Talk:Eugenics

Liberal humanism and deontology

Regarding this edit. I tried to save it, but it's not worth it. I started to go over it line-by-line trying to fix problems, but there would be nothing left when I was done, so I skipped to the end and deleted it.

The entire section was written like an argumentative essay, not like an encyclopedia article. Even if I deleted the many, many instances of WP:EDITORIALIZING language, WP:WEASELs, WP:EUPHEMISMs and pointless filler words, the section would still be a cobbled-together mishmash of WP:SYNTH to promote a specific, non-neutral point of view.

As one example the context-free mention of Jürgen Habermas having a cleft palette was copied verbatim from Jürgen Habermas, but nowhere does that article make a connection between this factoid and Habermas' views on eugenics, making this yet again synth. That article doesn't use the word eugenics at all.

That was just one example, but the entire section was nothing but problems like this.

Many of these other sources do not mention eugenics either, and many of the points are disproportionately summarized to promote a very specific view that is contrary to the mainstream.

There is so, so, so much of this junk in the article now, and I expect that more work like this will need to be done to bring the article back to something resembling WP:NPOV and to comply with WP:MOS. The article now cites Richard Lynn for basic facts and recommends his work in the further reading section. I suppose WP:FRINGEN might have some insight, but the pro-fringe issues are just one part of a deeper and more fundamental problem here. Grayfell (talk) 20:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Woah, not worth saving seems really harsh. You don't seem to know a lot about this topic.

It is clear that his cleft palette has nothing to do with this article.That's true. But there should still be some kind of heading that discusses the enormously influential Habermas. Because what is also true, is that there was a big and lasting controversy in Germany because of his book that was then rehashed after him by the German (new)eugenics proponents Sloterdik and then Sarrazin. These two are widely known. German far right publisher Götz Kubitschek who has a lot of influence on the increasingly powerful Alternative for Germany (AfD) party also talks a lot about it in this tradition. Left-leaning social scientists also often invoke his work to this day. The controversy is real.

Habermas is like the European Michael Sandel when it comes to criticizing eugenics, but was also subjected to lots of criticism there. By far most of the scientific papers discussing his book are actually critical of his basic premises, even though the press coverage was strongly in favor of his arguments. He was mostly criticized from the right that I mentioned for ignoring what they claimed to be biologícal facts and criticized by the left for smuggling in unmistakably Christian talk of fundamental human dignity. The only fractions that consistently accepted his conclusions within academia were Christian theologians and some constitutional theorists. It was a similar situation in academic France and especially Italy. There was almost no reception from the US for some reason which is likely why you don't know about it.

MY IDEAS:

- Should be slightly shortened with the biased talk of his disability removed

- Compared to Sandel, his criticism was based on an individualistic and not a communitarian concern. Maybe Sandel and Habermas should have headings that complement each other like so?

- Maybe the heading should be changed to something like 'The Continental Controversy' and copied back in? Or, maybe it should be inserted into an article on Designer babies or New Eugenics instead? Would it be allowable to insert it into both? DBaiocchi78 (talk) 09:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

The section title "The Continental Controversy" is not ideal because there is no Wikipedia article having this name and a Google Search shows something different.

Otherwise I agree with you that the section could be mostly restored if properly reworked. Notably after removing the biased content on Habermas's disability, verifying that it presents a WP:BALANCED overview of the academic debate (toning down where necessary), and trying to address Grayfell's other main concerns, notably, sources that support claims about eugenics without being about eugenics shouldn't be used. Also, the third paragraph is hard to understand, particularly the content on Kant. Alenoach (talk) 12:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

It seemed 'really harsh' because the content made the article significantly worse. All of these comments here about Habermas and Sandel etc. are original research, which is tolerable (within reason) on a talk page, but useless for improving the article. Personal insults are inappropriate, and Wikipedia isn't the place for any editor to demonstrate their personal level of expertise. Start with reliable, independent sources about "liberal humanism and deontology" as it relates to eugenics and without editorializing, and go from there. Nothing about the content I removed was salvageable for reasons I have already explained and more.

