The Dark side of Science: The Horror of Eugenics Theory (Short Documentary)
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- čas přidán 16. 06. 2024
- #science #history
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Eugenics is a theory that aim to improve the genetic quality of the human population, by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior such as forced sterilisation and promoting those judged to be superior.
The Theory also known a Galton's theory became an excuse for some of the 20th entries worst atrocities.
The story of this theory has resulted in many unethical practises in the USA, Germany and the UK, and traces its origins back to Charles Darwin.
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Gotta love how those early English studies just ignored nepotism, favoritism, and access to education as potential factors for why children of rich people stayed rich.
Grandfather creates the wealth, father appriciates it, son squanders it, the grandson recreates the wealth. Rinse repeat for all eternity.
Being rich and healthy is better than be poor and sick.
@@hugolafhugolaf Laughs in Ramanujan
The privileged class always finds a way to exempt themselves from the downsides of their powermongering.
@@Shiro_Amada There is no such thing as creating wealth; economy is a zero sum game.
My cousin who passed a few years ago had been forcibly sterilized during the eugenics movement in the united states when she was young. She had speech issues and was sexually abused by a relative. She moved to Michigan from California where she worked for general motors for over 50 years. Using her wages, she paid for speech therapy and gained "normal" speech. She developed Alzheimer's in her final years, but she always remembered her husband. It would break my heart every time she asked me if they had had any children together. I would tell her no, that she hadn't, and she would give me a quiet "oh". It's not a person's place to decide who gets to live or die, and who gets to carry on their line.
The same thing happened to my aunt after she was r*ped when she was 8 y/o, she went catatonic and so she was placed in the sanitarium in Pontiac, MI. They used shock therapy and she was sterilized against her and my gmas will. They had no idea what was happening to her. Needless to say but she never got married and was basically a child for the rest of her life. She was my favorite aunt.
@@Cbd_7ohm Circumcision is *not* the same as forced sterilization. A person is still able to have children after being circumcised and I doubt it can have the same impact on a life as being sterilized against your will. Do not compare them.
@@Cbd_7ohm At least you still got your balls my guy, imagine letting someone take a cleaver to them lol
@@Cbd_7ohm you are joking, right?
I'd like to add that I am against circumcision and if I ever have a male child that would never happen but you cannot even compare the two.
@@Sapphica While circumcision is not sterilization, it is the term used by cultures that practice female genital mutilation. And female 'circumcision' is wholly about depriving the woman of pleasure in sex because if she can't enjoy it then she will be faithful to her husband.
Totally flawed thinking, and an utterly barbaric and inhuman practice, but common place in many developing countries, especilly in africa and the middle east.
You know what? Thank you for calling it "murder" and calling those people "victims" because that's what it was and that's what they were. Too many times people choose a more clinical approach and it all seems so detached but I really appreciated that you looked at the problem right in the eye and said that these people were murdered, through no fault of their own, and anyone who had a part in their murders was a killer. It really brought home the horror of the entire situation.
I doubt you would have the same opinion if you were born autistic due to your parents genes
Yes, and even ignoring individual rights, it is also logically flawed in that it pre-supposes that someone can determine what traits are worthwhile and which aren't, how much of this trait we need and how much of that... I'm not ignoring the individual human rights, but to someone who agrees (or doesn't disagree) with eugenics, this is an argument more likely to dissuade them of the idiology (not science).
@@benjaminfranklin329human rights don't exist
@@benjaminfranklin329I can have SOME level of understanding for certain hereditary ailments, but put into practice I can never imagine it going anything but overboard. Everyone will have their own criteria.
Btw when I say some, I do not include forced sterilization. But perhaps having specialized DNA tests and having it as an option while promoting adoption.
I don't want to discount the emotional weight mothers have to children they gave birth to, but the amount of children waiting to be adopted is a serious issue and this could be used as an opportunity.
@@nathanielmathews2617 is it though? How many children are waiting for adoption? At least here in Australia there are incredibly few kids waiting for adoption, people can wait years to adopt a child.
OKAY you probably wont read this, but my heart literally STOPPED when you showed the picture of the Bernburg Euthanasia Centre. I life near Bernburg and I have Depression, so I was hospitallized once and it was THAT BUILDING. The Euthanasia Centre is a Psychiatric Clinic nowadays and it still looks the same. Even the ofens and gas showers are still in the attic, they're an open memorial right now.
I would've NEVER thought to see that building in this type of video one day, thanks for including it lmao :')
(fun fact aside from that - the psyche ward it is now is awful and they treat their patients terribly, not mass murder but guess some things dont change lol)
I never hear anything nice about psych wards or care these days. I think it's because they are structured and intended to do the very opposite of what is needed (i.e. to make money, get people back to being productive ASAP by the fastest, least labour intensive means possible). Thus they are understaffed but cost a lot (as people seek to make money). The people who work there are underpaid and overworked so they become toxic and resentful, add to that very distressed and needy people... They should be about providing respite and hospitality to people having a bad time, and offering practical support to get them back on their feet, stable and ready to engage in therapy.
@@ButterflyonStonethis is sadly true in a lot of cases. I have been lucky to live where I do and while not perfect the psych ward I was in is definitely better than some I heard about. It was understaffed but there were enough nurses for basic care and we had a pretty good program to keep us occupied, help us socialize and give us a form of routine but with enough leeway and freedom. It is currently being expanded since it is quite small when considering that it is one of the few in my country and is responsible for quite a lot of people. Some nurses honestly weren’t the nicest but overall I didn’t experience any abuse. The „closed“ section which is basically the secured part of the psych ward was significantly worse though. Barely any freedom and it was very monotone and boring. I don’t blame them too much because it is meant to protect people against themselfs and others but I think it could be improved. I made a bunch of friends there, some of which I‘m still in contact with and overall it wasn’t a bad experience and gave me some good input and also a break from responsibilities and stress. I was in a youth psychiatry though so it might be different for adults but from what I‘ve heard there isn’t any blatant abuse or flaws. It is ironic though that it is named after sigmund freud. Overall the psychiatry in Graz, Austria was a pretty good place to be during some of my deeper lows and they do their best with their resources. It could be improved like our general mental health care system but it is better than nothing for sure. Also very important to note is that it costs nothing under any circumstances and if you work it is counted as sick leave (which we theoretically have an infinite amount of) since it is a hospital, it is called Graz LKH 2 nowadays because it belongs to the same complex as the normal hospital. LKH is short for Landeskrankenhaus which roughly translates to state hospital or county hospital.
Maybe you should do a video on your experiences there? It could help others who suffered in these awful places.
Difficult to condense down 100 years of an entire branch of scientific study into a sub 30 minute video but I think you did a good job
Thank you! It was really tough!!
Eugenics is not science. It is pseudo science to justify racism.
@@silentIm Bill Gates would probably disagree with your statement.
Great*
@@silentIm It was considered science then technically, until it wasn't obviously.
"Germany got most of the credit for it, but it was popular here in the U.S. way before Hitler even knew who he was mad at."
Doug Stanhope, "incentivised eugenics"
"Beer hall putsch" a great special
YUP!!!
it was popular in the US? well actually, eugencs is still a dominant ideology of the US "elite"(politicians, billionaires, etc).
They basically just copied pasted the whole eugenics plan in the US and applied it to the Jews and other undesirables.
@@scamdem1c nah, that's capitalism that's causing people unneccessary suffering
The hilarious thing is I would've easily been sterilised as I'm autistic, did poorly at primary and high school. After some steps of learning, I'm now studying electrical engineering. This is why Eugenics is BS. It's about the environment you're in. You can change that.
I tried but I have been unable to detect any hilarity in that situation.
How are the kids?
No worries, autistic STEM majors don't need eugenics, we just refuse to have kids or become wizards... ah nature you beautiful bastard!
I agree. I also think eugenics is a bunch of bs but i have also observed some individuals to have higher intellectual capabilities than others
If only they're was some way to effectively determine someone's level of intelligence and find the root of the intelligence
Wouldn't it be possible to create a race of only intelligent people
Lol. Same. I'm shizophrenic and had 6 son's. Suck on that WEF. Suck on it hard
I appreciate you referring to euthanasia in this instance as straightforward murder.
There is a resurgence in euthanasia(yes murder), and unfortunately *Canada leads they way,* under the prosaic term of MAID. Medically Assistance In Dying
@@jimmyzhao2673doesnt surprise me. There is more than that wrong with Canada
100 years later we will have videos about factory farming and murdering baby animals
11:20
Just to be fair, it was not actually J.H. Kellogg, but his brother William who founded the cereal company. Originally J.H. convinced his brother to support his endeavors in mental health through the company, but early on they had a falling out over this, and William broke all ties with his brother and ensured all cereals made by his company were NOT officially endorsed by his brother or the mental asylum he ran.
Its kind of a fascinating story, I'd recommend looking into it closer :3
As kids, we toured the Kellogg Factory in the mid-1960s. It was family friendly, they passed out little boxes of cereal as souvenirs.
Damn. I wonder what else he got wrong.
@@tedstriker5991 Well he invented corn flakes because he was a devout Christian who believed masturbation was evil and thought that corn was capable of lowering a persons labido therefore someone who had corn for breakfast every day would never get horny. Apparently it was an accident after he left a failed experiment with corn out in the sun all day and it baked it dry.
@@dungeonseeker3087 What J.H. created were a tasteless, slightly acidic version of what we all know as Corn Flakes. He quickly passed the task of manufactering them (along with countless other essential duties), to his brother William (who frankly J.H. took advantage of for years by exploiting his brother's admiration of his attempts to aid the ill).
William however always felt the cereal would sell better and be more effective as a foodstuff with small infusions of sugar, better corn sources, and better "curing" processes. All of these ideas were rejected out of hand by his brother. After William finally had had enough, he broke away from his brother, took the Corn Flakes recipe with him (which at this point had been his burden alone for years) and sued to be allowed to use the name Kellogg in a company that his brother was BANNED from associating with, and won.
THAT was the Kellogg Company we all know as making cereal.
Remember to boycott Kellogg's.
FUN FACT: The Aztecs originally made peanuts mashed into a paste, the original peanut butter. Though it was Will Kellogg who created the machine that makes modern day peanut butter in jars. George Washington Carver, often mistaken as the inventor of peanut butter, found over 300 uses for peanuts, but not peanut butter.
It was the Illuminutty !
Carver MUST be the creator of it because reasons that may or may not offend the soy folk on here and get you cancelled
Isn't the mis-attribution because of a peanut based glue that somewhat resembles peanut butter?
@@Elfnetdesigns Sure, Grandpa, let's get you back to bed...
@@Elfnetdesigns
you people complain about being cancelled but then you continue on and never shut the fuck up as if nothing happened
I’ve read that some UK labour leaders (agitating for unions) were very suspicious of eugenics. Labouring people were not high class and saw themselves as potential cases for sterilization. It slowed things down some in the UK.
Y’know, when I first played Wolfenstein: the New Order, I thought it seemed unrealistic that the US would embrace the Nazi regime so quickly. Now I’m having second thoughts
You should either read the book "The Plot Against America" or see the HBO mini-series. The writer uses historical facts to portray an alternative history where more "German-friendly" (and they numbered in their millions in real history) people have Charles Lindbergh (a known nazi-supporter) become the president of the USA and the effect this has on the country during WWII.
The writer Philip Roth was born in 1933 and remembers how he and his family met quite a few people who told them "Hitler is right about you Jews and you don't belong here." Some of those even got together in large gatherings and brandished nazi flags alongside the American one.
There were also influential and powerful figures in American business who openly supported Hitler. Henry Ford was one of them and he even helped funding the German nazi party because he believed that Hitler had "the right ideas".
Bear in mind that the USA was a lot more segregated in the 1940's and people had a dim view of anybody who wasn't of British or German heritage. Those who were Irish or Italian or Polish or whatever were seen as "lesser Americans" or "scum". The blacks had it worst but other ethnic groups felt it too.
There was a meeting between a few countries USA included Stalin bragged that Hitler wasn't invited, so Hitler started what had been planned by those countries and the other countries that were at the meeting allowed it to go on and ignored it until he kept on coming for them, that's when they decided to fight as well Hitler told Japan about the plan and USA was at war
@@RebeccaPerry-ur9up
I feel like this would be a helpful, educational comment if you used sentence structure and punctuation so that people can understand what you're trying to say. I'm really not trying to be mean but it's barely legible and I wish I could be sure sure what you were trying to say.
Over 1,000 women were forcibly sterilized through non-consentual removals of reproductive organs and hysterectomies in Californian prisons from 1997 to 2014. Eugenics still exists to some extent.
If they're doing that then it's too the extent they want it to be
@@Justin-yt7pi says the guy with an anime pfp
And at least 1000 welfare children were prevented from becoming a burden of the taxpayers. More likely 2 or 3000. That's a win.
@@peniscaughtinzipper You have no idea what their possible children could have done, who gives a shit about helping those in need if it ends up creating a very successful and valuable member of society, even then people deserve to make their own choices. Any of those kids could have gone on to cure currently incurable diseases, but you don't give a shit because "wahhh my money I hate welfare queens :(((" which don't even exist.
@@peniscaughtinzipper that's the same reasoning as "oh the algorithm says that this kid will become a criminal, so we should kill him"
People can decide for themselves, we aren't just the sum of our circumstances, we can decide whether we wanna be a carjacker in the future or not
The most horrid thing about this is the lack of people (and increasing) that don't know about this. Knowledge is power and power thru knowledge is the best way to make true change
What’s even worse are the people who openly espouse these ideas
Hell I saw comments of people arguing. It's insane that this is still an issue.
@@vanguze Well yes, it's quite unfortunate how someone's use of science as an excuse to do acts considered horrific lends to the discrediting of the entire scientific field (evolutionary biology) for decades to come. And how, in today's world, people are biased against practices they know very little about. Eugenics is used in agriculture and animal husbandry, as it has been and is used to produce different breeds of pets (e.g. dogs).
100% agree, more people should research eugenics
The entire theory is based off the world view of people who think they're entitled to rule over you.
I actually did my high school paper on this topic lol I was in the IB programme, which is a step up from AP. In IB, we are required to write a EE or extended essay. I remember I wrote a 18 to 20-page essay about Eugenics in the US. It still astounds me how little people know about when I bring it up.
There are many things like this that are kept away from people. Doesn't matter where you from either.
The chilling thing to me personally is how spotty IQ tests can be- when they tested me in elementary school I think their expectation tainted their interpretation of my answers, also some questions were on topics we hadn't been taught yet or about topics that had zero interest to me like the length of a football field and the number of people on a baseball team. (I still don't remember the latter one, tbh. It simply doesn't interest me.) In the end they told my parents I was lucky I could tie my shoes. Then I started reading at a college level and they forgot about that stupid test. But back enough decades I might have been forcibly sterilized before they realized I was actually a genius. Worse was it wasn't just intelligence they based it on- it was also morality. And if a woman couldn't PROVE she was r*ped- which she usually couldn't because how often is it done it public before tons of witnesses?- then she'd be branded morally inadequate and forcibly sterilized, it was so tragic. There was also the flip side- women not being allowed to decline having more children just because their husbands wanted them. One woman had several kids but couldn't handle the stress, she was put into a mental institution. But her husband wanted to visit her and keep impregnating her and she didn't want more kids. The court sided with him and formally stripped her of the right to say no. At that time spousal r*pe wasn't a legal thing either. Then there's the whole lobotomy fiasco.
Whoever tested your IQ with questions on knowledge should be sterilized lol.. but on a serious note, lobotomy is a walk in a park compared to Canadian mental hospitals experiments on erasing memories. Government is not there to help you, just remember that
How old are you
Nice fanfiction.
your lying. ig tests are not general knowledge questions
I honestly feel that, if I was born earlier I would have been lobotomised
As dark as the topic is, its part of history and if we dont learn from it we are doomed to repeat it. Thanks for the video and keep up the good work
trust, we are currently under a mass global eugenics experiment
This is very important to say, yes. I was broadly aware of Eugenics, but a history run-down like this helped put a lot of things into perspective.
