Theodosius Dobzhansky Quotes
Natural selection must be replaced by eugenical artificial selection. This idea constitutes the sound core of eugenics, the applied science of human betterment.
Dobzhansky, Theodosius. Mankind Evolving: The Evolution of the Human Species. Yale University Press, 1962.
The Eugenics Movement, which grew quite popular for a while, tried to improve the race of man, not by improving individual people or even a generation of people, but of selective and restrictive breeding of humans. The coercion and bias associated with it caused one of the worst violations of human rights in American History, and then was picked up by Adolf Hitler who carried the ideas to one of the worst atrocities in human history—the murder of “inferior races” so that they could not breed, thereby in their warped theory developing a super race.
This pseudo-scientific organization, in spite of the junk science it was promulgating, actually had a substantial American following and over 20 states actually passed laws to allow forced sterilization who were “UNFIT”. In reality while there is a genetic component to each of the examples it only increases the probabilities and is not determinative. And even f it were and there were selective breeding of humans, these “TRAITS” would not be eliminated in 3 generations,
The Association commissioned a study to develop:
This book was the first popular attempt to spread the eugenics concept. Is was translated into German in 1925 and unfortunately read by Adolf Hitler who sent Grant a complimentary letter. See {603544}
This quote was the beginning of the now discredited Eugenics movement. The essential problems were twofold: One was that someone had to decide which characteristics were desirable and undesirable, and there is wide difference of opinion that there is no way of resolving. Genocide is the result of Eugenics taken to extremes. Second, it the issue of human rights. No person, organization, or government has the right to tell a particular individual what genetic characteristics he/she may have with his/her children. Note that the issue of Population Control for size was also a part of the early Eugenics movement but is a totally separate issue. It is the voluntary verses the compulsory nature of Population control the is the critical ethical element.
Actually, while such selective breeding is possible in all animals, the selection for a single trait almost always produces other unintended and unanticipated traits and these could be devastating to the “new generation”, unpleasant, benign, or anything else. At the time selective breeding was the only possible tool to produce “desirable” traits in an animal or to eliminate what someone things of as “undesirable” traits. Today, our understanding of the human genome and genetic engineering offers a much more reliable possibility of affecting animal traits without as many risks of random and unintended consequences that are present with breeding.
What he thought was conceivable in the 1970’s seemed almost certain to come to pass 30 years later. Scientists had already altered the evolution of various plants and animals, and the complete human genome had been sequenced. The question will be not whether man will be able to control and modify his own evolution, but how should this be done and who should decide it. We have realized that man has already—unintentionally—altered the evolution of many species from passenger pigeons which are now extinct and the dog which coevolved with humans. Arguably, man’s development of the ability to control his own evolution is an evolutionary development itself. One great question for society is whether it is better to alter evolution unknowingly or in a planned, relatively controlled manner. For man to participate in the design of human evolution will be the nightmare of the Creationists who insist that evolution is too complicated to be somewhat of a random process and that there must be a designer who they assume is God. When man becomes the designer, that will be very disturbing. For most theologians, there will be little difficulty with the notion that God chose the mechanism of evolution and chose humans to give the intellect and knowledge to implement and design the evolutionary process.
There was a substantial movement to prevent mentally defective and people of low intelligence from being able to reproduce. Over 20 states, with the approval of the then Supreme Court performed forced state sterilizations. Of course the then definition of “degenerates” changed from state to state. A century later, American values changed so much that there is no state that would even consider involuntary sterilization and if they did, the Courts would hold it un-Constitutional.
Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky was a prominent Ukrainian-American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the modern synthesis. Dobzhansky was born in Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire, and became an immigrant to the United States in 1927, aged 27.
