Hello everyone, welcome back to
video on module 11.
So we covered the biological
basis of race or the lack there
of. So now we can actually talk
about eugenics. This topic
Uh, fits quite well into the
movie that we're going to be
watching. And so I thought
this is a good place to
bring up the topic.
For eugenics, we're going to
have to start with the person
who coined the term and
first defined the what that means
and so that person.
Uh, is Sir Francis Galton.
He was a British scientist,
although if you read his bio
it's rather interesting he never
truly finished any sort of
formal education. He just sort
of, worked in, you know,
publishing things because he
knew people and.
The scientists liked what he was
saying, so it's an interesting
Person to to say the least.
He did make a lot of
significant significant
contribution to the field of
Science in quite a few areas.
Uh, most notably in statistics.
So he did make contributions to
the field of science, although
part of the legacy that he is
most known for is he's credited
to be the father of eugenics.
Whether there's a good or bad
thing is probably up to each
individual to decide.
So here's Sir Francis Galton
with his wife Louisa.
And Galton himself was
actually a cousin to Charles
Darwin. So Erasmus Darwin.
Uh, was the grand father of
Charles Darwin. But Erasmus also
had a second wife.
And through the second wife,
Um, he was the grand father
to Francis Galton. So Francis
Galton and Charles Darwin
were cousins.
And.
The parts that we're going to
start with is the book that
Galton wrote called hereditary
genius. Uh, in this book a
Galton laid out his argument.
And he really started with a
discovery of genetics.
Uh, in the in terms of the
heritage, you know, the fact
that traits can be inherited.
Also, he was obviously
inspired by the work of his
cousin shall start with.
And so in his book.
Hereditary genius, part of the
data that he showed.
Was this aggregation of successes.
So in this particular table
on the left here,
Taken from the data in his book.
Presented here. Excuse me
And he was looking at the UM.
Appearance of greatness for
judges. So back in the days if
you were a Judge then you were
considered to be a very
intelligent person. You have
good moral character.
An upstanding pillar of society.
And so he looked at the
relatives of the judges. And
then he looked at how successful
those relatives are.
And from his table he
calculated that as as it
looks, relatives of judges
tend to also be very
successful people.
He then went on to analyze
other types of professions,
including statesmen, so
politicians, commanders,
literary figures, scientists,
poets, artists. Uh, and divines,
so clergy. And in each case he
analyzed he saw the same
pattern that the relatives of
great men all tended to also be
a successful in life. And from
that he generated this idea that
genius not just intelligence but
genius in the sense of
greatness. There is a hereditary
component to it.
And so he wrote in his book, he
said, imagine Utopia or Laputa,
if you will. In which a system
of competitive examination for
girls as well As for youths had
been so developed as to embrace
every important quality of mind
and body. And where a
considerable sum was
yearly allotted to the
endowment of such
marriages as promised to
yield children who would
grow into eminent
servants of the state.
10 young men and 10 young
girls would be chosen each year
and the sovereign herself would
give away the brides in
Westminster Abbey at any
marriages between them that
might be agreed. Each of the
couples will be given 5000
pounds as a wedding present and
the state would defray the
expenses of maintaining an
educating their children.
So this one part from his book.
And he laid out his idea. He is
saying we should have a
competition to examine the young
people of our of our country and
the fit ones, the best ones
right, the 10 most promising
young men and young women. They
should be given the opportunity
to marry each other if they
want. And if they do.
Then their marriage should be
celebrated by the sovereign. So
that means the Queen. And their
wedding should be carried out in
the Westminster Abbey. Now for
those who don't know,
Westminster Abbey is the typical
location for Royal weddings. So
what Galton was proposing
was that if this, uh, you know,
individuals with great traits,
should they choose to marry,
they should be treated like
royalty. That's essentially what he's
saying. Um, now that the,
uh, potential for greatness
trumps aristocratic
lineages, or at least should be
treated as equally valid as
aristocratic lineages. Now
make no mistake, this is this
was a very radical idea back
in the days. Um, it was
this idea that inheriting
positions of authority could
be circumvented, or at least
matched by merit. Now merit
in this case, right, defined
very narrowly by Galton.
Nevertheless, this is a
departure from many of his
contemporaries.
Um? So he's saying individuals
who are deemed to be fit, right
if they choose to marry, we
should support it. We should
celebrate it and we should give
them a financial endowment so
they could do well with their
children's. Which. Sort of makes
you wonder well if they were so
successful, why would they need
5000 pounds? But that's none of
my business. All right, so the
next part of his work, it says
that the best form of
civilization in respect to the
improvement of the race
Would be one in which SOC was
not costly, where incomes were
chiefly derived from profession,
professional sources, and not
much through inheritance, where
every lad had a chance of
showing his abilities. And if
highly gifted was enabled to
achieve a first class education,
an entrance into professional
life where the weak could find a
welcome and a refuge in Celibate
monasteries. Or
sisterhoods, and Lastly, where
the better sort of immigrants
and refugees from other lands
were invited and welcomed and
their descendants naturalized.
So here here he is a spelling
out a vision of a society.
Where, uhm, the capable people,
right, the people with skills and
talent and genius are
celebrated. They're given
opportunities to succeed.
