics)|Vulcan]] (metavirus)
 
== W ==
:I propose to show in this book that a man's natural abilities are derived by inheritance, under exactly the same limitations as are the form and physical features of the whole organic world. Consequently, as it is easy, notwithstanding those limitations, to obtain by careful selection a permanent breed of dogs or horses gifted with peculiar powers of running, or of doing anything else, so it would be quite practicable to produce a highly-gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations.<ref>Galton, ''Hereditary Genius'': 1.</ref>
*War Maker One (member of the [[Ultramarine Corps]])
*[[Warp (comics)|Warp]] (aka Emil LaSalle)
*[[Weather Wizard]] (no longer needs wand)
*[[White Lotus (comics)|White Lotus]] (member of the Supermen of America)
*[[Windfall (comics)|Windfall]]
*[[Bulletman and Bulletgirl#Windshear|Windshear]]
 
== X ==
According to Galton, society already encouraged [[Dysgenics|dysgenic]] conditions, claiming that the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent. Galton did not propose any selection methods; rather, he hoped that a solution would be found if social [[mores]] changed in a way that encouraged people to see the importance of breeding.
*[[XS (comics)|XS]]
 
== Y ==
Galton first used the word ''eugenic'' in his 1883 ''Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development'',<ref>{{harvnb|Larson|2004|p=179}} "Galton coinced the word "eugenics" in his 1883 book, ''Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development''.</ref> a book in which he meant "to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with 'eugenic' questions." He included a footnote to the word "eugenic" which read:
*[[Young Frankenstein (comics)|Young Frankenstein]]
 
== Z ==
:That is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, ''eugenes'' namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, ''eugeneia'', etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word ''eugenics'' would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalised one than ''viriculture'' which I once ventured to use.<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/books/human-faculty/ ''Inquiries into human faculty and its development''] (London, Macmillan, 1883): 17, fn1.</ref>
*Zeep The Living Sponge (Hero Hotline)
*[[Zoom (comics)|Zoom]]
 
{{-}}
In 1904 he clarified his definition of eugenics as "the science which deals with all influences that improve the inborn qualities of a race; also with those that develop them to the utmost advantage."<ref>Francis Galton, [http://www.mugu.com/galton/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm "Eugenics: Its definition, scope, and aims,"] ''The American Journal of Sociology'' 10:1 (July 1904).</ref>
[[Category:DC Comics metahumans| ]]
 
[[Category:Fictional mutates]]
Galton's formulation of eugenics was based on a strong [[statistics|statistical]] approach, influenced heavily by [[Adolphe Quetelet]]'s "social physics". Unlike Quetelet, however, Galton did not exalt the "average man" but decried him as mediocre. Galton and his statistical heir [[Karl Pearson]] developed what was called the [[biometrics|biometrical]] approach to eugenics, which developed new and complex statistical models (later exported to wholly different fields) to describe the heredity of traits. However, with the rediscovery of [[Gregor Mendel]]'s hereditary laws, two separate camps of eugenics advocates emerged. One was made up of statisticians, the other of biologists. Statisticians thought the biologists had exceptionally crude mathematical models, while biologists thought the statisticians knew little about biology.<ref>See Chapters 2 and 6 in MacKenzie, ''Statistics in Britain''.</ref>
[[Category:DC Comics characters]]
 
[[Category:Lists of DC Comics characters]]
Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with an intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the approach of influencing [[differential birth rates]]. These policies were mostly divided into two categories: ''positive eugenics'', the increased reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and ''negative eugenics'', the discouragement of reproduction by those with hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the past have ranged from attempts at [[Racial segregation|segregation]] to [[compulsory sterilization|sterilization]] and even [[genocide]]. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form of awards or bonuses for "fit" parents who have another child. Relatively innocuous practices like [[marriage counseling]] had early links with eugenic ideology.
 
Eugenics differed from what would later be known as [[Social Darwinism]]. While both claimed intelligence was hereditary, eugenics asserted that new policies were needed to actively change the status quo towards a more "eugenic" state, while the Social Darwinists argued society itself would naturally "check" the problem of "dysgenics" if no welfare policies were in place (for example, the poor might reproduce more but would have higher mortality rates).
 
 
 
===The Eugenics Movement in Canada===
In Canada, the Eugenics movement took place early in the 20th Century, and largely in Alberta, although eugenics gained considerable traction in Saskatchewan. The focus of the motion was the sterilization of mentally deficient individuals, as determined by the [[Alberta Eugenics Board]]. The campaign to enforce this action was backed by groups such as the United Farm Women's Group (including key member [[Emily Murphy]], whose campaign for women's rights seemed to take a back seat in the matter), and the Saskatchewan CCF government led by a strong proponent of eugenics, [[Tommy Douglas]].
 
Individuals were assessed using IQ tests such as the Sanford-Binet. This posed a problem to many of the new immigrants arriving to Canada, as their lack of mastery with the English language often led to scores denoting them as having impaired intellectual functioning. As a result, many of those sterilized under the Canadian eugenics movement were immigrants who did not necessarily fall into the category.
 
The height of the eugenics movement's popularity was reached during the depression. Individuals sought a scapegoat for the financial problems of the nation, and the notion of defective breeding brought about a means to place the blame on individuals considered to be subhuman. The end of the eugenics movement was brought about by the repealing of the law which made it mandatory in 1945.
 
===Eugenics and the state, 1890s–1945===
One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenic ideas (before they were labeled as such) was [[Alexander Graham Bell]]. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of [[deaf]]ness on [[Martha's Vineyard]], Massachusetts. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and recommended a marriage prohibition against the deaf ("Memoir upon the formation of a deaf variety of the human Race") even though he was married to a deaf woman. Like many other early eugenicists, he proposed controlling immigration for the purpose of eugenics and warned that boarding schools for the deaf could possibly be considered as breeding places of a deaf human race.
 