Here here
Doomed? Idk if it was a bad thing... yes there's always parts of literally everything that are bad. But the vast majority of this subject is actually good and beneficial.
what makes you think that eugencs ideology is only a thing of the past?
I do not remember ever being taught this in school, my mind is blown. America made Eugenics popular first and none of my textbooks ever talked about it
Your textbooks didn't discuss "Jewish eugenics" by John Glad either.
America whitewashed all of its history, most of what you've learnt are lies or half truths.
I was taught some of it in highschool
In Public school we covered it in elementry school, middle school and high school. Basicly any time WW2 was a subject. How did you never cover this once?
@@Shiro_Amada southern states like Florida. Christian schools. Etc.
The Kellogg cereal company mentioned @ 11:20 was not solely an idea of JH Kellogg. It is true he started the idea of wholesome, vegetarian breakfast cereal, but he had a falling out with his brother, William Keith Kellogg (the WKK on the companies logo in years past. The cereal was one of the most hated foods on the menu at 'The San' aka The Battlecreek Sanitarium. Will wanted to add sugar to it to make it taste better, and the Brothers had a major breach in their relationship.
Kellogg's cereal company was made by John's brother. John was a doctor that employed his brother, and served his patients grains. His brother spun off that idea into a new product under their last name. John actually started a second Kellogg's cereal company to compete with his brother, but lost the rights to the brand name in court to his brother.
I work as a historian at a former institution for individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities. This was informative in the history of eugenics and overall very well done. I feel that we’ve forgotten disabled people in this conversation, who suffered the most for the longest.
As you're a historian, I can't help to wonder that the concept of eugenics is older than this. Whenever people were at war, over whatever cause, didn't they do all kind of things to dehumanise their opponents and the weak?
@@someones_daughter_ That's an interesting theory! So you suspect Eugenics itself may be the modern equivalent of the old practices of dehumanizing the enemy during war time? Or that it may be a natural evolution of the less sophisticated war time practice of dehumanizing the enemy? Or maybe are you asking if it might have evolved from that same need to dehumanize others, or to prove one's group superior to the rest?
Regardless of its origin, I'd say it's proven to have the potential to serve that purpose; but has been rendered old fashioned by WW2. Today the most politically correct way to discriminate and persecute without consequences is to invoke terrorism and islamism; when someone is branded a terrorist, it's ok do all sort of dehumanizing and illegal things to him, his family, his village...
Eugenics is just another tool in the "discrimination" toolkit; religion was once a favorite for discrimination as well. Anything can be used to justify discrimination, really, even Science.
This thought deserve a minute of silence for all the disabled killed by euthanasia during these times.
Today, being diagnosed mentally inept is scary enough. Now imagine living in a time where such a diagnosis is equivalent to a death sentence; scary thought!
@@ericmoulot9148 Genuine question.
Isn't using eugenics for mentally or physically disabled people a good thing?
I'm not talking about depression,anxiety or other mental health issues.
I'm talking about mentally disabled people with a low iq and who can never function or take care of themselves.
Or people with a horrible syndrome or something?
I.e down syndrome, harlequin syndrome, that syndrome that basically turns you into stone etc.
It would prevent future suffering.
If you know your future children will suffer from your disabilities,syndromes etc. Isn't that selfish and bad?
I'm asking because I genuinely don't get it and no-one ever explains it to me.
I know that it's very easy to come off as passive aggressive on the internet, but I'm genuinely 100% trying to understand/learn.
@@jennifervan75 the issue with that is where do you draw the line?
At what point is the suffering too much?
It’s a very slippery slope, and not one we should tread on. If we do, it could lead to bad things in the future, where ableists in positions of power have lowered the bar for how bad the disability needs to be in order to do eugenics.
But also, it shouldn’t be someone else’s choice on whether I do or don’t have children. It’s my right and mine alone to make that decision.
As someone with a mental disability, I have concerns over what I could pass on to my future children.
But I also know that the world is constantly changing around us, and it’s getting easier to live with disabilities.
Depending on just how strict eugenics measures are, all I can imagine the end outcome being is a dangerously small gene pool. Leading to inbreeding and defects resulting from that (ironically).
Good point
Depending on what you believe, throughout history we’ve all been derived from the same family (Adam and Eve, Noah’s family after the flood, etc). However, I highly doubt eugenics would have ever reached anywhere near that point, as there are simply too many people, and too few “targeted/applicable” eugenic candidates.
@@danielalexander4833 sorry if im missing the point but Adam and Eve weren't real and same with Noah
@@danielalexander4833 That's quite a candid and honest reflection from a believer. Quite a disconcerting one too!
Royal families already did that
Thank you for sharing this. It is horrific, and needs to be kept in the spotlight, as too many people are currently trying to regenerate these theories under different names.
Kells and moomoo windmills and shay mccay dark wood cabinets while there's oil and grease on the chemistry lab tables while there's lots some complaints from classmates about that in the new room you go in and sit down one day.
Next, Andover trip in 2 days but then when you're on the bus and you hear the noise while going fast, it reminds you of compounds of the oil and orangish red grease -.-
waaah its horrific to want to improve future generations
@@notnem3883 "waaah it's wrong to want less homelessness
(after klling the homeless people to get there)
-what you sound like
@@earbunnyisgloomy9613 homelessness in a society that doesnt have a job shortage and actually takes care of its citizens would predominantly be caused by drug abuse and mental illness - both things people are genetically predisposed to do/have. so yes, technically the same logic would apply
this is the case in highly developed countries right now - the entirety of scandinavia for example has predominantly those issues causing homelessness (although migrants also play a significant part in it)
@@notnem3883 the point is just because an outcome might seem good doesn't mean it's always worth it to get there based on how it does.
Great job. One small correction. John Kellogg was famous for the Battle Creek Sanitarium and some wacky heath ideas beyond just eugenics (future episode idea?). His brother Will is the name on the cereal box.
Not sure what Will's thoughts were on eugenics but his brother hated the fact that he used the same surname on his product and even sued him over its use.
Yes but it was John’s corn flakes recipe that started everything
@@scottydu81 John invented cornflakes? I also thought it was Will. It is definately Wills company that makes Kellogg's cereals.
@@graemepinnock I think they worked together on a lot of that. Will wanted to add sugar and John thought that defeated the purpose. It was meant to be bland and flavorless
Correct. Will was the one who saw the benefit of adding a little sugar to the corn flakes, John wanted people to embed wire in their foreskin.
US History is a hoot, sometimes. I live near Oneida, where sexual orgies produced fine silverware and presidential assassins.
There was an interesting documentary on the History Channel on beginnings of the cereal industry in the US. Not only did Will Kellogg develop corn flakes at the Battle Creek Sanitarium and broke away, but C.W Post was a patient at the sanitarium and stole the recipe for what would become Grape Nuts.
The saddest thing is that the murder of the first euthanasia victim in Germany (Gerhard Kretschmar) was actually initiated and supported by his own father, whose beliefs in the ideology overruled the love for his own child.
Maybe it was because he didn't want his child to live a lifetime of pain and suffering
@@9279chomp It wasn't up to him to decide. "Mercy killing" is a disgusting concept that is still used as an excuse to murder disabled people. Also, if you do a 2 min google search, you'll learn that he referred to his son as 'This monster'. That's not how you talk about people you love.
@@ahumanpersonpresumaly9970 That's fair, I'm only saying things aren't always black and white
@@ahumanpersonpresumaly9970 Somehow my comment got deleted? Jeee I wonder why lol
@@9279chomp I get it, but people are still getting killed for stuff like this. Yes, it's not black and white, but the shade of gray is pretty damn dark and I choose not to sympathize with people who kill their own children.
BTW, you're comment's still there, as far as I can see.
I remember having an information day in school about the euthanasia Programm. My class got the opportunity to not only have a live reading of the book "Nebel im August" (based on the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Ernst lossa [I hope I remembered the name correctly]) and talk to the author of said book, but also got to talk to a holocaust survivor that was imprisoned in a camp complex on which my old school was built. We still found munitions sometimes while playing in the woods after school. I remember reading the whole book a couple of years later, it is very well made since it's written from the perspective of the victim.
