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[[Image:Gtr766.png|right|thumb|300px|Logo of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921.]]
[[Image:Gtr766.png|right|thumb|300px|Logo of the Second International Congress of Eugenics, 1921.]]
'''Eugenics''' was a movement which tried to eliminate "dangerous human pests" and "the rising tide of imbeciles" through what has been euphemistically called "[[selective breeding]]". What this meant, in actual practice, was [[forced sterilization]] of American immigrants and minorities (particularly in California). <ref>http://www.michaelcrichton.net/fear/index.html</ref>
The idea of Eugenics was first developed by Sir Francis Galton in 1865 <ref>[http://www.eugenics-watch.com/roots/chap02.html Francis Galton and the Eugenics Society]</ref>, he based his ideas on the work of his cousin [[Charles Darwin]].
The [[liberal]] American Medical Society provided this summary:
:"The publication of Darwin's [[Origin of Species]] in 1859 led to the rise of the eugenics movement in Europe. Eugenics supporters believed that [[race]]s could be improved by [[selective breeding]]. The Nazi Party adopted this belief and began a campaign against the Jews. Many physicians joined the [[Nazi Party]] because they needed jobs." -- "Medicine against society: lessons from the Third Reich," ''The Journal of the American Medical Association'', Nov. 27, 1996 (Vol. 276, No. 20), at p. 1657(5), by Jeremiah A. Barondess.
==Genocide==
Many genocides have been commited in the name of Eugenics, most notably [[the Holocaust]]. Adolf Hitler was a strong believer in Eugenics & Evolution and believed that Jewish people were closest to apes, followed by Africans, Asians, non-Aryan Europeans, and finally Aryans whom he believed were most evolved.
[[Stephen Jay Gould]], an [[evolutionist]], was more succinct: "The Nazi [[racial hygiene]] program began with involuntary sterilizations and ended with [[genocide]]." <ref>http://www.georgetown.edu/research/nrcbl/scopenotes/sn28.htm</ref>
==Liberal Eugenics==
Some argue that parents who abort infants with genetic mutation or other disabilities are practicing a form of eugenics<ref>http://edition.cnn.com/2003/US/07/04/nyt.kristof/index.html</ref>. Some doctors and scientists have defended this practice and named it "liberal eugenics" in order to differentiate it from traditional forms of eugenics such as Nazi eugentics.<ref>http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=4541</ref>
'''Eugenics''' (from the Greek. eugenes "well-born, of good stock," from eu- "good" + genos "birth") is the general name for a series of ostensibly [[Science|scientific]] claims about inheritance among humans, which sought to eliminate traits, such as "imbecility" or criminal behavior, by selective [[Eugenics and sterilization|sterilization]], regulation of family size, [[abortion]] and restrictions on who could marry whom. It was based upon a number of premises since shown to be demonstrably false:
'''Eugenics''' (from the Greek. eugenes "well-born, of good stock," from eu- "good" + genos "birth") is the general name for a series of ostensibly [[Science|scientific]] claims about inheritance among humans, which sought to eliminate traits, such as "imbecility" or criminal behavior, by selective [[Eugenics and sterilization|sterilization]], regulation of family size, [[abortion]] and restrictions on who could marry whom. It was based upon a number of premises since shown to be demonstrably false: