I’ll talk about some weird stuff.
A bit dark and spooky.
Not just a bit, though.
VERY SCARY.
I’ll tell you how science can be abused.
And we’re not here to blame science.
This is the story of evil minds that use science
to do more harm than help.
Let’s get straight to the point.
EUGENICS is the topic I want to talk about.
This story has many sides, including evolution
theory, social Darwinism, extermination camps,
Hitler, and the idea of Aryan race, which
was once accepted way too commonly like it’s
a very normal thing.
Now, grab your coffee and sit tight.
To put things into perspective, let’s start
with the definition of Eugenics.
Eugenics is generally defined as a set of
beliefs and practices that aim to improve
the genetic quality of a human population.
Let me repeat.
“To improve the genetic quality of a human
population.”
We already see this in action with the animals.
You know, genetic modification is a very common
practice with dogs.
Today it’s typical to mate selected dogs
to produce specific qualities and characteristics.
Now, can you imagine the same thing happening
to humans?
Weak ones being sterilized or worse, killed?
This is exactly what Eugenics is.
You’ve probably already had a few names
in your mind.
We’ll talk about them.
Before we do, let’s go all the way back
to ancient times, when everything started.
4th century BC.
Plato.
He’s the one who introduced this idea for
the very first time.
Though his early version is not identical
to what we have today, he basically suggested
that government was responsible to increase
the number of genetically strong and healthy
people.
Basing their arguments on Plato’s ideas,
many political leaders have committed serious
crimes throughout the history.
Their argument was a little different than
Plato’s.
It was more like, “let’s get rid of the
weak!”.
There were also some civilizations that accepted
Eugenics as a social ritual, without knowing
much about what Plato had once said.
Like Spartans.
Or Romans.
You’ll get me if you watched 300.
Like, in the movie, the kids are left in wilderness
and the weak ones are automatically ruled
out.
That’s how they created a strong population
in their own way.
But this has become a part of our recent past
in 1900s.
It has literally become a “scientific”
theory.
You know who did it?
Francis Galton.
And…
Who is Francis Galton really?
He’s the cousin of Charles Darwin.
Hmm..
Yep.
There’s even more weird stuff.
This “ruling-out-the-weak” idea is based
on Darwin’s Evolution Theory.
Sounds odd, right?
I mean, Darwin is kind of guilty for the Jewish
Massacre.
Even though he tried to explain something
way different.
You know, “natural selection” is the term
that coexists with evolution theory.
It refers to the survival of the fittest.
In his theory, Darwin talks about adaptation,
not just selection.
He says that the species that can adapt to
their environment can stay alive; he doesn’t
mention much about “the strong”.
Now, here we have Galton pondering his cousin’s
theory and drawing conclusions.
“If natural selection exists, then unnatural
selection must also exist”, he says.
“Can’t we just accelerate the progress?
Let’s just sterilize the weak, or even kill
them and allow only the genetically strong
people to reproduce.
It might take a few generations, anyway.
We’ll have a super-fast natural selection
process.”
This literally pisses off Darwin.
He gets mental.
He says Galton twists his words and that natural
selection must continue in its natural progress.
He believes the nature knows best and that
no government should have any control over
the most fundamental human right, that is
the right to live.
He defends his position until he died.
And… that’s when Galton went into action.
He wrote a book in 1883, a year after the
death of Darwin, and came up with the word
“Eugenics”.
By the way, the word EUGENICS comes from the
Greek word “EU-GENES”, meaning “well-born”.
We observed this approach implemented legally
and systematically in the first quarter of
the 20th century in the United States.
Eugenics centers opened with the support of
the government.
However, we saw the most striking example
in Nazi Germany.
I’m sure you already know this.
The Aryan race Nazi Germany wanted to create
was based on eugenics.
They wanted to achieve their lifetime dream
of becoming “über-menschen” by manipulating
natural selection.
Before we dig into these details, let’s
start with the American process.
British Francis Galton was given the title
of Sir for his works in various fields of
science.
However, his study on eugenics was the most
popular one.
He was dreaming of creating a superior race
in Britain, but he didn’t get much attention
in his own country.
Yet, he was going to ruin millions of people’s
lives in other countries.
Like, the United States.
The movement came into life in Connecticut
with the adoption of a eugenics law in 1896.