The [[U.S. Supreme Court]] upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia Law allowing for the [[Buck v. Bell|compulsory sterilization]] of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.<ref>{{harvnb|Larson|2004|p=194-195}} Citing [[Buck v. Bell]] 274 U.S. 200, 205 (1927).</ref>
 
Though eugenics is today often associated with [[racism]], it was not always so; both [[W.E.B. DuBois]] and [[Marcus Garvey]] supported eugenics or ideas resembling eugenics as a way to reduce [[African American]] suffering and improve their stature.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Many legal methods of eugenics include state laws against [[miscegenation]] or prohibitions of [[interracial marriage]]. The [[U.S. Supreme Court]] overturned those state laws in 1967 and declared antimiscegenation laws unconstitutional.
 
[[Image:Wir stehen nicht allein.jpg|thumb|200px|"We do not stand alone": Nazi poster from 1936 with flags of other countries with [[compulsory sterilization]] legislation.]]
 
[[Nazi Germany]] under [[Adolf Hitler]] was infamous for eugenics programs which attempted to maintain a "pure" German race through a series of programs that ran under the banner of "[[racial hygiene]]". Among other activities, the Nazis performed extensive experimentation on live human beings to test their genetic theories, ranging from simple measurement of physical characteristics to the horrific experiments carried out by [[Josef Mengele]] for [[Otmar von Verschuer]] on twins in the concentration camps. During the 1930s and 1940s, the Nazi regime forcibly sterilized hundreds of thousands of people whom they viewed as mentally and physically "unfit", an estimated 400,000 between 1934 and 1937. The scale of the Nazi program prompted American eugenics advocates to seek an expansion of their program, with one complaining that "the Germans are beating us at our own game".<ref>Quoted in Selgelid, Michael J. 2000. Neugenics? ''Monash Bioethics Review'' 19 (4):9-33</ref> The Nazis went further, however, killing tens of thousands of the institutionalized disabled through compulsory "[[euthanasia]]" programs.<ref>The Nazi eugenics policies are discussed in a number of sources. A few of the more definitive ones are Robert Proctor, ''Racial hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis'' (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988) and Dieter Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine: creating the master race'' (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004) ([http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ online exhibit]). On the development of the [[racial hygiene]] movement before National Socialism, see Paul Weindling, ''Health, race and German politics between national unification and Nazism, 1870-1945'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989).</ref>
 
[[Image:EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg|thumb|left|Nazi propaganda for their compulsory [[T-4 Euthanasia Program|"euthanasia" program]]: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow Germans, that is your money, too."]]
 
They also implemented a number of "positive" eugenics policies, giving awards to "[[Aryan race|Aryan]]" women who had large numbers of children and encouraged a service in which "racially pure" single women could deliver illegitimate children. Allegations that such women were also impregnated by [[Schutzstaffel|SS]] officers in the ''[[Lebensborn]]'' are common, but unproven. Also, "racially valuable" children from occupied countries were forcibly removed from their parents and adopted by German people. Many of their concerns for eugenics and racial hygiene were also explicitly present in their systematic killing of millions of "undesirable" people including [[Jew]]s, [[Roma (people)|Gypsies]], Jehovah's Witnesses and [[homosexuality|homosexuals]] during [[the Holocaust]] (much of the killing equipment and methods employed in the death camps were first developed in the euthanasia program). The scope and coercion involved in the German eugenics programs along with a strong use of the rhetoric of eugenics and so-called "racial science" throughout the regime created an indelible cultural association between eugenics and the [[Third Reich]] in the postwar years.<ref>See Proctor, ''Racial hygiene'', and Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine.''</ref>
 
The second largest eugenics movement was in the [[United States]]. Beginning with [[Connecticut]] in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or [[feeble-minded]]" from marrying. In 1898 [[Charles Benedict Davenport|Charles B. Davenport]], a prominent American [[biology|biologist]], began as director of a biological research station based in [[Cold Spring Harbor]] where he experimented with evolution in plants and animals. In 1904 Davenport received funds from the [[Carnegie Institution]] to found the Station for Experimental Evolution. The [[Eugenics Record Office]] opened in 1910 while Davenport and [[Harry H. Laughlin]] began to promote eugenics.<ref>The history of eugenics in the United States is discussed at length in Mark Haller, ''Eugenics: Hereditarian attitudes in American thought'' (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963) and [[Daniel Kevles]], ''In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity'' (New York: Knopf, 1985), the latter being the standard survey work on the subject.</ref>
 
During the 20th century, researchers became interested in the idea that mental illness could run in families and conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of such illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. Their findings were used by the eugenics movement as proof for its cause. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. These laws were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1927 and were not abolished until the mid-20th century. By 1945 over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized.
 
[[Image:Kallikaks chart1.jpg|200px|right|thumb|A [[pedigree]] chart from ''[[The Kallikak Family]]'' meant to show how one "illicit tryst" could lead to an entire generation of "imbeciles".]]
 
