Comment on This Woman Will Decide Which Babies Are Born
barsoap@lemm.ee 5 months agoIt’s first and foremost a word meaning as much as “good stock”, or, more modern, “good genes”. Nazis didn’t actually use it, at least not prominently, they were all about “racial hygiene” – very different implications.
As to “specifically developed” I’m not so sure I don’t know enough about Galton. What I do know is that he first did e.g. twin studies to figure out the relative importance of nature vs. nurture and stuff. People motivated by hate don’t tend to be that thorough meaning if he had more information he might’ve ended up on the other side of the fence but as said I don’t know nearly enough about his work to actually draw conclusions, ask a literary critic or such.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 months ago
His base assumption was something called genetic determinism. Which is exactly what it sounds like and exactly as debunked as you would think. He also tried to link body build and head measurements to genetic determinism.
And No. The Nazis absolutely loved Eugenics. The entire Western world did. The Nazis literally made it a required subject in grade school.
Eugenics needs to go die in a fire. There’s no need to resurrect the name or practices when we’re talking about actual genetic science.
barsoap@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I was talking about words. Said required subject was called Rassenlehre, very much not a calque of eugenics.
If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim, or even appropriate as the case may be, the word I’m not going to call them racists over it.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 5 months ago
Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics. And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.
barsoap@lemm.ee 5 months ago
I’m sorry but that sentence doesn’t parse for me.
It’s not an English but Greek word and yes it exists in German. Nazis (unsurprisingly) weren’t big on loan words but it doesn’t end there: The non-racially charged German word would be Erbgesundheitslehre, erm, “erf health lore”. Just as neutral as a term as “genome health theory” would be. But that’s not what the Nazis used, they specifically used a term that included “race”.
One factor that comes to mind which would make me, if I were a geneticist, argue in favour of the term would be people using the term “eugenics” to smear things like screening and IFV to get rid of Hutchinson’s. Sure the field has plenty of ethical question marks but much of it is perfectly kosher, yet there’s people who are opposed on principle. Re-claiming, even appropriating the term then gets you out of the defensive.
But, as said: I don’t have a skin in the game. As said, there’s arguments for and against.