The Dog's Blog

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. 2009 is also a year of note as his Origin of the Species was first published 150 years ago on the 24th November 1859.

The Charles Darwin Award is awarded annually by The Zoological Society of London. It is presented to an undergraduate, attending a University in Great Britain or Ireland, for ‘outstanding work in zoology’.

However, I’m not interested in that award. No sir, the awards that I’m interested in are much more interesting. To qualify for one of these awards, you don’t have to write a treatise on zoology; these awards:

“…honor people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion.”

Read more about The Darwin Awards

Continued from Eugenics: 1.

Although many eminent people of the day – including Winston Churchill – agreed with Galton’s beliefs, it was not until 1907 that the Eugenics Education Society was founded in Britain. The society intended to address the socially unacceptable problems of poverty and pauperism through the application of the laws of inheritance. Pauperism – which was seen as being hereditary and extending to 2 or 3 generations – was considered to have it’s origins in the pathological and genetic differences between individuals; socio-economic differences prevalent at the time were not considered. Eugenicists’ causal explanations for pauperism included:

1. old age
2. persons dependent on casual labour marrying early in their lives
3. venereal disease
4. intemperance – especially among women, because it caused the pauperism of their husbands

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I’d like to make it absolutely clear that I do not support the principles underpinning eugenics. I am simply re-visiting a topic which first attracted my attention whilst at university many years ago. In order to investigate recent developments in the area, I thought that going back to basics would help an ageing memory!

To introduce you to the topic, here’s an excellent definition and more information on the theme of eugenics:

the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, esp. by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics).

(Source: Wikipedia)

And now your starter for 10 – whose words are these?

The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed before another year has passed.

(Source: Jones, S (1993) – The Language of the Genes: Biology, history and the evolutionary future.)

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