Meanwhile here in America, slavery is watered down to the point of ridiculous inaccuracy and the acknowledgement that America was a world leader in eugenics is completely and utterly ignored! "We only do good things here in the US, y'hear!" 🤦
This was great. Your short documentaries are brilliant, and I have no issue with longer eps.
"Compassion should be the mark of the successful society" is the bottom line take away from all this.
That attitude hasn't worked well for us in the last 70 years, clearly.
Compassion must NEVER override logic. That is destructive.
Bleeding hearts is one of the greatest detriments to progress. You cant have progress without reason and truth taking the forefront
@@JohnCena-le1jj Logic is only a tool, we have the decision to chose It we want to use it to chase for the best outome for a select group of people or for everyone. The second being way harder than the first
@@dragonoideification The second is unnatural. Evolution mandates discarding certain genotypes in favor of others. Humanity should definitely abandon this attempt at circumventing natural laws. Even if it is possible to do indefinitely, which seems extremely unfeasible let alone likely, it is simply inefficient.
I watch a lot of historical documentaries on YT and elsewhere, and am continually surprised by how frequently I encounter grievous historical errors. I say "grievous" because I'm not a historian, and so figure that for me to notice an error it has to run counter to easily-researched facts. This leads me to wonder why, if I can fact-check a questionable statement in two minutes on the internet, the producers of these documentaries do not?
In watching Plainly Difficult I have never run into this problem. You obviously research your subject matter adequately to avoid most factual errors, and this has led me to develop considerable trust in your content. Thank you for continuing to produce videos of such high levels of veracity. Here's hoping that your work serves as a model to other content creators to get their (facts) together!
I don't think that the initial study on trait inheritance was bad, but I do think that it was incredibly warped into something amazingly stupid. Instead of urging people to improve, to train physically and mentally, they suddenly decided to separate the ones who had already improved from the ones who had lagged behind? And to even slaughter the ones that were deemed unworthy? Wow. How did it even get to there... Just wow.
we've all seen people that shouldn't be allowed to have kids, eugenics should make a comeback
Who are you to tell who shouldn't be born or not? Lol
@@earbunnyisgloomy9613 Someone who should follow their own advise.
I'm always late for this, but thank you, honestly. this is not just "oh look how creepy" entertainment, I always feel like I learned a thing or two on the way. everything feels thoroughly researched and I love the effort you put into the videos to make them understandable. also your voice is very pleasant as well as an added bonus. so thank you!
as a person with a few mild disabilities, i think people judging me and screwing me over because of eugenetics caused me more trouble than my disabilities ever could.
@Daisy Mae how so? If anything it's helping the people who are affected by it and any kids they might have in the future
slow down there buddy stuff like that has to happen naturally. attempting to rid humanity of disability through eugenics has not historically been ethical.
I guess people forget the humanity of these research experiments and only care for the results.
As a person with disabilities myself I wonder if your disabilities couldn't be assets in the right situation
ok
While the concept of selective breeding is a legitimate way of improving the human race it completely falls apart once you take into account that people are worth more than their "intelligence"
I've met some of the dumbest people you could ever expect to exist and yet they have had hearts of gold and genuinely have improved my life just by being the caring, thoughtful people they are.
Intelligence isn't all that matters in fact I wouldn't say it matters at all, as long as we have a group of intellectuals pushing the human race forward everyone else should focus on being happy and doing their bit for others whether it be working in a store, street sweeping or designing the next big social media, everyone has value.
I don’t really watch your videos often, but every time I do it’s such a great experience. You’ve earned a subscriber 👍
Thank you!
Thank you for making this. I think this information is new to a lot of people.
It kinda irritated me for years that that part of history is swept under the rug.
america is definitely not keen on acknowledging the level to which american eugenics and racial policy inspired the nazis.
@@Ass_of_Amalek basically everyone did it, and then swept it under the rug when it wasn't fashionable anymore.
@@Ass_of_Amalek Uncle Walt Disney was a big supporter of the Nazis, And the New York Times was eager for Adolf to solve "The Jewish Problem."
The New York Times also said that obviously rockets cannot work in space because there is no air to push against. They only spitefully retracted this fact when we landed on the moon, by vaguely acknowledging that newtons laws work in space too.
@@SlocketSeven No he wasn't. He was anti Nazi and anti Communist. He routinely mocked both.
@@Ass_of_Amalek So are American Jews responsible? They've had eugenics for 3000 years.
I've always found the scientific principles of eugenics fascinating. Both of my parents were eugenics born babies. My father in 1933 in Idaho, and my mother in 1938 in Long Island. Of course, by the time I was born in 1982 as their 9th child, none of my family believed in such nonsense. Thank God.
The thing is, the core idea of eugenics isn't nonsense. The problem is that it makes for a convenient justification for all sorts of horrible things which really do NOT follow for the fact (it is just a fact) that there are a lot of hereditary traits in humans.
Population genetics is quite a bit more complicated than most of the advocates of eugenics believed. In the very early days, that was somewhat understandable, but relatively quickly biologists figured out that almost all the objectively "desirable" traits are influenced by really complicated genetics and a lot of 'nurture'. That didn't deter the more fanatical true believers and people who were really just using eugenics as an excuse though.
As we get a better understanding of genetics and, very importantly, the limits of our understanding, a sort of eugenics becomes more and more relevant.
PS: I'm an biologist, so that's a peculiar POV I suppose.
@@travcollier You make a valid point, Travis, that there is a good scientific justification to pursue "eugenics", and how it's all these divergent interests that distort the facts to suit their rhetoric. I'm currently reading an essay by Jean-Claude GUILLEBAUD, where he makes the case that today the "market" is the main force that drive the field of genetics (genetics which I consider here a branch of eugenics). By the market he means the stock market, the economic forces providing the funding and the speculations on the future of the field. In that sense we may be back to square one, where it is not "good" Science (or Logic) driving Science, but the "profit motive". I'm thinking, for instance, about how studies sponsored by companyX will get results consistent with the interests of companyX, and how publications and advertisement funded by companyY with influence public opinion and consequently influence political debates, and finally the direction of public funding.
I'm not pointing the finger at the genetics field in particular; in fact all big businesses nowadays are subject to market forces, unfortunately; and Ethics and Logic often lose out to economic interests.
@@ericmoulot9148 Urm... there is not a good scientific justification to pursue eugenics at all lol? There's not "divergent interests" "distorting the facts" as an accidental evolution - the so-called basis for eugenics is the belief that certain lives are lesser, it ISN'T founded in science. The attempts to justify the practice with science is an excuse that helps sooth the conscience of people deeply filled with hatred but unable to accept this. It's not the other way around.
@@travcollier Deeply worried that you're a biologist who can say "the core idea of eugenics isn't nonsense". It IS nonsense. Unless you're of the opinion that considering people less worthy of existence is a noble goal. That's the core idea btw
@@merchantarthurn No, that's not the core idea. The idea is that humans should consider the fact that some traits are inherited into their reproductive decisions. Choosing to get screened for scikle-cell or CF before having a kid is eugenics too... At least it was within the scope of what eugenics meant in the early days of the idea.
Fascinating video as always. I always come out of your vids feeling more enlightened than when I start.
Thank you!
A history that does not learn from its mistakes are bound to repeat them. Thank you for making this video, as blood-boiling and infuriating as it was to watch I'm glad I now know more about this topic.
Darwin: "Things develop by 'Natural' Selection."
Governments: "Let's force selection and say it was Darwin's idea."
Religious fundamentalists: "See evolution is evil because of eugenics."
They understood it as the most intelligent survived, well the sloth is not very bright intellectually right ? Or a worm, theoretically we have the same age as all the animals today if there is a thing called the first cell.
@@averagesauceenjoyer7209 it was just people in power with racist ideologies and affirming their racism by misquoting science.
Boom!
