Future Human Evolution: Eugenics in the Twenty-first CenturyEvolutionary selection has been radically relaxed in the human species as a result of the development of civilization, science in general, and medicine in particular. While these advances have hugely benefited current populations, they have to a significant degree released the species from the biological process which created it and maintains its viability. Formerly, natural selection took place largely as a result of differential mortality, but now that most people survive well beyond their child bearing years, selection is determined largely by differential fertility. Aside from genetic illnesses, this new selection is also characterized by a negative correlation between fertility and intelligencethe core of eugenic concern for over a century. Eugenics views itself as the fourth leg of the chair of civilization, the other three being a) a thrifty expenditure of natural resources, b) mitigation of environmental pollution, and c) maintenance of a human population not exceeding the planets carrying capacity. Eugenics, which can be thought of as human ecology, is thus part and parcel of the environmental movement. Humanity is defined, not as the totality of the currently living population, but as the number of people who will potentially ever live. This is a book about the struggle for human rights and parental responsibility. |
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ability abortion achieve Adolf Adolf Hitler altruism American animal biological biologist birth breeding cally century charge at www.whatwemaybe.org child created crime criminal Darwinism demographic downloaded free dysgenic economic egalitarians embryo ethnic eugenicists eugenics movement euthanasia evolution factor Feasible fertility Fritz Lenz future Gallup Organization genes genetic illnesses geneticist genome genotype Germany global goal greater heritability high-IQ History Hitler Holocaust human genetics human populations humankind ideology improvement individual intellectual intelligence Jewish Jews John Glad Klaus Barbie low-IQ mean IQ Mein Kampf ment mental million modern mothers National natural selection Nazi netic percent persons planet political possible potential published quoted in Kaiser race racial radically reproductive cloning role Sandra Scarr scientific scientists social Social Darwinism socialist society species sperm sterilization survival tests tion topic United University Press Verschuer vitro fertilization Weimar Weimar Republic Weingart/Kroll/Bayertz women