Eugenics deals with the application of the laws of genetics to the improvement of the human race. Some scientists are concerned that the mitigation of natural selection and conditions in highly developed societies bring about a deterioration of genetic fitness, the relative ability of a an organism to propagate its genotype. Over the years various methods of counteracting genetic deterioration have been implemented. Under some of these circumstances conflicting points of view continue today concerning the rights of the individual versus the rights of society.
The study of improving the human race by genetics via the means of eugenics dates from ancient times. For example, in ancient Sparta, defective babies were destroyed by throwing them over cliffs in order to keep the race strong. In his Republic, Plato depicts an ideal society through the effort to improve human beings through selective breeding.
English scientist Francis Galton pioneered the use of statistics in genetic thought. In his first important book, Hereditary Genius (1869), Galton proposed that a system of arranged marriages between men of distinction and women of wealth would eventually produce a gifted race, but the idea never won widespread acceptance. Many people feared that a eugenics program would take away basic human rights, such as peoples' rights to marry whom they choose. Coining the term eugenics in 1883, Galton continued to expound its benefits until his death in 1911.
Since the 1950s there has been a renewed interest in the idea because certain diseases such as hemophilia and Tay-Sach's Disease are now known to be genetically transmitted. Moreover, some states in the United States have laws that are aimed at preventing persons with known defects from having children.
To date expanding eugenics programs which range from the creation of sperm banks for the genetically superior to the potential cloning of human beings, have been met with extreme resistance from the public, which often views such programs as unwarranted interference with nature or as opportunities for abuse by authoritarian regimes.
Source:
Winchester, A.M. Genetics: A Survey of the Principles of Heredity. Ed. H. Bently Glass, June Shepard. 4th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972.