Evolution can't pass the scientific method. Statistical probably shows the "origins of life" coming by random chance to not only be improbable but wildly impossible. (Look at the odds of shuffling a deck of cards back in to its original order and apply that to three random creation protein). The fossil record is hurting evolutionary theories. Google transitional fossil pictures. After more than a century of searching the ones we found go from A to ZZ but never will you see an A, B, C, D progression or anything even close. Look at the complexities of a single ordinary feather. Insane the amount of engineering in one. Even to the microscopic level life is complex beyond our imaginations. We can't even prove why bumble bees fly and yet... yeah... The religious are the ones who are stupid for living by a little faith here and there. It took me 100 times more BLIND faith to be an atheist than to see life is something to be valued. That you and I are infinity more valuable and not just some over grown earthworm with thumbs.
Im glad i see less and less of this flawed logic these days.
Ah, Eugenics...every time this science comes up I keep remember that it isn't only religion people have used to justify bad actions. Science as a "method of showing the truth through proof" does as well. I'm glad to have had parents born in a country that didn't have to experience the horrors Eugenics did.
To be fair, it's pretty much a religion at this point.
@@Peasham To be fair, it's the religiously affiliated who are exposing modern day eugenics.
It'll seem like an half assed apologetic comment, but it's important to highlight that eugenism was, like every other pseudo sciences or theories (homeopathy, sofrology, lithoterapy to name a few from our times), heavily biaised and flawed.
Among other mistakes, eugenism studies didn't take into account all of the factors of differences between the populations tested and interpreted all results as caused by genetics inequalities.
It was never proper science, and those flaws were happily ignored because it could justify racist policies.
We often see comparaisons between religion and science as thought systems. It makes no sense, because as religion is based on trust, science is based on doubt.
It means that religion can indeed be used to justify bad actions to naive people. Science, or proper science at least can not, as it promote constant doubt, even about already accepted theories. The only reason why eugenism could justify those actions was because population and governments were for the most part already compliant with this ideology.
@@zgoogiddyboom8586 "Proper science" is about as good an argument as "proper religion" that don't justify violence. It's no true Scotsman fallacy. Obviously if a system works perfectly it's not abused, but that's never the case. There is no distinction.
@@LordVader1094 your response shows a lack of understanding of the scientific methodology.
Proper science is about good arguments allright, but good as in unbiaised and fair. Like if you want to show that a factor has an effect on something, you need to come up with a way that unsure that this factor is the only variable in your experiment, and that all other potential factors are frozen.
But more than that, proper science is about peer review and systematic doubt.
Proper science never produce absolute verity, it always produce theories. A theory can never be proven right, it only stands as the closest way to discribe reality until someone proves it wrong with an exemple of a situation where it doesn't work. In science, even someone like you and me, as in not a doctor or a PhD owner can prove a nobel price wrong with proper demonstration.
Religion, on the other hand, emphasize faith, or bluntly put blind trust. A profan can't debate with a theologist because it all rely at the very start on believers trusting in the existance of something. It's a concept that can never be proven wrong. One can't prove something's inexistance, as one can't be sure everywhere's been checked at the same time.
So in theory, if a great scientist says something false, proper science is supposed to insure that it will be doubted and double checked and eventually debunked.
If a high religious figure says the same thing, believers will have faith because his word are supposed to be undoubtable. Or it create a schism in this religion.
I suggest you to check about epystemology, i might have said some bullshit. This post only reflects my opinion after all, even if i tried to keep my arguments as objectives as can be.
Also sorry if some mistakes slided in this, english isn't my first language.
Dann good! Please do more like this, and do scratch deeper on this subject. 🙏💗
Very informative topic. Great job discussing a difficult and distressing topic in an sensitive but factual manner.
I actually talk about some of this stuff in my biology class when we get to the genetics module, especially when we start talking about modern genetic techniques for cloning and editing. Most students really perk up at this. Maybe I missed it, but you forgot to mention the role that universities, like Harvard, played in championing eugenics in the US- you did go over something I glossed over though- the role of American racism in accepting eugenics far easier than in other nations. I learned a lot from this video and will share it with my students!
academically asking... arent we doing more harm in exclaiming that Eugenics simply isnt real and doesnt work.. because thats simply incorrect and can be easily refuted by anyone who is pro eugenics.. its as straight forward as evolution.. look at the breeds of dogs we now have and how in a few centuries weve cured alot of them of disease, aggression, ect ect
we dont condone Eugenics because its wrong.. because its murder and immoral.
Than ANY other nation?
You mentioned birth control pills & I really hope you can find the time to do a video dedicated to the exploitation of the female citizens of Puerto Rico while they were being tested. The US government did a lot more unethical shit down here, too - I believe it's the area of Vieques that has insane cancer/deformity rates to this day due to the Navy performing nuclear tests or dumping radioactive waste near the island.
Great video, btw!!
United States of Murder.
If any of y'all wanna see a good video on it, while she doesn't have as many visuals, Bailey Sarian did a very thorough explanation and summary that was informative. Her vernacular is less academic and more casual however she respectfully covered all of the bases with respect for the victims
Yeah my grandparents always had stories about that stuff. Also the fucked up way the US would treat pro independence Puertoricans.
I thought it was during the nazi occupied Germany that brought about birth control? I read a book about it all back in the 90s while I was doing homeschooling….that basically the stuff killed all the women during the first dose study…all that they did to make it what it is today…the pill…was lower the dose…
My rescue dog is from Vieques- so many abandoned dogs. Can confirm he’s not very bright tho.
The father of the recent Nobel Prize-winner Roger Penrose's father was a British 'Professor of Eugenics'.
Wild stuff. Thank you
I hope people understand that this is still happening to this day. In almost every single country, even here in America. It's just going on in different ways and very subtlety. The most subtle ways are "accidents" or from "unforseen" side effects. Unfortunately they know it will happen in a certain percentage of the population. Everything from additives in our foods to side effects of medications, they know exactly what will happen. It's why they developed said additives and medications.
This. Eugenics has left a huge stain on the US healthcare system. Ask anyone who's disabled how often they've experienced medical neglect and malpractice, and how there's almost never any justice for them, and you'll notice a very concerning pattern. Just the fact that US healthcare is prohibitively expensive is a method of eugenics. For example: people dying because they can't afford insulin is relatively more "acceptable" to the public because it's more passive than straight-up euthanizing diabetics.
@@Sentientcrabpee that and many associate diabetes with being fat and unhealthy enough to develop it, plus stories of doctors brushing off medical conditions as just 'being too fat'. Then you look at how women are treat, some denied tube ties bc 'you'll want kids later' and...it just goes on
@@Sentientcrabpeeand has probably left a stain on the education system and life in general. When I was little I was neglected by my teachers and doctors didn’t want to diagnose me with ADHD and autism. It’s disgusting how common abuse and neglect of children with ADHD and autism in schools and the healthcare system.
"Even in America", as if this video hasn't explained that America was the breeding ground for eugenics.
Eugenics and its variations are one inherent flaw; there is no 'genetically perfect' human. Also, the concept of such a person is not really well defined. The moral problem of eugenics is that it justifies mistreatment of people who do not meet some arbitrary standard as well as ignoring poverty has multiple causes including some that are political.
Eugenics does not aim to create a "genetically perfect" human. The objective is to create a population considered genetically superior (by increasing the occurrence of traits considered superior). The trait can be intelligence, strength, energy, height, agility, you name it. But I agree that poverty is not a genetic trait.
The 'genetically perfect' human would be removed hereditary "mental disabilities", blindness, physical disabilities - this list could go on.
As for "the moral problem",
We have euthanasia for people who are suffering - this is for people who have no quality of life - such as a severely disabled person.
And the sterilisation could help prevent such severely disabled persons from been born into a world of pain with little to no quality of life.
We are not created equally, this is a fact.
@@JohnCena-le1jj How can the genetically inferior know what genetic superiority looks like?
@@marionette5968 According to the established definition. For example we can establish that someone with a higher IQ is more intelligent. Then those with a lower IQ would know that the person who has a higher IQ is more intelligent than them.
@@JohnCena-le1jj No we can't since IQ tests are inheritantly flawed
I'm a genetic counselor, and I think you did a great job with this video. Of course, I'm not a historian, so eugenics isn't my field of expertise, but of course as people who deal with genetics and choice in medicine, it is important to learn this dark part of genetics in history. This would be a great video to show for that purpose in genetics training programs (genetic counseling, human genetics, M.D. genetics, etc.)