The people who were mentally-ill or had epilepsy
were forbidden from marrying.
In 1903, the American Breeder’s Association
was created to control reproduction and marriage.
In 1911, Race Betterment Foundation was established
by John Harvey Kellogg.
Does the name ring a bell?
Yep.
He is the founder of Kellogg’s Cereals as
he was also a nutrition expert.
The connections!
Anyway.
This foundation organized national conferences
in 1914, 1915 and 1928 and these conferences
served as a national eugenics movement.
As the concept of eugenics took hold, prominent
citizens, scientists and socialists championed
the cause and established the Eugenics Record
Office.
The office tracked families and their genetic
traits, claiming most people considered unfit
were immigrants, minorities or poor.
Eugenics in America took a dark turn in the
early 20th century, led by California.
From 1909 to 1979, around 20,000 sterilizations
occurred in California state mental institutions
under the guise of protecting society from
the offspring of people with mental illness.
Many sterilizations were forced and performed
on minorities.
Thirty-three states would eventually allow
involuntary sterilization in whomever lawmakers
deemed unworthy to procreate.
In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that
forced sterilization of the handicapped does
not violate the U.S. Constitution.
In the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver
Wendall Holmes, “…three generations of
imbeciles are enough.”
In 1942, the ruling was overturned, but not
before thousands of people underwent the procedure.
Politicians at the time claimed the action
was needed to battle rampant poverty and economic
strife; however, it may have also been a way
to prevent the so-called superior Aryan gene
pool from becoming tainted with the weak blood.
According to a 1976 Government Accountability
Office investigation, between 25 and 50 percent
of Native Americans were sterilized between
1970 and 1976.
It’s thought some sterilizations happened
without consent during other surgical procedures
such as an appendectomy.
In some cases, health care for living children
was denied unless their mothers agreed to
sterilization.
This was the situation in the land of the
free, the birth place of the Declaration of
the Human Rights.
And the movement would also inspire another
country.
GERMANY!
Not just Germany.
Other countries such as Australia, Brasil,
Canada, Japan, China, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, France, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland
also applied eugenics as a state law at a
time in history.
But the example in Germany was going to be
one of the most horrific ones.
Let’s see some really weird connections
here.
The background of the Holocaust…
You know it all started in the USA and especially
in California.
In fact, Hitler spoke very highly of these
laws in the USA in his book Mein Kampf.
We also know his admiration of the Spartans.
But the USA was the one who took this movement
to Germany itself.
The institutions in California started to
send all studies and researches to Germany
in 30s.
In 1927, Keiser Wilhelm Anthropology Institute
as established to conduct physical and social
anthropology studies along with gene researches.
Guess who funded this institute?
The Rockefeller Foundation!
What the hell?
Yeah.
WTH!
But it doesn’t end here.
Have you heard about Josef Mengele?
The horrible doctor of Auschwitz who was also
called as the Angel of Death.
Before he was commissioned in Auschwitz, he
was also funded by the Rockefellers to carry
out various studies.
He gained the required experience in this
way before starting his terrifying experiments.
Connections, connections…
When it comes to Hitler himself, he got to
know this “Eugenics” movement when he
was in Landsberg Prison.
Hitler and his Nazi Party attempted a coup
in 1923 and Hitler was wounded in this attempt.
He was found guilty of treason and sentenced
to 5 years in prison.
He ended up serving 9 months but in this time
he understood that it wasn’t going to be
by force if he wanted to be in power.
What he needed was a decent strategy and this
was the time he shaped his Nazi Propaganda.
He also wrote his famous book Mein Kampf during
his time and placed EUGENICS and ethnic cleansing
at the center of his campaign.
He said the following about Spartans in a
second book he wrote that was not published:
“Sparta must be regarded as the first Pureblood
State.
The exposure of the sick, weak, deformed children,
in short, their destruction, was more decent
and in truth a thousand times more humane
than the wretched insanity of our day which
preserves the most pathological subject, and
indeed at any price, and yet takes the life
of a hundred thousand healthy children in
consequence of birth control or through abortions,
in order subsequently to breed a race of degenerates
burdened with illnesses.”
Upon being released from the prison, he convinces
the German public that they are the “superior
race” and you know the rest.
He wins the election with a landslide.
