Author says Darwinism fueled forced sterilization 'crusade' in US

Author says Darwinism fueled forced sterilization 'crusade' in US

A spokesman for a leading intelligent design think tank says Darwinian evolution is the "operating premise" of the eugenist ideology. He recently commented on the relationship between evolution and eugenics in a presentation at the Family Research Council titled "Darwin's Dangerous Idea: The Disturbing Legacy of America's Eugenics Crusade."

This spring marks the centennial of the world's first forced sterilization law, which was adopted by the state of Indiana in 1907. It is estimated that by 1960, more than 60,000 people had been sterilized against their will in the United States in the name of a movement known as eugenics, which involves the scientifically directed selection of specific genetic traits in order to improve the human population.

John West, a senior fellow at the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, says eugenics is a strict corollary of Charles Darwin's theory of organic evolution. "In The Descent of Man," West notes, "Darwin really did argue that our progress as humans depended on a struggle for survival, and that we really were impeding human progress by trying to undercut that struggle for survival."

And again, it was Darwin's view "that provided the bible for the later eugenists," West observes. "In fact, time and again," he says, "American eugenists talked about how we were, in essence, sinning against the law of natural selection, and that's why we had to embrace eugenics."

Eugenics is an example of scientists claiming they should rule because of their superior scientific expertise, the Discovery Institute fellow contends, and he says such rhetoric is still frequently used today. "We may not be forcibly sterilizing people," he says, "but this argument [prevails], that the majority of scientists can't be wrong, [that] the consensus view of science has to guide our public policy."

This reasoning can be seen in embryonic stem-cell research controversies, global warming, and debates over evolution and partial-birth abortion, West assserts. "It was interesting, for those ... who read [U.S. Supreme Court] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in the most recent case," he adds, to note that Ginsburg, in defending her belief that the partial-birth abortion ban should be struck down, cited "the consensus view" of various medical societies.

West says people like Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who dehumanized the poor and called them "weeds," believed that eugenics was the "more rational and kind way" to get back to Darwinian natural selection.