"Choice"
Does it really exist?
We know that certain cultures have long practiced their own form of "weeding out the inferior" by exposing or abandoning infants that didn't "measure up".
We also know that when employment is scarce, firms only employ the "perfect".
Apply genetic "choice" to foetuses and before you know it, we have "Gatacca" (a movie but also a very possible future dystopia).
Many years ago I studied ethics and a common statement then was that Science ONLY asks "CAN we do it?" : NEVER "SHOULD we do it?"
That question should keep All scientists awake EVERY night.
@@michaelodonnell824 yes, yes we should
I agree. I also think eugenics is a bunch of bs but i have also observed some individuals to have higher intellectual capabilities than others
If only they're was some way to effectively determine someone's level of intelligence and find the root of the intelligence
Wouldn't it be possible to create a race of only intelligent people
@@michaelodonnell824Genetic screening is important, especially in America where having a sick child likely means bankruptcy (it's very sad, but very true. Medical costs are atrocious)
Not only that, genetic screening is used for treatments for cancer, Parkinson's, etc. Eugenics is a bad interpretation of good science.
Just watched the video. Now I will rewatch it as there was so much to take in. Great video.
It’s exciting to hear Kellogg’s name mentioned! I watched a show on how different American foods were created, and Kellogg’s was one of them. However, John was the man who invented the cereal, but he didn’t found the company. His younger brother, Will Keith Kellogg, did, which is super interesting. I love that John was mentioned, because as far as I’m aware, he was fantastic in his career.
I live in Hadamar, also went to school here, and a visit to the former Euthanasia Center is a mandatory part of history class. I still remember the scratch marks of the inside of the gas chamber they used...
Yeah truly a tragedy of the highest level, unmatched.
Important to remember also: this happened in every single western nation. We tend to hear about a handful of nations in connection to this ****, but every single country in the west mutilated it's own citizens in the name of eugenics. How this was so widely accepted across different european cultures with different governmental and social structures is bewildering and humbling. Finland here 👋, yes we did it too.
✝️ , 🙂 - thanks for replacing 🤬 with *
Yeah, it happened here in Canada too, though with the recent revelations of the Residential Schools (concentration camps?) that Indigenous children were sent to and killed at by the thousands, our clean, happy image has already been pretty mucked up.
I used to volunteer as a literacy tutor, and one person I worked with was a woman who was severely epileptic, and had suffered brain damage as a child that had left her legally blind and in a wheelchair. In spite of all that, she was very independent, and had figured out clever ways of getting around in the world. She came to the literacy centre for help with her mail, bills, and any other written material that she needed to deal with. At one point she confided in me that she'd been involuntarily sterilised when she was a teenager, and I was shocked. She was in her mid-50's, and I'd thought that our country had stopped doing that long before. I guess I'd thought too highly of people.
We still have it. Women routinely abort defective fetuses. THAT IS EUGENICS.
@@neuralmute So you'd prefer it if she bred? Ask any Chinese person in Canada. They'd say no.
@@neuralmute Yeah, I've been following the recent revelations about your Residential Schools with great interest. See, we had the exact same kind of residential schools for our indegenous Sami kids here in Finland. The same racist ideology in the background, same goals of forced assimilation, parents kept in total darkness about the goings on etc... I'd be surprised if we didn't have Sami school kids' unmarked graves somewhere around those schools. We just haven't found them yet because no-one has looked for them. So at least you people are doing that. We're not even there yet.
Incredibly interesting. Keep these awesome videos coming!
John Harvey Kellogg was not the founder of the Kellogg Company. Rather, it was J.H. Kellogg's brother, William Keith Kellogg. John Harvey Kellogg, for all his weirdness, believed seriously in healthy living, especially diet and sexual abstinence, and didn't care who knew about his cereals, hoping to simply spread the word of healthy diet. William Keith Kellogg believed chiefly in making money. Well, maybe that's a bit too hard on William. He had, after all, been helping his brother run the Battle Creek Sanitarium, but he had wanted to keep things secret for financial reasons. The two did not get along well, and after Charles William Post (founder of Post Cereals), who had been a client at the Sanitarium, copied the corn flake process to found his own company, William Kellogg stormed off to found the Kellogg Company.
I never realised how widespread this was. This is like listening to the lore of some dark fantasy world but it's real.
I thought the Nazis invented it, but as it turns out, they got the idea from the Americans.
@@jimmyzhao2673English
America got it from Britain.
I got into Dr. Deisseroths DoD weaponry class, anonymously, for a few days, during the pandemic shut down in 2020.
They were preparing for Ukraine with Project Maven in 2020.
Not only was Baerbock produced to be the installed 💀genetics of Hitler~she now flies in a jet with a giant iron Hitler cross, and has had Christian crosses taken down at her speaking events, which was later hidden;
we are being medically experimented on for n. eugenicists right now, to make their DNA look less undesirable.
It isn't just a, "land grab," but, they are harming our dna, en masse, as well.
You may dislike it but it's a fact about biology that some are born simply better than others.
The fact schools are not teaching this is obsurd. Yeah it's a horrible situation, but rather be unerved than blind to the horrors of the past. Knowledge is power
most likely because it's a very attractive idea to many
@@oliver5479lol I dunno bout that but it could improve the human races intelligence 4 sure
The Kellogg thing isn't too surprising once you learn why he made those corn flakes. Good example of how being wealthy/successful doesn't mean you're more smart, wise, or correct than "the poors"
Fascinating content, difficult to say I enjoyed the video but that's the nature of the subject! It's definitely worth a view. History can be learning tool for what not to do in the future.!
I am always so amazed by the way you are able to vehicle so much information in just a single video. Eugenics was so rooted in blatant racism and fetishistic science.
@@HadenBlake yes, let's keep producing people with health issues. We got to this point because of a harsh natural environment, but artificially insulating ourselves do nothing but put us in the world we live in today.... I'm not sorry, I fully understand that I'm a drag and I'm not mating.
@@jakobinobles3263 i feel like he is more referring to people who are mentally handicapped than someone dying from a cold 😂
@@jr2904 whatever, good for you, just leave other people out of it
@@jakobinobles3263 Some conditions are too cruel to allow to be passed on. Atleast in my opinion
@@ryancomer6290 Huntington's disease comes to mind immediately.
People with Huntingtons and fatal Familial Insomnia should not have children and I will die on this hill.
The earth might not be flat, but I'd stay away from the edge anyways, just in case.
Wise advise
@@PlainlyDifficult 👍
Please do longer forum videos I think most of us could handle listening to you for hours.
Bravo! This video is crazy! Great work man.
As someone with genetic and hereditary chronic conditions, I'm glad I'm allowed to exist. I do need a bit more help sometimes, but I can still do a lot of good things, and I like how I have a different perspective I can bring to help others when planning things. I think it's still important as so many companies and still promote some ideas, like Autism Speaks, which aims to cure autism, and puts all kind of harmful ideas out there about autism being something much worse than it is. So many people with a variety of conditions can still live fulfilling lives, and it hurts when you're told that you shouldn't or can't just because of how you were born.
I got a question for you, you're not forced to respond if it's too personnal or it makes you feel inconfortable. If your genetic condition could have been treated with new technology (like crspr) and you would have still been the same for everything else except your chronic conditions. Would you have like it to be treated? Sorry, if it's inapropriate or anything, it's not my goal to be rude.
@@bigbono6777 Pretty much everyone would like to have their conditions cured. They’re only “proud” of their condition when that is their only option. If I could walk again, I’d do it.
But then there are people out there who pretend that they’re proud that they can’t walk. It sucks. It does. But it is what it is.
@@anubis7457 thank you for your honesty
we are glad too! :) ❤
@@anubis7457 Autism is a bit different. It's not objectively bad for people with it. It feels like a different development of the mind, rather than just being a disorder. This depends on case naturally. The problem comes when we have to decide what is "wrong". Physical conditions such as CF which just reduce life expectancy? Clearly bad. But mental conditions aren't so simple. Autistic people, savants, and neurodivergent people, are they "sick"?