In years to come, the ERO collected a mass of family pedigrees and concluded that those who were unfit came from economically and socially poor backgrounds. Eugenicists such as Davenport, the [[psychology|psychologist]] [[Henry H. Goddard]] and the conservationist [[Madison Grant]] (all well respected in their time) began to lobby for various solutions to the problem of the "unfit". (Davenport favored immigration restriction and sterilization as primary methods; Goddard favored segregation in his ''[[The Kallikak Family]]''; Grant favored all of the above and more, even entertaining the idea of extermination.)<ref>See Kevles, ''In the name of eugenics.''</ref> Though their methodology and research methods are now understood as highly flawed, at the time this was seen as legitimate scientific research. {{Fact|date=February 2007}} It did, however, have scientific detractors (notably, [[Thomas Hunt Morgan]], one of the few [[Mendel]]ians to explicitly criticize eugenics), though most of these focused more on what they considered the crude methodology of eugenicists, and the characterization of almost every human characteristic as being hereditary, rather than the idea of eugenics itself.<ref>Hamilton Cravens, ''The triumph of evolution: American scientists and the heredity-environment controversy, 1900-1941'' (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978): 179.</ref>
 
The idea of "genius" and "talent" is also considered by William Graham Sumner, a founder of the American Sociological Society (now called the American Sociological Association). He maintained that if the government did not meddle with the social policy of ''laissez-faire'', a class of genius would rise to the top of the system of social stratification, followed by a class of talent. Most of the rest of society would fit into the class of mediocrity. Those who were considered to be defective (mentally retarded, handicapped, etc.) had a negative effect on social progress by draining off necessary resources. They should be left on their own to sink or swim. But those in the class of delinquent (criminals, deviants, etc.) should be eliminated from society ("Folkways", 1907).
 
[[Image:Anthropometry exhibit.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Anthropometry demonstrated in an exhibit from a 1921 eugenics conference.]]
 
With the passage of the [[Immigration Act of 1924]], eugenicists for the first time played a central role in the Congressional debate as expert advisers on the threat of "inferior stock" from eastern and southern Europe. This reduced the number of immigrants from abroad to 15 percent from previous years, to control the number of "unfit" individuals entering the country. The new act strengthened existing laws prohibiting race mixing in an attempt to maintain the gene pool.<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay9text.html.</ref> Eugenic considerations also lay behind the adoption of [[incest]] laws in much of the U.S. and were used to justify many [[miscegenation|antimiscegenation]] laws.<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenic Laws Against Race-Mixing," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay7text.html.</ref>
 
Some states sterilized "imbeciles" for much of the 20th century. The [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] ruled in the [[1927]] ''[[Buck v. Bell]]'' case that the state of [[Virginia]] could sterilize those it thought unfit. The most significant era of [[compulsory sterilization|eugenic sterilization]] was between 1907 and 1963, when over 64,000 individuals were forcibly sterilized under eugenic legislation in the United States.<ref>Paul Lombardo, "Eugenic Sterilization Laws," essay in the Eugenics Archive, available online at http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/html/eugenics/essay8text.html.</ref> A favorable report on the results of sterilization in [[California]], by far the state with the most sterilizations, was published in book form by the biologist [[Paul Popenoe]] and was widely cited by the Nazi government as evidence that wide-reaching sterilization programs were feasible and humane. When Nazi administrators went on trial for [[war crimes]] in [[Nuremberg]] after [[World War II]], they justified the mass sterilizations (over 450,000 in less than a decade) by citing the United States as their inspiration.<ref>The connections between U.S. and Nazi eugenicists is discussed in Edwin Black, "[http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection]", ''San Francisco Chronicle'' ([[9 November]] [[2003]]), as well as Black's ''War Against the Weak'' (New York: Four Wars Eight Windows, 2003). Stefan Kühl's work, ''The Nazi connection: Eugenics, American racism, and German National Socialism'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), is considered the standard scholarly work on the subject.</ref>
 
===Other countries===
 
Almost all non-Catholic Western nations adopted some eugenic legislations. In July 1933 [[Germany]] passed a law allowing for the involuntary sterilization of "hereditary and incurable drunkards, sexual criminals, lunatics, and those suffering from an incurable disease which would be passed on to their offspring."<ref>"Sterilisation of the unfit - Nazi legislation," ''The Guardian'' (26 July 1933). Available online at [http://century.guardian.co.uk/1930-1939/Story/0,6051,126942,00.html].</ref> Two provinces in Canada carried out thousands of [[compulsory sterilization]]s, and these lasted into the 1970s. Many [[First Nations]] (native Canadians) were targeted, as well as immigrants from Eastern Europe, as the program identified racial and ethnic minorities to be genetically inferior. [[Sweden]] forcibly sterilized 62,000 people, primarily the mentally ill in the later decades, but also ethnic or racial minorities early on, as part of a eugenics program over a 40-year period. As was the case in other programs, ethnicity and race were believed to be connected to mental and physical health. While many Swedes disliked the program, politicians generally supported it; the ruling left supported it more as a means of promoting social health, while amongst the right it was more about racial protectionism. (The Swedish government has subsequently paid damages to those involved.) Besides the large-scale program in the [[United States]], other nations included [[Australia]], the [[UK]], [[Norway]], [[France]], [[Finland]], [[Denmark]], [[Estonia]], [[Iceland]], and [[Switzerland]] with programs to sterilize people the government declared to be mentally deficient. [[Singapore]] practiced a limited form of eugenics that involved encouraging marriage between [[university]] graduates and the rest through segregation in matchmaking agencies, in the hope that the former would produce better children.<ref>There are a number of works discussing eugenics in various countries around the world. For the history of eugenics in Scandinavia, see Gunnar Broberg and Nils Roll-Hansen, eds., ''Eugenics And the Welfare State: Sterilization Policy in Demark, Sweden, Norway, and Findland'' (Michigan State University Press, 2005). Another international approach is Mark B. Adams, ed., ''The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).</ref>
 
