The term "eugenics" - which literally means "normal genes" - is one that rarely surfaces in the modern world, and with good reason. The aim of eugenics, after all, is to improve the human species through selective breeding. Although Robert Graham's attempt to create legions of baby geniuses through the mechanism of a sperm bank exclusively housing the genetic material of Nobel laureates is an example of (at least nominally) positive eugenics, "negative eugenics" such as the Nazi extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, the physically handicapped and the mentally disabled during World War II, has been by far the preferred methodology.
No experiment in eugenics has ever been shown to measurably improve human health, and the forcible sterilization, incarceration, and killing of those carrying undesirable genetic material - all hallmarks of eugenics, even in the United States - have thoroughly discredited the field. Breeding some sort of master human race is, today, almost exclusively the province of racist whack jobs.
Unless, of course, you happen to be Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of the painfully moronic morning talk show Fox & Friends. Earlier this week, Mr. Kilmeade's mouth got rolling, and the world was treated to this deep thinker's theories on genetic purity, as well as his apparent categorization of Irish and Italian people as "other ethnics" if not - and I wish I were kidding here - "other species."
See for yourself the car wreck within the car wreck. In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, res ipsa loquitor:
No experiment in eugenics has ever been shown to measurably improve human health, and the forcible sterilization, incarceration, and killing of those carrying undesirable genetic material - all hallmarks of eugenics, even in the United States - have thoroughly discredited the field. Breeding some sort of master human race is, today, almost exclusively the province of racist whack jobs.
Unless, of course, you happen to be Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of the painfully moronic morning talk show Fox & Friends. Earlier this week, Mr. Kilmeade's mouth got rolling, and the world was treated to this deep thinker's theories on genetic purity, as well as his apparent categorization of Irish and Italian people as "other ethnics" if not - and I wish I were kidding here - "other species."
See for yourself the car wreck within the car wreck. In the immortal words of Hunter S. Thompson, res ipsa loquitor:
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