Again, and as always, Wikipedia doesn't publish original research. Summarize what reliable, independent sources say about this, and summarize those sources from a neutral point of view. WP:NPOV does not mean false balance. Further, eugenics is a WP:FRINGE topic. Grayfell (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Future illustration ideas

Extended content

Orpheus and Eurydice, by Frederic Leighton Orpheus and Eurydice, by Robert Beyschlag Thightly packed next to each other. First two reprints found in the 1914 book The science of eugenics and sex life, the regeneration of the human race. The third image shows how eugenicists glorified Ancient Greece much like present-day ones might glorify Victorian England. Galton was known to have thought Victorians to be degenerates in comparison to the citizens of ancient Athens. Eugenics itself deliterately has a Greek, not a latin root. : "Eugenic Family" - the emblem of the library of the Eugenics Society in the 1930s. 1911, Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, title page Also packed closely together. The first two in conjunction with something relating to Galton's anthropometry like the third image might be used to illustrate the industrial quasi-Taylorism that was beginning to be applied to the human form. Here, anti-capitalistic critiques of eugenics may be added to the image caption. A Taylorist map of a blacksmith shop, designed to optimize industry Popular science monthly (1913). Back Views in Twelve Positions. Just as racial hygiene is an especially politicized version of the British eugenics, this image could also be contrasted with the other, more well-known tree logo: Title page of a non-fiction book by Jon Alfred Mjøen (1860 – 1939), a Norwegian pharmacist and racist, published in Oslo 1915, on display at the Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities (Norwegian: HL-senteret) in Oslo, Norway. May also be relevant if some of the present illustrations ever happened to be removed and there was suddenly more space: Eugenicists comparing humans to dogs: Three dogs in human clothing - two adults and a puppy - sit in a room. One has a newspaper. Caption: "My dear, what does all this fuss about eugenics mean? It means, Jack, that man has just discovered the necessity of applying to himself theories of development he has practiced on our family for generations." Diagram to explain the inheritance of colour, as described in Mendel's Law Contrary to some claims, eugenicists did not about Mendelian inheritance. References

DBaiocchi78 (talk) 09:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

The placement of these images was spilling-over into other sections. To preserve readability both here and later in the archive, I have collapsed this section. An alternative would be to reformat it as an WP:IG or similar.

Regarding the content itself, please resist the temptation to use images to add subtle editorializing or WP:OR. For multiple reasons, including accesibility, nothing should be in an image or caption to an image which is not also in the body of the article as text. As much as possible, images should not be used to emphasize or de-emphasize any particular point of view unless reliable sources also emphasize that point of view. Grayfell (talk) 21:08, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Germanic Tribes

I would like to remove the folowing paragrapg:"Furthermore, according to Tacitus (c. 56 – c. 120), a Roman of the Imperial Period, the Germanic tribes of his day killed any member of their community they deemed cowardly, unwarlike or "stained with abominable vices", usually by drowning them in swamps."

Tacitus is clearly describing deserters being executed—a punishment that still exists in some countries today. This obviously has nothing to do with eugenics. Similarly, the mention of "abominable vices" refers to people being punished for acts considered criminal in their society, which cannot be linked to eugenics either. Corvo21 (talk) 20:43, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The section is selectively excepted from History of eugenics#Ancient eugenics. One source does connect this to 'eugenics' specifically, but no context was provided at that article. The citation exists, but is not being summarized. This is insufficient for either article. At that article, the mention of Tacitus includes as a footnote "Some modern historians, however, see Tacitus' ethnographic writing as unreliable in such details." This is a comical understatement. It's still better than nothing, and excluding it from this article via a 'noinclude' tag seems arbitrary at best. Therefor I have adjusted the excerpt to exclude this detail. If this is important, cite and summarize what reliable secondary sources say about the connection to eugenics as a topic. Once that is done, we can evaluate how to summarize that here.

To put it another way, it isn't enough to slap-on an easily-googled source and call it a day. We need to use sources to actually write the article. Grayfell (talk) 21:39, 9 December 2024 (UTC)