Eugenics

Emily Oster said this “Prenatal testing is a complicated decision for many women, forcing us to confront concerns about a disabled child and risks of miscarriage.” What this tells us is any pregnant woman is susceptible to having a disabled child. In my paper. I will outline how prenatal screening is defined, the positive verses the negative outcomes, and the role of prenatal counselors. Prenatal testing is simply a set of medical tests performed on expectant mothers to determine if an unborn…

Eugenics! Oh what a great movement. In residential schools, us religious teachers are very strong believers in Christianity. We would like to make everyone believe in our faith and believe in god. God is someone whom we are very close to. One of our main plans in the residential schools is to bring in any aboriginal child and convert them to Christianity. We did not want them to learn about any other faith or culture. We believe Christianity is the most important religion. To prevent any…

History should warn that quick fixes are not sustainable answers that lead to real satisfaction. Kenneth L. Garver and Bettylee Garver’s article on the history of negative eugenics is one example of how delicate the topic of human variation is. Counterarguments address what society deems as “normal.” Since there is discrepancy in that definition, it is nearly impossible to legitimize a rigid set of rules for everyone. Infact…

In Michael Shermer’s book The Moral Arc: How Science Makes Us better people, one of the first topics that is introduced to the reader is the one of the oldest arguments in history, Nature vs Nurture. In his book, Shermer proposes the theory that we are all born into this world with some sort of moral compass. Therefore, we all have basic knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. However, the degree to how wrong or right someone views something to be can be shaped by how they are nurtured.…

that all criminals shared some distinctive features like huge eye sockets, enormous jaws, and handle shaped ears. This theory forms part of an old debate of nature versus nurture that still continues in today’s days. Francis Galton’s field basis, “eugenics”, was that inheritance is more important than the environment and education. For him “talent, character, intellect, disposition, and other aspects of "natural ability," as well as physical features, such as height and eye color, are governed…

At the turn of the 20th century, public health became a prominent topic in medicine. This changed the view from what’s best for an individual’s health to what’s best for the health of a population. Case studies done in this century have a vast range of conclusions and theories in an attempt to fix societal issues. These social issues, such as masturbation, prostitution, and criminal acts, were previously assumed to be moral irregularities. Now, through the use of science and medicine, these…

Adolf Hitler, like many hellish dictators, was a natural born leader, exhibiting qualities like manipulative public speaking skills. “Almost from the moment Adolf Hitler stepped behind the crude lectern placed atop the head table the audience was ‘electrified’” (Toland). It was then that people realized he would have a paramount impact on Germany in the future. Hitler fed the people what they wished to consume as the crescendo to power began to branch. The stock market crash in the United States…

heritable and so by encouraging people with more “desirable” traits and discouraging people with less desirable traits to reproduce, the human race as a whole could improve. Positive eugenics is the attempt to have people with desirable traits marry and have sex so they then produce desirable offspring. Negative eugenics is the prevention of undesirable people from reproducing. “[Negative] eugenicists attempted to improve the quality of the nation’s citizenry by reducing the birth rate of…

This chapter talks about mental testing in America. James Cattell and Galton believed that intelligence is hereditary. Henry Herbert Goddard shared a similar view to James Cattell and Galton. He conducted a study in the heredity of feeblemindedness and wrote a book called “Kallikak Family.” Ligthner Witmer was an environmentalist and he believed that hereditary was an excuse for an action. One of the research psychiatrists in this area was Alfred Binet. Theodor Simone joined Binet’s team and…

Nature ,the ability to learn from hereditary. Nurture, the ability to learn from the environment. These two ways of Learning have been in debate for hundreds of years. The question is, are we products of nature or nurture. Do we as humans learn from being taught or do we learn from what we inherited ? This question can be answered in many ways starting with how this argument began. In the article "The nature versus nurture debate or controversy" , it spoke of a French philosopher named…