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American eugenicists tended to believe in the genetic superiority of Nordic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon peoples, supported strict immigration and anti-miscegenation laws, and supported the forcible sterilization of the poor, disabled and "immoral." [13] Eugenics supporters hold signs criticizing various "genetically inferior" groups.
Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics.
A 1930s exhibit by the Eugenics Society.Some of the signs read "Healthy and Unhealthy Families", "Heredity as the Basis of Efficiency" and "Marry Wisely".Eugenics (/ j uː ˈ dʒ ɛ n ɪ k s / yoo-JEN-iks; from Ancient Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well' and -γενής (genḗs) 'born, come into being, growing/grown') [1] is a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality ...
However, some of its preoccupations lived on in the world of eugenics and social Darwinism. It is notable that the Nazi attack on western liberal society was largely couched in terms of degenerate art with its associations of racial miscegenation and fantasies of racial purity —and included as its target almost all modernist cultural experiment.
Because social evolution was posited as a scientific theory, it was often used to support unjust and often racist social practices – particularly colonialism, slavery, and the unequal economic conditions present within industrialized Europe. Social Darwinism is especially criticised, as it purportedly led to some philosophies used by the Nazis.
Its original name as the American Eugenics Society lasted from 1922 to 1973, but the group changed their name after open use of the term "eugenics" became disfavored; it was known as the Society for the Study of Social Biology from 1973–2008, and the Society for Biodemography and Social Biology from 2008–2019.
The first official organized movement of eugenics in South America was a Eugenics Conference in April 1917, which was followed in January 1918 by the founding of the São Paulo Society of Eugenics. This society worked with health agencies and psychiatric offices to promote their ideas.
Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945 (ISBN 052157434X) is a book by Mike Hawkins published in 1997 on social darwinism. [1] [2] It deals with the rise of Charles Darwin's ideas and their applications to the individual and society following the publication of The Origin of Species.