Various authors, notably [[Stephen Jay Gould]], have repeatedly asserted that restrictions on [[immigration]] passed in the United States during the 1920s (and overhauled in 1965) were motivated by the goals of eugenics, in particular, a desire to exclude races considered to be inferior from the national gene pool. During the early 20th century, the United States and Canada began to receive far higher numbers of Southern and Eastern European immigrants. Influential eugenicists like [[Lothrop Stoddard]] and [[Harry Laughlin]] (who was appointed as an expert witness for the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in 1920) presented arguments that these were inferior races that would pollute the national gene pool if their numbers went unrestricted. It has been argued that this stirred both Canada and the United States into passing laws creating a hierarchy of nationalities, rating them from the most desirable [[Anglo-Saxons|Anglo-Saxon]] and [[Nordic race|Nordic]] peoples to the Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who were almost completely banned from entering the country.<ref>See Lombardo, "Eugenics Laws Restricting Immigration"; and [[Stephen Jay Gould]], ''The mismeasure of man'' (New York: Norton, 1981).</ref> However, several people, in particular [[Franz Samelson]], [[Mark Snyderman]] and [[Richard Herrnstein]], have argued that, based on their examination of the records of the congressional debates over immigration policy, Congress gave virtually no consideration to these factors. According to these authors, the restrictions were motivated primarily by a desire to maintain the country's [[culture|cultural]] integrity against a heavy influx of foreigners.<ref>[[Richard Herrnstein]] and [[Charles Murray]], ''[[The Bell Curve]]'' (Free Press, 1994): 5; and [[Mark Syderman]] Richard Herrnstein, "Intelligence tests and the Immigration Act of 1924," ''American Psychologist'' 38 (1983): 986-995.</ref> This interpretation is not, however, accepted by most historians of eugenics.
 
Some who disagree with the idea of eugenics in general contend that eugenics legislation still had benefits. [[Margaret Sanger]] (founder of [[Planned Parenthood of America]]) found it a useful tool to urge the legalization of [[contraception]]. In its time eugenics was seen by many as scientific and progressive, the natural application of knowledge about breeding to the arena of human life. Before the death camps of [[World War II]], the idea that eugenics could lead to [[genocide]] was not taken seriously.
 
===Marginalization after World War II===
[[Image:Eugenics Quarterly to Social Biology.jpg|right|thumb|300px|In the decades after [[World War II]], eugenics became increasingly unpopular within academic science. Many organizations and journals that had their origins in the eugenics movement began to distance themselves from the philosophy, such as when ''Eugenics Quarterly'' became ''Social Biology'' in 1969.]]
 
After the experience of [[Nazi Germany]], many ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific community. The [[Nuremberg Trials]] against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics and the 1950 [[UNESCO]] statement on race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]], developed in response to abuses during the Second World War, was adopted by the [[United Nations]] in 1948 and affirmed, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm | title=Universal Declaration of Human Rights | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref> In continuation, the 1978 [[UNESCO]] declaration on race and racial prejudice states that the fundamental equality of all human beings is the ideal toward which ethics and science should converge.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/d_prejud.htm | title=Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref>
 
In reaction to Nazi abuses, eugenics became almost universally reviled in many of the nations where it had once been popular (however, some eugenics programs, including sterilization, continued quietly for decades). Many pre-war eugenicists engaged in what they later labeled "crypto-eugenics", purposefully taking their eugenic beliefs "underground" and becoming respected anthropologists, biologists and geneticists in the postwar world (including [[Robert Yerkes]] in the U.S. and [[Otmar von Verschuer]] in Germany). Californian eugenicist [[Paul Popenoe]] founded [[marriage counseling]] during the 1950s, a career change which grew from his eugenic interests in promoting "healthy marriages" between "fit" couples.<ref>A discussion of the general changes in views towards genetics and race after World War II is: Elazar Barkan, ''The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).</ref>
 
Some opponents of eugenics charge that eugenics was merely "re-packaged" after the war, and promoted anew in the guise of the population-control and environmentalism movements. It is claimed, for example, that [[Planned Parenthood]] was funded and cultivated by the Eugenics Society for these reasons. Former Eugenics Society president [[Julian Huxley]] became the first Director-General of [[UNESCO]] and a founder of the [[World Wildlife Fund]]. <ref>American Bioethics Advisory Commission, [http://www.all.org/abac/eugen02.htm "Eugenics,"] ABAC website</ref>
 
<blockquote>[E]ven though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care, and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake so that much that now is unthinkable may at least become thinkable. --Julian Huxley<ref>''UNESCO: Its Purpose and its Philosophy'' (Washington D.C. 1947), cited in Liagin, Excessive Force: Power Politics and Population Control, at 85 (Washington, D.C.: Information Project for Africa 1996)</ref></blockquote>
 
High school and college textbooks from the 1920s through the '40s often had chapters touting the scientific progress to be had from applying eugenic principles to the population. Many early scientific journals devoted to heredity in general were run by eugenicists and featured eugenics articles alongside studies of heredity in nonhuman organisms. After eugenics fell out of scientific favor, most references to eugenics were removed from textbooks and subsequent editions of relevant journals. Even the names of some journals changed to reflect new attitudes. For example, ''Eugenics Quarterly'' became ''Social Biology'' in 1969 (the journal still exists today, though it looks little like its predecessor). Notable members of the [[American Eugenics Society]] (1922–94) during the second half of the 20th century included [[Joseph Fletcher]], originator of [[Situational ethics]]; Dr. [[Clarence Gamble]] of the [[Procter & Gamble]] fortune; and [[Garrett Hardin]], a [[population control]] advocate and author of ''[[tragedy of the commons|The Tragedy of the Commons]]''.
 
Despite the changed postwar attitude towards eugenics in the U.S. and some European countries, a few nations, notably, Canada and [[Sweden]], maintained large-scale eugenics programs, including forced sterilization of mentally handicapped individuals, as well as other practices, until the 1970s. In the United States, sterilizations capped off in the 1960s, though the eugenics movement had largely lost most popular and political support by the end of the 1930s.<ref>See Broberg and Nil-Hansen, ed., ''Eugenics And the Welfare State'' and Alexandra Stern, ''Eugenic nation: faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005)</ref>
 
==Modern eugenics, genetic engineering, and ethical re-evaluation==
Beginning in the 1980s, the history and concept of eugenics were widely discussed as knowledge about [[genetics]] advanced significantly. Endeavors such as the [[Human Genome Project]] made the effective modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery of [[Mendelian inheritance|Mendel's laws]] in the early 20th century). The difference at the beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced.
 
===Suggestions and ideas===
A few scientific researchers such as psychologist [[Richard Lynn]], psychologist [[Raymond Cattell]], and doctor [[Gregory Stock]] have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology, but they represent a minority opinion in current scientific and cultural circles.<ref>See, i.e., [[Richard Lynn]], ''Eugenics: A Reassessment (Human Evolution, Behavior, and Intelligence)'' (Praeger Publishers, 2001).</ref> One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a "[[Repository for Germinal Choice|genius sperm bank]]" (1980–99) created by [[Robert Klark Graham]], from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donor was [[Nobel Prize]] winner [[William Shockley]]). In the U.S. and Europe, though, these attempts have frequently been criticized as in the same spirit of classist and racist forms of eugenics of the 1930s. Because of its association with compulsory sterilization and the racial ideals of the Nazi Party, the word ''eugenics'' is rarely used by the advocates of such programs.
 
===China===
Only a few governments in the world have anything resembling eugenic programs today, the most notable being [[People's Republic of China|China]]. In 1993, the Chinese government announced a law, "On Eugenics and Health Protection," designed to "avoid new births of inferior quality and heighten the standards of the whole population."[http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/grhf-asia/suchana/0100/h025.html] In 1994 they passed the "Maternal and Infant Health Care Law", which included mandatory premarital screenings for "genetic diseases of a serious nature" and "relevant mental disease". Those who were diagnosed with such diseases were required either not to marry, agree to "long-term contraceptive measures" or to submit to sterilization. Divorces have been granted for reasons such as [[schizophrenia]].<ref>DLFZW.com. [http://www.dlfzw.com/shownews.asp?newsid=3423 News article.] {{zh icon}}</ref> (See also: [[One-child policy]])
 
===Cyprus===
A similar screening policy (including prenatal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of [[thalassemia]] exists on both sides of the island of [[Cyprus]]. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero.
 
In the government controlled areas, tests for the gene are compulsory for both partners, prior to marriage.
 
===Dor Yeshorim===
{{main|Dor Yeshorim}}
Dor Yeshorim, a program which seeks to reduce the incidence of [[Tay-Sachs disease]], [[Cystic Fibrosis]], [[Canavan disease]], [[Fanconi anemia]], [[Familial Dysautonomia]], [[Glycogen storage disease]], [[Bloom's Syndrome]], [[Gaucher Disease]], [[Niemann-Pick Disease]], and [[Mucolipidosis IV]] among certain [[Orthodox Judaism|Jewish communities]], is another screening program which has drawn comparisons with [[liberal eugenics]]. [http://www.shidduchim.info/medical.html] In [[Israel]], at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose these diseases before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with one of these diseases among which Tay-Sachs is the most commonly known, the pregnancy may be terminated, subject to consent. Most other [[Ashkenazi]] Jewish communities also run screening programs because of the higher incidence of genetic diseases. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking (shidduch) is still practiced, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being homozygous for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim (which was founded by a rabbi who lost four children to Tay-Sachs in order to prevent others suffering the same tragedy) test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on fatal conditions. If both the young man and woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. Judaism, like numerous other religions, discourages abortion unless there is a risk to the mother, in which case her needs take precedence. The effort is not aimed at eradicating the hereditary traits, but rather at the occurrence of homozygosity. The actual impact of this program on [[allele]] frequencies is unknown, but little impact would be expected because the program does not impose genetic selection. Instead, it encourages disassortative mating.
 
===Ethical re-assessment===
In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new "eugenics" will come from reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create so-called "[[designer baby|designer babies]]" (what the biologist [[Lee M. Silver]] prominently called "[[reprogenetics]]"). It has been argued that this "non-coercive" form of biological "improvement" will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create "the best opportunities" for children, rather than an urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early 20th-century forms of eugenics. Because of this non-coercive nature, lack of involvement by the state and a difference in goals, some commentators have questioned whether such activities are eugenics or something else altogether. But critics note {{Fact|date=February 2007}} that [[Francis Galton]], did not advocate for coercion when he defined the principles of eugenics. In other words, eugenics does not mean coercion. It is, according to Galton who originated the term, the proper label for bioengineering of "better" human beings.
 
[[Daniel Kevles]] argues that eugenics and the conservation of natural resources are similar propositions. Both can be practiced foolishly so as to abuse individual rights, but both can be practiced wisely.
 
Some disability activists argue that, although their impairments may cause them pain or discomfort, what really disables them as members of society is a sociocultural system that does not recognize their right to genuinely equal treatment. They express skepticism that any form of eugenics could be to the benefit of the disabled considering their treatment by historical eugenic campaigns.
 
[[James D. Watson]], the first director of the [[Human Genome Project]], initiated the [[Ethical, Legal and Social Implications Program]] (ELSI) which has funded a number of studies into the implications of human genetic engineering (along with a prominent website on the history of eugenics), because:
 
:In putting ethics so soon into the genome agenda, I was responding to my own personal fear that all too soon critics of the Genome Project would point out that I was a representative of the [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]] that once housed the controversial [[Eugenics Record Office]]. My not forming a genome ethics program quickly might be falsely used as evidence that I was a closet eugenicist, having as my real long-term purpose the unambiguous identification of genes that lead to social and occupational stratification as well as genes justifying racial discrimination.<ref>[[James D. Watson]], ''A passion for DNA: Genes, genomes, and society'' (Cold Spring Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, 2000): 202.</ref>
 