Here's where I always get stuck with movements like these: Social engineering. Who do these people think they are? I don't trust anyone who thinks they know best for the whole. These people sat around and decided they could sterilize and even euthanize (kill) people because they know better. The audacity... It always amazes me. It still happens but just in new ways.
Most countries practice a form of eugenics - marrying your brother or sister is illegal, that is a kind of eugenics.
@@werrkowalski2985 Obviously. Painfully obvious. Incest is a given. I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about social engineering, not preventing genetic abnormalities. Go away please.
@@tonicarr3113 Ok, I mean what you were talking about is not social engineering but eugenics forced by government, hence my comment about a kind of government enforced eugenics. Social engineering would be if you used psychological manipulation to influence society to make people voluntarily engage in eugenics. So something like neoeugenics+.
@@werrkowalski2985 Not being able to marry into your family has absolutely nothing to do with gene control.
@@tonicarr3113 Rude
I just got done reading an article that the Kellogg mega-brand is working on breaking up, and wondering about the fate of the Kellogg brand name. Within the first two paragraphs you have the CEO Steve Cahillane saying
"The Kellogg name is incredibly important, it stands for so many things and [sic] all of them good, and started 116 years ago by Mr. Kellogg"
Instantly my mind was like 'oh really... ALL of them!?. I couldn't help but think of you and your brilliant work of shedding light on the realities of history. _CHEERS_ for your amazing work, good sir!
Thanks for this video. Can you suggest some books that lay out the whole history of eugenics and scientific racism?
a plainly difficult Saturday morning. I worked at Cold Spring Harbor Labs as a grad student 20 years ago, and I was not aware of the darker side in its history. There is still a building named after Davenport on the CHSL campus.
Eugenics is one of those ideas that sounds benign in theory (improving humanity is a positive goal, right?) but runs face-first into a wall of ethical and practical issues. Even leaving aside the ethical issues, such as who exactly gets to decide what traits are desirable and what isn't or how the idea became ivariably linked with racism due to people deciding your skin colour determined your worth, selective breeding of animals has taught us that desirable traits often come with negative side-effects (for example some dog breeds suffer from neurological issues due to genes associated with a desirable trait like appearance also adversely affecting the nerve system). And one a species like humans, who breed and develop slowly compared to most animals any negative effects migth take a long time to manifest. You migth just end up breeding a race of super-humans who all die at 20 due to genetic heart-defects.
How are we the genetically impure. supposed to know what the genetically pure look like anyways? It's a fools errand.
Survival of the fittest favors a diverse range of genetic makeups as humanity needs different kinds of humans at different times.
Israel and China are doing just that. In Israel parents are genetically screened for defects and counselled whether to terminate a pregnancy.
BY DEFINITION THAT IS EUGENICS.
Eugenics can also be used to eliminate these defects. A population subject to selective breeding could be screened for them. On another note, please show how useful traits such as intelligence invariably lend to genetic defects. If no evidence for this exists, then it should not be believed.
@@JohnCena-le1jj Genes are incredibly complex as well as the rest of biology. For example a gene that causes you to overexpress post synaptic 5ht1a in one part of the brain may have anxiolytic effect but increase depressive-like activity. Now yes, you could probably change that overtime but it isn't simple at all. It is like a giant jenga game.
@@Cbd_7ohm As long as it is possible, it stands to reason it can be accomplished. And I believe that actively attempting to eliminate defects would increase the likelihood of said defects being eliminated. But modern civilization seems to increase the likelihood of them being passed on. As it happens, advancements in medicine have allowed individuals who would have otherwise perished, often in their infancy, to survive and pass on their genetic diseases. As it was with cystic fibrosis, which was incurable until the 20th century introduced antibiotics and lung transplants. Note also that some genetic diseases tend to increase fertility, such as Huntington's disease, which onsets in later life and increases fertility in earlier life. Germline genetic engineering is not yet advanced enough to eradicate these undesirable traits from humans, and even if it were I doubt it would receive social approval, given the hostility faced by eugenics.
Dont worry about the length of these vids. I look for these medium to deep dives for my daily commute and background noise for work!
I know this is already a long video and I appreciate how informative it is for just half an hour, I but I would also like to mention for other people in the comments that, other than the US and Europe, eugenics also greatly impacted other countries, such as Australia, South Africa and Namibia. _Especially_ as a backing for scientific racism, and prejudice in general, often leading to systemic racism, violence, displacement, segregation, slavery, classism, etc. It is also a dark and very tragic part of these countries' histories, and probably some others outside of the Americas and Europe.
Yeah, South Africa was such an underdeveloped country under apartheid, glad to see it's doing soooo much better now!
yes you're absolutely right, Australia had a whole stolen generation. They would steal any mixed race babies and children, some as old as (a large percentage being the result of white men raping aboriginal women) so that they could "breed out the black" and "create upstanding citizens". These stolen children would be put into white homes, taught to "be white" and pressured to marry white people. But that's not all, this shit continued completely legally up until 1969 when it was no longer legal to take an Aboriginal child without a court order. But even then many courts would grant permission to remove children for poorly justified reasons.
We have a lot of racism. I won't get into it cause I will talk for hours but we had a "white Australia policy" whose laws didn't *start* to be dismantled until 1950
A good video about one of the nastiest pieces of human history. As a spin-off, would you be up to doing a video on phrenology? It's thoroughly debunked these days, but it's hard to find useful content on the actual history.
YES I would love that!!!
It's not debunked. Only the policies based on said science are forbidden and further inquiry is shunned for guilt reasons.
@@havz0r The only people who actually think it isn't debunked are fascists. Go back to /pol/ FFS.
@@20035079 cope
@@20035079 well, genetics DOES exist. for example, blacks have a much higher predisposition towards diabetes and insulin resistance, and are as well much more vitamin D deficient in northern climates. If you think this is fascist science, you are gravely mistaken. It's just science. It's up to us to not use it for fascistic reasons.
Would you like to see more Dark Side of Science Video: czcams.com/video/OKuu2BVfMhM/video.html
Yes, the dark side is fascinating.
Yeah, definitely! I loved your videos before the Dark side of Science series came up, but I personally find these even more interesting
These are always fascinating, if a little horrifying, and educational
Always good to know our history even the dark stuff
Just letting you know in advance, if you don't mention the Democratic party and Margaret Sanger, I am unsubscribing.
I mean they bring you a shit ton of views right? Asking us if we want to see them is irrelevant, the stats do not lie.
Lovely job! Very important, Old Man.
Thank you for covering this.I find that many of my colleagues, indeed many who feel Darwin had a point (as do I) want to ignore the link to eugenics and how the theory of evolution was used to justify colonialism, racism, and more. The point is that Science simply provides data.The interpretation can easily be twisted and falsified by humans with their own ideologies.
His relative Francis Galton was a fan of eugenics.
Ofc Darwin had a point, because he was an actual scientist, eugenics never were nor will ever be an actual science because it is fundamentally wrong as it’s built on a falacy, but sadly there was a bit of nepotism involved and Darwin turned a blind eye to his cousin’s scientific short comings.
How does it falsify data?
I knew it was talked about in the US but didn't realize that some states implemented preliminary eugenics programs
Yeah and those same states that had pedigree laws ban abortion today.
Makes you wonder.
I'm constantly dazzled by the range and diversity of topics that you are able to cover with such consideration. One week I'm getting an in depth reassessment of a Highway collapse in L.A. weeks later we've covered a gamut of topics and then you have the ability to be insightful & sensitive with a topic I've always found deeply interesting, challenging and fraught with sociological stigma (as is only right).
Once again I raise my hat to you John/P.D. and thank you humbly from a dreary corner of SW Cornwall.
Thank you!
Can you please make a full series?
I grew up around single parent families I myself did and I think there should be some kind of test for people to be allowed to breed. I seen so much cruelty in my life
Holy shit, this was dark. But an excellently presented and researched video about an otherwise reviled and taboo subject. Seriously, well done, sir!
Thank you!
