- the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).
Evidence
I bring up eugenics because President Donald Trump is a eugenicist. He's never come out and said that, but he has declared he had "good genes," in several pre-presidential interviews.
The better evidence is from who Trump the Younger lets into his inner circle, such as Steve Bannon. Bannon's eugenic and racist credentials are impeccable. Trump has praised neo-Nazis as "good people." He's come out in favor of racist Confederate statuary. Then you look at the rest of the people who he appoints: white as cotton. Also, consider the difference in the way he treated Texas and Puerto Rico after they were struck by hurricanes. Puerto Rico is still struggling.
Of course, there's also the elephant in the room, Trump's morally reprobate and impractical immigration policies. (Can you tell I don't like Trump?) Even if Trump doesn't say the word eugenics, and probably doesn't know a word that big, neo-nazis and white supremacists definitely hear the message. He encourages their belief.
An argument against Trump has to attack eugenics. Not only is it immoral, but it's also fatally flawed.
A Short History of Eugenics
At one time almost every educated white person in North America or Europe was a eugenicist. There've been vague forms of eugenics throughout history. However, modern style was an unfortunate interpretation of Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory. This was posited by Darwin's half-cousin, Francis Galton. Darwin disagreed with his half-cousin's interpretation. Unfazed, Galton coined a new word: "eugenics" and gave birth to a movement.
From there the idea spread like a meme through other Western countries, having harmful effects wherever it caught hold. Galton's gift provided scientific legitimacy to colonialization that Western Europeans needed to continue their ventures. In the US, states passed sterilization laws aimed at "inferior" people. Of course, it also reinforced the crudest racism, letting New Englanders agree that the Jim Crow might be useful after all. Racism had always been a potent force in US politics, now it was scientifically sound.
One effect that we're struggling with as I write is immigration policy. The first federal immigration law, The Page Act, was passed in 1875 before; eight years before Galton's initiatives. It was targeted only at Chinese. While that might be a counter-example, it also means our country didn't limit immigration for the first 86 years. Not just that: the Constitution doesn't mention immigration. That's what priority the issue had. The document does allow Congress to set rules for granting citizenship. Without anything in the founding documents, the ninth and tenth amendments would seem to suggest it's up to the states to regulate it. The states, however, wanted more population wanted more population in the early days. As far as know, the Constitutionality of immigration laws has never been tested in court.
Emergency Quota Act of 1921 the Immigration Act of 1924 were both passed, and both were very eugenic. For the first time, immigration was constrained by quotas. People from Northern Europe had much higher quotas than people of Southern or Eastern Europe (or from anywhere else). They also singled out Jews, Italians, and Slavs as especially unfavorable. The 1924 Act bolstered the prohibitions on Asian migration. The effects of eugenics were evident in these laws. We were trying to invent the superior race. Sterilization was done in every state of the union. Across Europe was mostly the same.
Until the cataclysm of the Second World War when the Concentration and Death Camps were liberated. The Nazis pushed eugenics to an extreme and chose the Jews as the most inferior race. The sight of dead bodies carpeting the ground to the horizon gave people a glance at the evil they were practicing to lesser extremes. Eugenics fell from favor.
But it was never scientifically refuted. That was a colossal oversight. That should have been the Epilogue of the Nuremberg Trials. The fact that eugenics was never formally disproved is coming back on us now, in the form of neo-nazis who think their racism has a basis in science but a conspiracy has suppressed it. But most importantly in Donald Trump who thinks he's keeping America safe for white people.
Refutation
First, I'm not a scientist. I've done a lot of scientific reading, but mainly I'm just a guy doing his best.Some have pointed out that the superior people inevitably happen to coincide with the group that's in power at the time. That makes a short point for me: decisions about who's superior must be made politically, not by objective scientific standards.
For politics, words like "superior, perfect and truth" only have a meaning in specific, limited contexts. Such as we say, "Mike Trout is a superior baseball player." Or, "Sandy Koufax pitched a perfect game," or "The truth is, he pitched a perfect game." Those qualities can only be determined in a narrow context, such as within the rules and events of a baseball game. The statistics and videos are there to doublecheck the factuality of the claim.
Outside narrow contexts those words are seductive. They can trick a person into believing they can be boundless, even eternal, qualities.
Keeping that in mind, let's talk about a superior race. It is a myth that evolution makes species superior when the environment is harsh. Remember that evolution doesn't go one way. In nature, we were never evolving into a "superior" species. Also, evolution isn't stopped because life is so easy. No, you can't stop evolution any more than you can stop gravity. If we harshen up our environment, what might happen is that human brains shrink, because our brains require a lot of resources expending 20 percent of our energy intake. No other animal comes close. If the harsh environment were short of food, our extra intelligence could be the first thing overboard.
Evolution over generations makes a species more successful in its environment, this success us measured by how many of an organism's genes are later found within the species. This is why our superior minds can't get rid of cockroaches, mosquitos, and rats. Those animals aren't superior, they're entrenched in their niches. If the environment changes radically, all can go extinct.
Outside the narrow scope I described, "superiority" is an entirely human judgment wholly disconnected from environmental favor. While not necessarily arbitrary, the traits human beings regard as superior might be far from what evolution will award. I don't think we can be successful at eugenics, but if we are, there's a good chance we'll kick ourselves into extinction.
To change the direction of evolution toward what we think is superior, humans would have to completely control the environment; breed the people with favorable traits, and eliminate the people with inferior attributes. That requires a lot of brutality and attrition. I don't Hitler think would have gotten very far with this, but it wouldn't have been implemented. Practically speaking, he couldn't have. I'm not sure he would've recoiled from those imposing these requirements on Germans, but he might have.
We've been creating dog breeds since Darwin. We haven't, however, created a "superior dog," that is one that beats us in chess while reciting Cervantes. Instead, by controlling their environment and interbreeding them, people have created a lot of specialized breeds.
My last point is evolution is a slow process working by the geological clock. The nation-states that are around now will all be gone by the time any effect whatsoever is apparent. How are we supposed to set up a regime that stands and continues to implement eugenics after all else we create fails?
Right now
The way Trump is treating immigrants shocks us. Be ready for when his grade of brutality grows. I expect this after he meets with Putin and gets advice. Trump had rather imprison ten thousand innocent Hispanics than arrest the only the thirty criminals among them. For deterrence, he'd separate children from their families. This has required more facilities. For somebody purported to be fiscally responsible, he's ticking up a lot of needless costs. That's nothing compared to the atrocity he's committing. He could build his wall on the funds he saves from arresting the guilty and letting the innocent in and allowing them to keep their children. But that's beside the point: doing unrealistic things to hurt people is called evil.Forty-five percent of people think he's doing a good job. He has to appeal to that deplorable class, so be prepared to see worse.
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