at improving the genetic quality of a human population. The exact definition of eugenics has been a matter of debate since the term was coined by Francis Galton in 1883. The concept predates this coinage, with Plato suggesting applying the principles of selective breeding to humans around 400 BCE.
Scientists don't want to use the word. That hasn't stopped them running ahead with the ideas.
The only way of cutting off the constant stream of idiots and imbeciles and feeble-minded persons who help to fill
our prisons and workhouses, reformatories, asylums is to prevent those who are known to be mentally defective from hardship to the individual it would be necessary for the sake of protecting the race.
It's comfortable now to think of eugenics as an evil that sprang from the blackness of Nazi hearts. We are familiar with the argument, that: some men are born great, some as weaklngs, and both pass traits on to their children. So in order to improve society, the logic goes, we must encourage the best to breed and do what we can to stop the stupid, sick and malign from passing on their defective genes. This was taken to a genocidal extreme by Hitler, but the intellectual foundations were laid in England. And the idea is now making a startling comeback.
A hundred years ago eugenics mission involved a handful of crude tools: bribing the 'right' people to have larger
families sterilising the weakest. Now stunning advances in science are creating options early eugenicists could only
dream about. Today's IVF technology already allows us to see embryos for inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis.
But soon parents will be able to check for all manners of traits, from hair colour to character, and choose their
'perfect' child.
Fraser Nelson
The Spectator 2nd April, 2016