@@PlainlyDifficult I'm a biologist (mostly population biology and evolution), and discussions of eugenics normally drive me crazy because they are just "eugenics bad... look at all these horrible things eugenicists did". Yeah, horrible things were done by people pursuing the idea of eugenics, and a hell of a lot more horrors were 'justified' in the name of eugenics.
In the very early days, it was just biology... somewhat ignorant and overconfident to be sure, but the core idea that human breeding is something we should apply our knowledge to and undertake with intention and foresight is not wrong.
As we become less ignorant and more aware of the limits of our understanding and ability to predict, that idea is becoming more relevant again.
Anyways, I think you did quite a good job given the limits of time and such.
@@travcollier "that idea is becoming more relevant again."
In other words, history is bound to repeat itself. There is still a lot of bad actors in positions of influence who wouldn't think twice on using eugenics as a tool for their bigotry; so, right now it's not the time for it to become relevant again.
@@arturoaguilar6002 Are you proposing we stop progress in biology and medicine until people are 'ready'? Who makes that call and how is it enforced?
Eugenics is part of the storyline of Kahn Noonien Singh in Star Trek, having been bred to form a race of superhumans, creating the Eugenics Wars in the 1990s (which didn't happen in reality of course as this was written in the 60s for TOS episode "Space Seed"), leading to Kahn and co. being send out into space in suspended animation for future humans to deal with...
Technically, whatwith neurodivergent individuals versus neurotypical individuals, we are and always have been in a sort of eugenics war of the physical mind and ignorant intelligence.
@@roberto3151991 Indeed, having been diagnosed as autistic myself, I'm definitely on the ND side, and noticing through history people who are highly intelligent displaying personality traits of being ND, and being treated like crap as a result, but creating some of the biggest inventions and engineering projects of the world, the NTs need us!!! :P
@@twocvbloke I am absolutely on the ND side as well, having been a "gifted" child who wasn't diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum until my mid-30's. Constantly being surrounded by people who can't understand why you aren't "living up to your potential", while you're just struggling to make it through the day and wondering where the instruction manual for living in the world is can lead to some serious mental health issues, and also distrust for the neurotypical. Trying to start over, and build a life from the ground up is hard when you're scarred, smart, and 40.
@@neuralmute I can sympathise with that, I was diagnosed officially back in November (at 36!!), though started the process in 2019 (pandemic delays) when I made the links to autism from researching what it was when I noticed the same traits in myself as someone else also diagnosed as an adult, it's been hard to live life when things just don't make sense, now they do, but people still act like I should be more "normal", when I can't, cos I'm not "normal", I'm me, and that's what people have difficulty understanding, especially when they don't bother trying to understand by learning about neurodiversity and how it messes up our day to day lives...
Poor fictional character
I would have been sterilized or killed. I'm on the spectrum, have breathing and heart issues since birth. Kinda scarey actually 😢
Really complex subject tackled really well. Nice.
Wow, they didn't teach me any of this in US History Class...
Really enjoyed this video. Thanks. The detail and factual presentation made it fascinating and I agree it felt like it scratched the surface. I wonder if you could make more to flesh out parts of this socially important topic that too often is let to fester in shadows rather than shining a bright light so we can understand it more clearly and thoroughly.
Fitting use of the Ford Pinto at 15:07 representing eugenics
I mean can we not agree that some people shouldn’t have kids? For the benefit of the unborn child at least? I don’t agree with giving the state the power to choose who to sterilize, but if someone has 6 kids in foster care, and pregnant with twins….. I mean when is enough enough? And I’m not talking about women only, if a man has gotten 6 women pregnant and has beaten them before leaving his responsibilities, when is enough enough?
Should it be a benefit for everyone to not have kids because any offpsting can have possible hardships?
The first International Eugenics Conference in 1912 was attended by Winston Churchill and Arthur Balfour and the opening address was done by Charles Darwin's son! The second one in 1921 had Alexander Graham Bell as honorary president! It wasn't just the Nazi's but a lot of governments around the world!
Nazis used the American eugenics program as evidence that their ideas were not far from mainstream
Yeah the United States supported Nazi Germany to a small extent until the very end of the war
Exactly this , they all did it but when it became 'out of fashion' they pointed the finger to one.
Racism, eugenics etc. were really common (and still are in some parts of the world) back then, but the nazis definitely did the worst things based on this "knowledge" surrounding racism, with the holocaust being the worst thing that happened in human history
@@scottydu81 their ideas weren't far from mainstream, if you were alive back then you'd support it because you just follow the status quo
In Finland during the period of the civil war (1919) a form of early eugenics happened as the victors in that conflict took to executing a disproportionate number of women in hopes of "weeding socialism out at the root". Sort of a historical footnote but of interest IMO, bad enough to shock their German allies.
They may have done it andecotaly but the war itself had 10,000 executions of the Reds , which would be impossible to be women as the red guard had a maximum of 2,600 women , many of which did not see combat.
Around ~32,500 died on the socialist side , majority POW deaths and executions.
The causilities were overwhelmingly male though maybe andecotely such executions occurred. Also even post war , Finland population increased and even though I can't find statistics I don't think such femicide happened , atleast not commonly.
In peru in the 80s similar happened. The government sterilized hundreds of thousands of native women and massacred even more people in an attempt to "stop the breeding of communists".
The former president got put on trial for his horrible crimes against humanity just recently. His daughter ran in the recent elections.
@@tunisiwi noice
They took drastic action against a group of genocidal maniacs
I can't blame them, commies aren't human.
@@commisaryarreck3974 So let me get this straight sterilising thousands and executing Prisioners Of War is justified because they were suspected of being communists?
So the Mai Lai Massacre and as a further extension the execution of Soviet Soldiers in the millions is okay because they were communists? So blowing up Cubana Airlines and killing 78 innocent people is okay because they were communists?
I guess supporting literally baby murderers called the CONTRA is okay because those babies were communists.
It doesn't matter if they Communists or even goddamn Nazis , executing millions of people on their beliefs and not their actions is appalling.
But I guess BETTER DEAD THAN RED , BROTHER.
I didn't pick up on any blatant misinformation in the video but you should *always* cite your sources, especially when discussing such a sensitive topic.
As someone from Alabama, I’m shocked at how few states in the South had eugenics laws given the racism at the time. I’m sure it has more to do with being slow to accept science or general distrust of Darwinism, but I’ll take it as a rare W.
Also, I’m not super familiar with eugenics outside of the U.S, Britain, and Nazi Germany, but wasn’t it also popular in Australia for a time?
Great video overall!
Successful people have successful offspring usually through their parents connections rather than their own merits.
Very true!
Exactly.
As well as by having access to enough good food, schools, not having not work from a a very young age etc.
It helps a lot if your parents have a good income.
@@zorktxandnand3774 definitely agree mate I've seen it myself as I've grown up.
@Satyam 12A aa it's generally true
Man... I wanna know what would get a 10 on the ethics scale.
Unit 731 maybe
MK Ultra
13:24 don't mind me I'm just pausing and coming back later to finish watching it
i hope for a part 2 of this
"Covert eugenics". The term takes my mind so many places. Just looking at life today, I'm sure it's still being practiced, just under a different name and for profit.
Planned Parenthood is one example. Sure, they do great things, but the abortion portion along with the fact that they are commonly found near lower income locations is a clear sign. Also the fact that the founder of Planned Parenthood was racist and wanted to use the abortion services to help trim down majority black neighborhoods.
There's also this weird pride that I've been seeing of people openly stating, without pause, they would abort a child because it costs too much money, time, effort, etc to raise a child.
Bioethics is the current name under which eugenics is covertly operating.
You always do a great job of informing an audience on such complex topics, please keep up the awesome work! Also, I wonder sometimes how you choose what to speak about. My running theory is a dartboard with cool topics pinned all over haha
Pretty much! Yes hanks for the comment!
@@PlainlyDifficult Thank you for the reply, that just made my night!
Since Eugenics was so closely associated with political ideologies during ww2 it’s terrifying to think what it would look like today if it wasn’t denounced alongside these ideologies
Healthier people, homogeneous high trust societies and higher average IQ.
Oh the horror!!
When we learned about genetic testing and the human genome project, my biology teacher rolled out the tv trolley and made us watch GATTACA in highschool. Fun times.