Genetics and Society: Analysis: Encouraging Public Acceptance: Advocacy by eugenicists

Home >> Analysis >> Encouraging Public Acceptance of the New Eugenics >> Advocacy by Supporters of Traditional Eugenics and Neo-Eugenics

Advocacy of human genetic modification comes easily to eugenicists, who see it as an efficient, rapid and powerful means of encouraging the spread of desirable traits and decreasing the incidence of undesirable traits.

Traditional eugenicists tend to focus on the perennial topics of racial and group differences in intelligence and behavior. Neo-eugenicists incorporate some of the futurist visions promoted by the transhumanists.

"The NeoEugenics' Web Site" - http://home.att.net/~eugenics/index.htm

It claims "A Eugenics Perspective: Breeding an Improved Human Species Through Purposefully Directed Evolution" and includes extensive links.

The following excerpt is from the 1999 article "Eugenics is Back! Will the next 100 years bring about new super-human species with the rest of mankind enslaved or dead?" http://home.att.net/~dysgenics/eug.htm

"Eugenics is back! A new species looms on the horizon…. It seems that in the future…new methods of chemical sterilization of females, after being tested for intelligence, would be a cheap and effective way of eliminating in every generation the least intelligent (say 20%) from the bell curve. This would increase the average intelligence for the entire nation very quickly over a few generations."

"We define neo-eugenics as conscious evolution. Purposefully directed evolution via positive neo-eugenics (voluntary selective breeding), cloning, genetic engineering and transhuman technologies."

Glayde Whitney - http://www.ferris.edu/isar/Whitney/homepage.htm

Until his death in 2001, Whitney was a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Florida State University. In his foreword to My Awakening: A Path to Racial Understanding by former Ku Klux Klan National Director David Duke, Whitney wrote:

"The first century or two of the new millennium will almost certainly be a golden age for eugenics. Through application of new genetic knowledge and reproductive technologies…the major change will be to mankind itself. …[T]echniques…such as…genetic manipulations are not yet efficient enough to be unquestionably suitable in therapeutic and eugenic application for humans. But with the pace of research it is surely only a matter of time, and a short time at that." (1999, pages 179-192)
http://www.wcotc.com/euvolution/articles/foreword.html

Richard Lynn - http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1952000/1952449.stm

Lynn, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster, advocates "rethinking our opposition to eugenics" in a BBC interview and in his Eugenics: A Reassessment (Praeger Press, 2001). Lynn told the BBC:

"The new medical technology of eugenics is going to take off, because it satisfies the needs of individuals, both for themselves and as parents. Parents would like to have children who are free of genetic diseases, and potentially in the future they will want to have children who are intelligent.... As the technology comes on line to allow them to do this, people will take it up."

In an interview Lynn said, "What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the population of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of the 'phasing out' of such peoples...Evolutionary progress means the extinction of the less competent." (Newsday, January 9, 1994).

The Genetic Revolution - http://www.wcotc.com/euvolution/links.htm

Promotes "Eugenic Consciousness and Genetic Enlightenment." Topics include: Genetic Engineering, Human Genome, Bioethics, White Civil Rights: White Liberation and Self-Determination, Populations, Immigration and Racial Issues, Transhumanism—Post Humanism.

Future Generations - http://www.eugenics.net/

Includes a long list of eugenics and genetic modification links.

The Eugenics Daily: Glimpses of the Biotech Revolution - http://www.wcotc.com/euvolution/news.htm
A news bulletin on developments in human genetics science and technology of interest to eugenicists.

Jesse Reynolds, "Human Biotechnology: Responding to Emerging Dangerous New Human Genetics," Z Magazine (April 2003)
Resources >> CGS >> "Human Biotechnology"

"New Proposals to 'Rething our Opposition to Eugenics,'" Genetic Crossroads (Bulletin #5, April 30, 2002)
Newsletter >> Archive >> Bulletin 5

"Call for Re-think on Eugenics," BBC News (April 26, 2002)
Resources >> Items >> "Call for Re-think on Eugenics"

More Information

Perspectives: Explore various communities' concerns regarding human genetic technologies

Policies: Read about existing and potential regulations

Technologies: Learn the basic science and consider arguments for and against

Date modified: