According to eugenicists, the elderly were also weak individuals needing to be eliminated. No respect or love was shown to them, and it was believed they needed to be removed from society.
The foundations of the perversion of eugenics were actually laid by Malthus and Darwin. Malthus's Essay, Darwin's source of inspiration, contained the basic ideas that would come to constitute eugenics. For example, Malthus claimed that human beings could multiply by means of the same methods as those used for breeding animal stock:
It does not, however, by any means, seem impossible that, by an attention to breed, a certain degree of improvement similar to that among animals might take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a matter of doubt; but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and, perhaps, even longevity, are in a degree transmissible.74
From this and a great many other statements, Malthus clearly regarded human beings as a kind of animal. His twisted perspective influenced Darwin, who made a number of predictions containing the disaster that was to become eugenics. In The Descent of Man, he expressed concern that thanks to various social practices, the weak were not being eliminated and that this could lead to a biologically backward trend. According to Darwin, the flawed ones among "savage peoples" and animals were swiftly eliminated, but it was a grave error for such members among civilized people to be protected by medicine and do-gooders. In the same way that animal breeders improved their stock lines through artificial selection, by eliminating the weak and sickly, human societies needed to do the same:
No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.75
With savages, the weak in body and mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. … Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind.76
These words, the work of a diseased mentality, formed the basic encouragement for racists, proponents of eugenics and supporters of war; and eventually inflicted terrible catastrophes on humanity. At the end of The Descent of Man, Darwin made a great many more unscientific claims, including that the "struggle for existence" benefited humanity, in that the more gifted would be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted; and that without it, people would sink into indolence.77
With these distorted theories, Darwin laid the groundwork for eugenic practices. The theory of evolution being regarded as so-called scientific fact led to eugenist and racist policies being accepted and put into practice.
Eugenics in Great Britain
Galton carried out an illogical and unsuccessful study to determine the common genetic features of criminals, based on fingerprints and face shape.
As already mentioned, the leader of eugenics was Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, but Leonard Darwin, Darwin's own son, was also one of the supporters and proponents of eugenics in Britain. Winston Churchill was another who lent the movement his support.78
Galton maintained that the principle of the "survival of the fittest" had to be complied with and that only the strongest should be allowed to participate in the world. According to Galton's unscientific and illogical thesis, humanity was in a position to take control of its own evolution and even to produce a master race. Galton openly stated his belief in the superiority of the "master class" and the "master race." He also claimed that blacks possessed a low level of intelligence, saying:
… the number among the negroes of those whom we should call half-witted men, is very large. Every book alluding to negro servants in America is full of instances. I was myself much impressed by this fact during my travels in Africa. The mistakes the negroes made in their own matters, were so childish, stupid, and simpleton-like, as frequently to make me ashamed of my own species.79
Galton went so far as to suggest that various breeds of dogs were higher in intellect than some races of human.80 But in his evaluation of blacks and slaves, he ignored one very evident truth: that the great majority of books about slaves were written by slave owners. In addition, since slaves were immersed in a society entirely foreign to them, in a culture of which they knew nothing, naturally much of their behavior and actions should seem ignorant. Clearly, any European taken to live in an African village would exhibit the same sort of incompetence in trying to adapt to a foreign culture and way of life.
More importantly, Galton's claims about blacks or his own citizens going to live in other countries possess no scientific validity, but were based solely on the illusory assumptions of various so-called scientists, brainwashed by a materialist world view, under the primitive thinking of the time.
Prejudiced and inconsistent, Galton's theses were by no means restricted to these. For example, he also proposed that for there to be social progress, those with low intelligence and intellectual levels had to be prevented from multiplying, and the smarter ones encouraged to do so. Otherwise, he warned, there would be social collapse. Obviously however, real social collapse would come about when the model proposed by Galton and the like, based on slaughter, conflict, violence, and slaughter, were put into practice. During a lecture to the Huxley Institute in 1901, Galton claimed that "brains of our nation lie in the higher of our classes."81 In addition, he recommended that children of the upper class should be identified at birth and 1,000 pounds be paid to their families. He suggested that upper-class women should give birth to at least one extra son and daughter.82
Galton's belief—that an increase in the numbers of people whom he regarded as superior class could lead to social progress—is irrational, illogical, and unscientific. A great many elements lead any society to progress, but the most important are the moral values and characters of those who make up that society. A society whose members possess strong moral values and characters will progress swiftly, and permanently. It is impossible for such features to be passed on genetically. If someone wants his society to make progress, he must turn his attention to the spiritual strengthening of individuals by various cultural and educational means. Galton and those like him sought to increase the numbers of the rich and reduce those of the poor by treating human beings literally like animals in the countries in which they were influential, and even sought to justify even murder on that account—a terrible cruelty and indescribable ignorance.
Nonetheless, at Galton's prompting, the first activity of the eugenics movement in Britain was based on birth control. This measure, taken by those who had been deceived by the deceptions of the theory of evolution, was aimed solely at the poor and those whom they regarded as of an "inferior" race.
In the 1920s and 1930s it was thought that the numbers of the poor increasing, even as the numbers of the upper class were going down, represented a threat. In 1925, for instance, Julian Huxley wrote the following in Nature magazine:
The proportion of desirables is decreasing, of undesirables is increasing. The situation must be got in hand.83
According to the eugenicists, the first step to ensure a balance between the "desirables" and "undesirables" was so-called racial hygiene. First, it needed to be determined for whom "racial hygiene" was desired and for whom it was not. Exceedingly primitive and unbelievable means were used to make that distinction. In Britain and the USA, for instance, people's heads began being measured. With these campaigns under Galton's leadership, the sizes of people's skulls were measured and their intelligence allegedly determined from the results. However, science would later reveal absolutely no direct relationship between skull measurements and intelligence.
Following on the skull measurements, intelligence tests began being employed. According to the results, it was decided that some should be sterilized and kept under lifetime observation and supervision. Later, however, it was realized that the intelligence tests used did not provide reliable results. These totally unreliable analyses reflected the scientific ignorance of the times. Factors such as the conditions under which test subjects were raised and the education they received were ignored, and it was concluded only whether they were inherently intelligent. In any case, the objective was not actually to secure reliable results, but to eliminate or isolate the "undesirable" poor, the sick and races regarded as "inferior."
Eugenics in the USA
The University of Heidelberg honored H. Laughlin, a prominent eugenist, for his work on "the science of racial hygiene." This newspaper cutting carries the report in question.
After Galton's death, the leadership of the eugenics movement passed to America. Henry Goddard, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Harry Laughlin and Madison Grant were just a few of Galton's American heirs.
The Rockefeller Institute and the Carnegie Foundation headed the list of the supporters of eugenics in the USA. The Rockefeller Institute financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, one of the leaders of the eugenics movement in Germany, and in the 1920s, had a special building constructed for the genetic research of Professor Ernst Rüdin, who was obsessed by the idea of racial hygiene. The Mental Hygiene Movement was largely supported by the Rockefeller Institute. Moreover, the Nobel prize-winning Dr. Alexis Carrel, also from the Rockefeller Institute, happily applauded the slaughter carried out in Germany, and had no reservations over the mentally ill and convicted prisoners being subjected to mass killings.84
The New York Eugenics Record Office (ERO) and Charles B. Davenport.
The perversion of eugenics led to a great many American states passing compulsory sterilization laws. In the USA, a total of 100,000 people were sterilized mostly against their will. As just one example of the dimensions that eugenist barbarity assumed, in the early 20th century, 8,000 "unsuitable" people were sterilized in Virginia. This inhuman practice was legal in many states until as late as 1974.85
One of the foremost Americans in eugenics was Charles B. Davenport, known for his articles that sought to combine genetic laws with Darwinism. Yet the claims put forward in his articles went no further than mere assumptions. In 1906 he insisted that the American Breeders' Association carry out studies on eugenics. In 1910 he founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO), which received from 13 to 29% of the budget set aside for the Station for Experimental Evolution. In short, the ERO was much better financed than other scientific institutions of its time. This organization trained many people to work on spreading the barbarity of eugenics. Students were taught to implement and evaluate various intelligence tests, such as Stanford-Binet, intensively employed in eugenic practices.86
The alleged scientific basis of eugenics is the theory of evolution. A poster in which eugenicists stress the link between eugenics and evolution.
People trained by the ERO were charged with collecting statistics in their working areas. With these data, the ERO aimed to prevent those it deemed unsuitable from marrying and having children. In 1924, the ERO drew up a sterilization bill which recommended that people regarded as committing the "crime" of being sick be sterilized.
To both reason and conscience, it is unacceptable for people to be sterilized against their will. Those with genetic defects, sicknesses of various kinds, and physical or mental handicaps should be treated with affection and compassion. In societies where religious moral values prevail, such people are protected, and their needs met in the best way possible. It is nothing short of barbarity to seek to forcibly sterilize or eliminate those described as having "criminal tendencies" by the proponents of the barbarity of eugenics. Such people can be educated with the requisite cultural programmes and made useful members of society. Even where the people in question are difficult to improve, the most ethical and just solutions must be found, rather than exterminating them.
The American Eugenics Association gave lessons at state fairs and held competitions at which the "fittest" family was chosen.
In the years that followed, Americans' common sense realized that eugenics was literally nothing more than savagery and took necessary measures to halt these practices. Yet at that same time the Nazis had adopted the American laws as a role model in their first measures regarding sterilization and forcibly sterilized 2 million people.87
As the examples cited so far clearly show, deceptive propaganda so full of falsehoods of Social Darwinism tries to make people less sensitive to one another, to eliminate feelings of sympathy and compassion, until human beings treat each other literally like animals. This is the exact opposite of the virtues imparted by religious moral values. The Qur'an commands looking after the weak and needy, and protecting the sick and those with nobody to care for them. No matter what the circumstances, God commands believers to ensure others' comfort before their own, and to be patient and altruistic always. To those who do good by displaying patience, God imparts these glad tidings:
They give food, despite their love for it, to the poor and orphans and captives: "We feed you only out of desire for the Face of God. We do not want any repayment from you or any thanks. Truly We fear from our Lord a glowering, calamitous Day." So God has safeguarded them from the evil of that Day and has made them meet with radiance and pure joy and will reward them for their steadfastness with a Garden and with silk. (Surat al-Insan, 8-12)