Distinguished geneticists including Nobel Prize-winners [[John Sulston]] ("I don't think one ought to bring a clearly disabled child into the world")<ref>Quoted in Brendan Bourne, "Scientist warns disabled over having children" ''The Sunday Times (Britain)'' ([[13 October]] [[2004]]). Available online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1337781,00.html.</ref> and Watson ("Once you have a way in which you can improve our children, no one can stop it")<ref>Quoted in Mark Henderson, "Let's cure stupidity, says DNA pioneer", ''The Times'' ([[28 February]] [[2003]]). Available online at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-593687,00.html.</ref> support [[genetic screening]]. Which ideas should be described as "eugenic" are still controversial in both public and scholarly spheres. Some observers such as [[Philip Kitcher]] have described the use of genetic screening by parents as making possible a form of "voluntary" eugenics.<ref>[[Philip Kitcher]], ''The Lives to Come'' (Penguin, 1997). Review available online at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/genome/geneticsandsociety/hg16f009.html.</ref>
 
Some modern [[subculture]]s advocate different forms of eugenics assisted by [[human cloning]] and [[human genetic engineering]], sometimes even as part of a new [[Cult (religion)|cult]] (see [[Raëlism]], [[Cosmotheism]], or [[Prometheism (eugenics)|Prometheism]]). These groups also talk of "neo-eugenics". "conscious evolution", or "genetic freedom".
 
Behavioral traits often identified as potential targets for modification through [[human genetic engineering]] include intelligence, depression, schizophrenia, alcoholism, sexual behavior (and orientation) and criminality.
 
==Criticism==
{{ActiveDiscuss}}
 
===Diseases vs. traits===
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. Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the other hand, [[Genetic disorder|genetic diseases]] like [[hemochromatosis]] can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means, some of which are eugenic in all but name. The other traits that are discussed have positive as well as negative effects and are not generally targeted at present anywhere.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
===Slippery slope===
A common criticism of eugenics is that it inevitably leads to measures that are unethical (Lynn 2001). In the hypothetical scenario where it's scientifically proven that one racial minority group making up 5% of the population is on average less intelligent than the majority racial group it's more likely that the minority racial group will be submitted to a eugenics program, opposed to the 5% least intelligent members of the population as a whole. For example, Nazi Germany's eugenic program within the German population resulted in protests and unrest, while the persecution of the Jews was met with silence.
 
H. L. Kaye wrote of "the obvious truth that eugenics has been discredited by Hitler's crimes" (Kaye 1989). R. L. Hayman argued "the eugenics movement is an anachronism, its political implications exposed by the Holocaust" (Hayman 1990).
 
[[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:
 
<Blockquote>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.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/books/tbs/media_articles/2002_10_30_upi.html | title=United Press International: Q&A: Steven Pinker of 'Blank Slate | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref></Blockquote>
 
[[Richard Lynn]] argues that any social philosophy is capable of ethical misuse. Though Christian principles have aided in the abolition of slavery and the establishment of welfare programs, he notes that the Christian church has also burned many dissidents at the stake and waged against nonbelievers in which Christian crusaders slaughtered large numbers of women and children. Lynn argues the appropriate response is to condemn these killings, but believing that Christianity "inevitably leads to the extermination of those who do not accept its doctrines" is unwarranted (Lynn 2001).
 
===Genetic diversity===
Eugenic policies could also lead to loss of [[genetic diversity]], in which case a culturally accepted improvement of the gene pool may, but would not necessarily, result in biological disaster due to increased vulnerability to disease, reduced ability to adapt to environmental change and other factors both known and unknown. This kind of argument from the [[precautionary principle]] is itself widely criticized. A long-term eugenics plan is likely to lead to a scenario similar to this because the elimination of traits deemed undesirable would reduce genetic diversity by definition.
 
To the contrary, some studies have shown that [[dysgenic]] trends lead to a decrease of genetic diversity, a development that in theory could be countered by a eugenic program.{{Fact|date=February 2007}}
 
The possible elimination of the [[autism]] [[genotype]] is a significant political issue in the [[autism rights movement]], which claims autism is a form of [[neurodiversity]]. Many advocates of Down Syndrome rights also consider Down Syndrome (Trisomy-21) 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 [[Zygosity|heterozygous]] [[recessive trait]], the problem is that by eliminating the visible unwanted trait, there are still as many genes for the condition left in the gene pool as were eliminated according to the [[Hardy-Weinberg principle]], which states that a population's genetics are defined as pp+2pq+qq at equilibrium. With [[genetic testing]] it may be possible to detect all of the heterozygous recessive traits, but only at great cost with the current technology. 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, the practical value for "eliminating" traits is quite low.
 
==Counterarguments==
===Reductio ad Hitlerum===
One website on logic has used the statement "Eugenics must be wrong because it was associated with the Nazis" as a typical example of the "[[association fallacy]]" known as a [[Reductio ad Hitlerum]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.fallacyfiles.org/guiltbya.html | title=Logical Fallacy: Guilt by Association | accessdate=2006-08-26}}</ref>
 
===Dysgenics===
{{main|Dysgenics}}
Some supporters of eugenics allege that a [[dysgenic]] decline in intelligence is occurring, which may lead to the collapse of civilization, and justify eugenic programs on that basis.
 
===Potential Benefits===
Small differences in average IQ at the group level might theoretically have large effects on social outcomes. [[Richard Herrnstein]] and [[Charles Murray (author)|Charles Murray]] altered the mean IQ (100) of the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's population sample by randomly deleting individuals below an IQ of 103 until the population mean reached 103. This calculation was conducted twice and averaged together to avoid error from the random selection. This test showed that the new group with an average IQ of 103 had a poverty rate 25% lower than a group with an average IQ of 100. Similar substantial correlations in high school drop-out rates, crime rates, and other outcomes were measured.
 
Indeed, many studies suggest that IQ correlates with various socioeconomic factors. However, to what extent IQ is a cause of these socioeconomic factors, as opposed to a consequence of them, is disputed. Studies have suggested, for example, that education increases an individual's IQ.
 
