Francis Galton pioneered scientific advances in many fields but also founded the racist pseudoscience of eugenics
Updated 1/19/2021 6:01 PM
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) Richard Gunderman, Indiana University
(THE CONVERSATION) A popular pseudoscience was leaving its mark on American culture a century ago in everything from massive reductions in quotas for immigration to the U.S., to thousands of fitter family contests at county fairs, to a growing acceptance of birth control by those who thought it could curtail the fertility of undesirables.
These are just a few examples of the influence of eugenics in the early 20th century. The idea of scientist Francis Galton, eugenics suggested that negative traits could be bred out of the human species by discouraging reproduction by those considered inferior. It laid the groundwork for forced sterilization