And he wastes no time to commence the Eugenics
movement.
He passes the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily
Diseased Offspring in 1933 to officially start
the proceedings.
With this law, the doctors were required to
report people that were not allowed to “reproduce”
according to a list of genetic diseases prepared
by the Genetic Health Court.
Doctors who did not obey were punished severely.
And around 400 thousand people were going
to be sterilized with this law.
Of course, sterilization was not going to
be a fast solution and institutions such as
Harheim Euthenasia Center were opened to speed
up the process of “ethnic cleansing”.
The institution has “euthenesia” in its
name but do not be fooled.
These centers were places where people with
mental or genetic disorders were killed against
their will.
And 200 thousand people were going to be “euthenised”
in these centers.
Right after that “genetically disadvantaged”
people were put in buses for transportation
to some health centers but the exhaust gas
was directed inside the bus and these people
were “cleansed” according to the law.
Then comes the Gas Chambers, Concentration
Camps and various tortures, killing, burning,
experimenting on millions of people with the
Eugenics Laws…
You know how the story goes…
And the public was convinced by focusing on
one idea “Why do our strong and healthy
people carry the burden of the weak and useless
diseased people while they are dying in the
war?”
What’s worse.
These Eugenics movements based on the Evolution
Theory were thought as scientifically correct
and rational.
All right.
Let’s get scientific…
Is eugenics doable?
I mean…
Can we improve the gene pool with eugenics?
Yes.
Scientifically.
It is possible.
Besides, science does not tell you what to
do.
Science is rational.
It does not have any perspective on the good
or the bad.
Scientifically speaking.
Yes we can improve the human gene pool with
this movement.
But.
Here comes something that science has nothing
to do with.
Ethics.
Even if something can be done, it does not
mean it must be done!
Splitting the atom is the best example here.
We have witnessed numerous scientific development
with this.
But we have also witnessed atomic bombs, the
death of thousands of people with nuclear
weapons, the destruction of cities.
No one can blame science or people who realized
these advances.
Eugenics is the same.
It can be done.
But it is up to you how you use it.
After the 2nd world war, horrible acts of
Eugenics were -at least mostly- ended but
it seems that it is being revived with a completely
new face.
GENETIC ENGINEERING.
Although we are not seeing organized “Eugenics”
applications nowadays, the idea is still there…
Even today…
For instance Richard Herrnstein and Charles
Murray, professors in Harvard wrote this in
their book “The Bell Curve: Intelligence
and Class Structure in American Life”
“People who commit crimes and unemployed
people has a lower average of intelligence
compared to the general average.
People with low intelligence have a higher
rate of fertility.
As intelligence is mostly related to genetics
not with education and other environmental
factors, the public will gradually consist
of people with lower intelligence and it will
be impossible to prevent crimes and unemployment…”
“As there are differences in intelligence
between social classes, different races also
have different levels of intelligence: The
most intelligent races are Chinese and Japanese,
Europeans follow them and Africans are at
the bottom with a significantly low level
of intelligence.
If the poor are poor, this is because they
are less intelligent than the rich.
We can pity them.
But this will not change anything.
As a result, social justice programs are nothing
but waste of resources.
Moreover, the poor causes the weak genes to
be spread as they reproduce more.
Therefore, if we stop helping the poor black
people, it will get way better…”
We can see the scientific point of view here.
But if we look at this from an “ethical”
perspective, it is safe to say that the 1900s
American or German Eugenics movements are
not dead.
But the more “ethical” scientists are
fighting against this really dangerous point
of view.
One of them is Richard Lewontin, the author
of the book Biology as Ideology.
He wrote:
“Scientists are born as social beings in
a productive structure of the family or the
state, not as scientists.
Their views are shaped by their social experiences.
Therefore, science is a social institution
reflecting the views of the public just like
the Church before itself.”
So you cannot separate science from the public
and the public from the science.
Science has no race, nation or ideology.
Knowledge belongs to the people and the world
is illuminated by the light of this knowledge.
This video is the start of a long route.
I want to talk about many different areas
such as some “modern eugenics” potentials
including Genetic Engineering, Human Genome
Project and CRISPR.
So consider this video as an introduction
to these areas.
In the coming videos, we will focus more on
today and future and approach this topic from
many different angles…
As always…
See you here next week!
Bye!