==Eugenics in popular culture==
Eugenics is a recurrent theme in [[science fiction]], often with both [[dystopian]] and [[utopian]] elements. The two giant contributions in this field are the novel ''[[Brave New World]]'' (1932) by [[Aldous Huxley]], which describes a society where control of human biology by the state results in permanent social stratification, and [[The Island of Dr Moreau]] by [[H G Wells]], which portrays a latter-day Dr Frankenstein who uses genetic manipulation experiments to create an island population of half-human, half-animal beings.
 
The Brave New World theme also plays a role in the 1997 film ''[[Gattaca]]'', whose plot turns around [[reprogenetics]], [[genetic testing]], and the social consequences of [[liberal eugenics]]. [[Boris Vian]] (under the pseudonym Vernon Sullivan) takes a more light-hearted approach in his novel ''Et on tuera tous les affreux'' ("And we'll kill all the ugly ones").
 
Other novels touching upon the subject include ''[[The Gate to Women's Country]]'' by [[Sheri S. Tepper]] and ''[[That Hideous Strength]]'' by [[C.S. Lewis]]. The [[Eugenics Wars]] are a significant part of the background story of the [[Star Trek]] universe (episodes "[[Space Seed]]", "[[Borderland (Enterprise episode)|Borderland]]", "[[Cold Station 12]]", "[[The Augments]]" and the film ''[[The Wrath of Khan]]''). Eugenics also plays a significant role in [[the Neanderthal Parallax]] trilogy where eugenics-practicing Neanderthals from a near-utopian parallel world create a gateway to earth. [[Cowl (novel)]] by [[Neal Asher]] describes the collapse of western civilization due to [[dysgenics]].
 
In [[Frank Herbert|Frank Herbert's]] ''[[Dune (novel)|Dune]]'' series of novels, selective breeding programs form a significant theme. Early in the series, the [[Bene Gesserit]] religious order manipulates breeding patterns over many generations in order to create the [[Kwisatz Haderach]]. In ''[[God Emperor of Dune]]'', the emperor [[Leto Atreides II|Leto II]] again manipulates human breeding in order to achieve his own ends. The [[Bene Tleilaxu]] also employed genetic engineering to create human beings with specific genetic attributes.
 
There tends to be a eugenic undercurrent in the [[science fiction]] concept of the [[supersoldier]]. Several depictions of these supersoldiers usually have them bred for combat or genetically selected for attributes that are beneficial to modern or future combat.
 
In the novels ''Methuselah's Children'' and ''[[Time Enough for Love]]'' by [[Robert A. Heinlein]], a large trust fund is created to give financial encouragement to marriage among people (the [[Howard Families]]) whose parents and grandparents were long lived. The result is a subset of Earth's population who has significantly above-average life spans. Members of this group appear in many of the works by the same author.
 
In [[Eoin Colfer]]'s book ''[[The Supernaturalist]]'', Ditto is a Bartoli Baby, which is the name for a failed experiment of the famed Dr. Bartoli. Bartoli tried to create a superior race of humans, but they ended in [[Arrested development (psychology)|arrested development]], with mutations including [[extra sensory perception]] and healing hands.
 
In [[Gene Roddenberry]]'s science-fiction television series ''[[Andromeda (TV series)|Andromeda]]'', the entire [[Nietzschean]] race is founded on the principals of selective breeding.
 
In [[Larry Niven]]'s ''[[Ringworld]]'' series, the character [[Teela Brown]] is a result of several generations of winners of the "Birthright Lottery", a system which attempts to encourage lucky people to breed, treating good luck as a genetic trait.
 
In season 2 of ''[[Dark Angel (TV series)|Dark Angel]]'', the main 'bad guy' Ames White is a member of a cult known as the ''Conclave'' which has infiltrated various levels of society to breed super-humans. They are trying to exterminate all the Transgenics, including the main character Max Guevara, whom they view as being genetically unclean for having some animal DNA spliced with human.
 
In the video game [[Grand Theft Auto: Vice City]] a fictional character called Pastor Richards, who is a caricature of an extreme and insane [[Televangelism|televangelist]], is featured as a guest on a discussion radio show about morality. On this show he describes shooting people who do not agree with him and who are not "morally correct", the show's host describes this as "amateur eugenics".
 
In the 2006 [[Mike Judge]] film, [[Idiocracy]] a fictional character, pvt. Joe Bauers, aka Not Sure (played by [[Luke Wilson]], awakens from a cryogenic stasis in the year 2505 into a world devastated by dysgenic degeneration. Bowers, who was chosen for his averageness, is discovered to be the smartest human alive and eventually becomes the president of America.
 
See also [[Genetic engineering in fiction]].
 
==See also==
* [[One-child policy]]
* [[Alberta Eugenics Board]]
* [[List of eugenicists]]
* [[Biological determinism]]
* [[Genetic determinism]]
* [[Inheritance of intelligence]]
* [[Nature versus nurture]]
* [[Leilani Muir]]
* [[John M. MacEachran]]
* [[Nazi eugenics]]
* [[Race and intelligence]]
* [[Genetics and violence]]
* [[Repository for Germinal Choice]]
* [[Social Justice]]
* [[State racism]], a concept coined by [[Michel Foucault]]
* [[Transhumanism]]
 