And also the people who don't
have talent who who need
assistant would have the option
to live out their lives in, Note
this, celibacy, right so they do
not reproduce that they would be
given a refuge in celibate
monasteries. And also to welcome
immigrants with talents right?
So they could benefit the
improvement of the race. So here
is good to remember that for
Galton, race is
both restrictive and open. It is
restrictive for merits.
That his his vision of a
good society is merit based.
Merit, in this case defined as
successes that has a heritable
component. Right, so it is not
race in the sense that we would
look at in the next half of the
lecture. So keep this in mind as
we move along.
Here he had absolutely no
problem of accepting foreigners,
as long as those foreigners are
are in possession of
genius and skills and merit.
And then later on, um, as his
idea was published, it gained
quite a bit of support. But also
there were pushbacks. There were
disagreement to what he was
writing, and so.
In one of the cases, we're
talking about someone who was
who was agreeing with him, and
also posing the problem. A
question about the problem of
those in the society who are
less fit, right so?
The people in the original
message where Galton said should
live out their lives in the
Celibate Monastery. And so
Galton wrote back about this,
and he said, I think that stern
compulsion ought to be exerted
to prevent the free propagation
of the stock of those who are
seriously afflicted by Lunacy.
Feeble mindedness, habitual
criminality, and pauperism. How to
restrain, ill-omened marriages
is the question by itself
whether it should be affected by
seclusion or in other ways yet
to be deviced that are
consistent with a Humane, and
well informed public opinion.
And later on he would also write
to Karl Pearson, one of his uhm.
Contemporaries in statistics,
and he said.
Except by sterilization, I
cannot yet see any way of
checking the produce of the
unfit who are allowed their
Liberty and are below the reach
of moral control.
So here Galton's position sort
of hardened, right. Instead
of allowing people to live out
their lives in celibate
monasteries, he's saying we need
stern compulsion for
sterilization. Right, he said he
he can't see any other way
around it if we want to avoid
the propagation of traits that
harm society, we're going to
have to do forced sterilization.
Pay attention to the traits that
he's listing, lunacy, feeble
mindedness, habitual
criminality and pauperism.
Pauperism, if you're not aware,
that's basically mean you are in
the state of being poor. So back
in the days in England they have
this thing called the work
houses. The work houses are for
people who owe money who can't
pay back and then they would be
sent to the work houses where
they will do labor of various
sorts. To pay off the debt that
they owe. And so, being in
the Workhouse, and being
classified as a pauper, carried
both objective impacts and also
a moral impact. So in back in
those times. Your uhm, success
in life are often seen as
rewards of a virtuous and moral
life. So, Conversely, if your
life was not successful, if your
life was filled with criminal
actions an pauperism, then it
was taken as a reflection of a
flaw in your personality.
Uh, and So what? Galton was
talking about here was about
how society should respond to
individuals whose propagation
would actually bring society
down.
And so if we break it down, we
can say that the Galtonian
model of eugenics actually has
two components. One of them is
called positive eugenics. In
positive eugenics we are
looking for a way to measure
genetic fitness and then we
implement programs to encourage
marriage, and for quantity of
people with desirable traits.
Sofa quantity is how many
progenies you produce.
Um? And also to
encourage qualified
immigrants. So In this sense,
we are encouraging the
improvement of our race,
however defined, through these
measures of promoting good
traits, both from within the
Society and from immigrants.
The second half of the program
is called the negative eugenics.
So negative eugenics involved
these exert compulsion against
people with undesirable traits.
Who would not voluntarily cease
to procreate and also to
discourage unqualified
immigrants. So In this sense,
we're trying to stop
Unqualified people from
reproducing and also to stop the
entry of immigrants who are
deemed to be unfit.
And these two components will be
a common element for all other
eugenics programs that would
come after Galton's proposal.
Now, Dalton's ideas were not
entirely unopposed. There were
critics of his ideas, critics
who were contemporary to Galton,
and one of them is called
Marivale. Marivale wrote some
letters to oppose the ideas that
Galton was proposing. And here's
one paragraph from Marivale. He
said the truth is that success
in Life, which leads to
distinction is due to two
causes. The one consisting in
natural aptitude or ability, the
other in surrounding
circumstances. For one who
succeeds, 100 perhaps not
inferior in natural gifts,
perish, by the way, it is
not less certain that any man
that many of those whose names
are rescued from oblivion all
their celebrity to favorable
opportunity to patronage or
family influence or to what is
termed good fortune.
Quite as much as their
natural gifts.
So here Marivale was making the
case that having natural talent
is only one part of essential
component to having a
distinctive distinguished life.
The other part is basically the
circumstances whether you have
family connections, whether you
have good. Good luck
in their upbringing.
And he said that you know of
every person who succeeds
there, perhaps are 100 others
who are equally talented, but
they did not succeed because
of the circumstances.
And so that's. You know the idea
of Galton's exceptionalism. This
eugenics idea did have its own
critics. Even during that time.
So this is where eugenics as a
concept started. In the next
part, we're going to look at how
it played out in America.
So before we get there, I want
to leave you with a few
questions to think about.
So now that you seen, uh, what
Galton was proposing, what do
you think are some of the blind
spots in his model? And what
might some non genetic reasons
be to explain this grouping of
eminent men into families?
And what might we do to test the
scientific principles behind
what Galton proposed?
