Charles Darwin himself noted in The Descent of Man that the development of civilization meant that human evolution by natural selection had in some sense “stopped,” since humans no longer abandon individual members of our species to their own fates, as happens with animals in nature. This led some thinkers to speculate about “eugenics,” what we might call “artificial selection,” as an alternative mechanism to natural selection. Human society could direct human evolution.
But when the eugenics movement started talking seriously about what might be done, the discussion turned ugly. IQ test results were used to “prove” people of other races and cultures were intrinsically less intelligent. Laws were passed to ban interracial marriage, to include racial classifications on birth certificates, to restrict immigration of certain types of people, and even to perform forced sterilizations.
- Listen now:
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
“The Entrance of the Gods into Valhalla” from Das Rheingold
Composed in 1869 by Richard Wagner. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
The download link for the podcast still points to Episode 247!
Sorry about that! It’s fixed now.
In the hierarchy of bad Supreme Court decisions, where does Buck fit in when compared to Dred Scott, Plessy, Lochner and others?
That deepens to a large extent of how highly you value certain rights the courts has denied to marginalized groups over the years. It’s certainly among the more disgusting ones and the fact that we hardly talk about it says a lot about our attitude towards those in institutions for the mentally handicapped.
If “bad Scotus cases” are your thing, refer to the podcast I linked below – they have a sickeningly large supply of them. And even if some of them are “well, I guess they’re bad from a certain viewpoint” far too many of them would be considered bad even by many right wingers if you just presented the facts of the case and how the court ruled and left out the fact that the right wing ideologues were on the winning side…
In case you want to know more about the background of Buck v Bell including a discussion of eugenics inspired laws still on the books in the current US, the “five four pod” run by a bunch of lawyers did an excellent if disturbing episode.
https://www.fivefourpod.com/episodes/buck-v-bell/
Fair warning, the hosts are a fair bit to the left of the host of this podcast and wear their biases on their sleeves. They’re also pretty fond of black humor.