==Notes==
<div class="references-small">
<references/>
</div>
 
==References==
 
*{{Harvard reference
| Surname = Larson
| Given = Edward J.
| Authorlink = Edward J. Larson
| Year = 2004
| Title = Evolution
| Publisher = Modern Library
| ID = ISBN 0-679-64288-9
}}
;Histories of eugenics (academic accounts)
*Elof Axel Carlson, ''The Unfit: A History of a Bad Idea'' (Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2001). ISBN 0-87969-587-0
*[[Daniel Kevles]], ''In the name of eugenics: Genetics and the uses of human heredity'' (New York: Knopf, 1985).
*Dieter Kuntz, ed., ''Deadly medicine: creating the master race'' (Washington, DC: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2004). [http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ online exhibit]
*[[Ruth C. Engs]], ''The Eugenics Movement: An Encyclopedia.'' (Westport CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005). ISBN 0-313-32791-2.
;Histories of hereditarian thought
*Elazar Barkan, ''The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars'' (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
*[[Stephen Jay Gould]], ''The mismeasure of man'' (New York: Norton, 1981).
*Ewen & Ewen, ''Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality'' (New York, Seven Stories Press, 2006).
;Criticisms of eugenics, historical and modern
*[[Edwin Black]], ''War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race'' (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003). [http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/] ISBN 1-56858-258-7
*[[Dinesh D'Souza]], ''The End of Racism'' (Free Press, 1995) ISBN 0-02-908102-5
*Robert L. Hayman, ''Presumptions of justice: Law, politics, and the mentally retarded parent''. ''Harvard Law Review'' 1990, 103, 1202-71. (p. 1209)
*Joseph, J. (2004)[http://www.jayjoseph.net/GeneIllusion.html . ''The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope''.]New York: Algora. (2003 United Kingdom Edition by PCCS Books)
*Joseph, J. (2005). The 1942 “Euthanasia” Debate in the American Journal of Psychiatry. ''History of Psychiatry, 16,'' 171-179.
*Joseph, J. (2006). [http://www.jayjoseph.net/MissingGene.html''The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity, and the Fruitless Search for Genes''.]New York: Algora.
*H. L. Kaye, ''The social meaning of modern biology'' 1987, New Haven, CT Yale University Press. (p. 46)
*[[Tom Shakespeare]], "Back to the Future? New Genetics and Disabled People", ''Critical Social Policy'' 46:22-35 (1995)
*Wahlsten, D. (1997). Leilani Muir versus the Philosopher King: eugenics on trial in Alberta. ''Genetica'' '''99''': 185-198.
*[[Tom Shakespeare]], ''Genetic Politics: from Eugenics to Genome'', with Anne Kerr (New Clarion Press, 2002).
*Nancy Ordover, ''American Eugenics: Race, Queer Anatomy, and the Science of Nationalism'' (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 2003). ISBN 0-8166-3559-5
*Gina Maranto, "Quest for Perfection: The Drive to Breed Better Human Beings" Diane Publishing Co. (June 1996) ISBN 0-7881-9431-3
 
==Documentary film==
*''Homo Sapiens 1900'', Director: Peter Cohen, 2000
 
==External links==
{{commons|Eugenics}}
===Anti-eugenics and historical websites===
*[http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/ Eugenics Archive - Historical Material on the Eugenics Movement] (funded by the [[Human Genome Project]])
*[http://www.shoaheducation.com/pNEW.html Shoaheducation.com:Eugenics]
*[http://www.healthsystem.virginia.edu/internet/library/historical/eugenics/index.cfm University of Virginia Historical Collections: Eugenics]
*[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/ "Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race"] (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum exhibit)
*[http://www.uvm.edu/~eugenics/ Vermont Eugenics: A documentary history]
*[http://home.earthlink.net/~thetabus/eugenics/ Eugenics - A Psychiatric Responsibility] (History of Eugenics in Germany)
*[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/episode5/ DNA: Pandora's Box] - [[PBS]] documentary about DNA, the [[Human Genome Project]], and questions about a "new" eugenics
* [http://www.wfu.edu/~caron/ssrs/Dorr.rtf ''Fighting Fire with Fire: African Americans and Hereditarian Thinking, 1900-1942''] - article on the support of eugenics by African American thinkers
* [http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/eugenics/eugenics.html "Eugenics -- Breeding a Better Citizenry Through Science"], a historical critique from physical anthropologist [[Jonathan Marks]]
*[http://www.watchtower.org/library/g/2000/9/22/article_02.htm "The Quest for a Perfect Society"], from ''[[Awake!]]'' magazine ([[September 22]], [[2000]])
*[http://dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/books/eugenics.htm "Eugenics and other Evils"],G K Chesteron's "Eugenics and other Evils." (1922)
*[http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/publications/scopenotes/sn28.htm "Eugenics"] - National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature Scope Note 28, features overview of eugenics history and annotated bibliography of historical literature
 
===Pro-eugenics websites===
*[http://www.onelife.com/ethics/eugenics.html Eugenics - a planned evolution for life]
*[http://www.eugenics.net Future Generations Eugenics Portal]
*[http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/eugenics.htm Millennium Eugenics Section]
*[http://www.mankindquarterly.com/ Mankind Quarterly]
*[http://www.whatwemaybe.org/ Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century by John Glad]
*[http://www.euvolution.com Creative Conscious Evolution: A Eugenics Directory]
*[http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol4no1/toq-editnote4-1.html ''Scandalizing the Science of Eugenics''], editor's note, ''The Occidental Quarterly'' 4:1 (Spring 2004).
 
===Other===
*[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DEED8113AF932A15754C0A9629C8B63&sec=health&pagewanted=1 "As Gene Test Menu Grows, Who Gets to Choose?"] Amy Harmon, ''New York Times'' ([[21 July]] [[2004]]).
*[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0228786/ "The Crimson Rivers"] -- a fiction movie in [[2000]].
*[http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/021500-02.htm Yale Study: U.S. Eugenics Paralleled Nazi Germany by David Morgan] Published on Tuesday, [[February 15]], [[2000]] in the [[Chicago Tribune]]
*[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1683254&blobtype=pdf Eugenics: past, present, and the future]
 
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[[Category:Bioethics]]
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[[Category:Applied genetics]]
[[Category:Population]]
[[Category:Genetic engineering]]
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[[Category:Social philosophy]]
[[Category:Utopian movements]]
[[Category:Race and intelligence controversy]]
 
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