Are eugenics ever justified?

[Mouthwash]

Well, it is actually pseudo-science that was debunked long ago.

American Scientist: Debunking Biological Theories of Race

My theoretical eugenics program was not based on race.

 

[LamaGT]

Mouthwash: Hey, here's a scenario in which eugenics would be justified.
LamaGT: But they wouldn't like it. Also, ugenics iz eEVIL!!!

So yeah you basically opened this thread to hear from others how much of a genius you are for proposing such a wonderful idea.

 

[Old Hippy]

So yeah you basically opened this thread to hear from others how much of a genius you are for proposing such a wonderful idea.

more like "hey, lets do as the Spartans did, because we have come such along way ..."

 

[El_Machinae]

Let's say the human race faces an existential crisis and the population has been reduced to a few hundred thousand in scattered colonies around the planet. Life is extremely difficult, what with a wasted environment and a severe lack of resources. Merely existing is in itself a minor victory.

On one colony, some remaining scientists have realized that humanity could easily die off in a few generations. They advocate a eugenics program- only allow reproduction for those who are smarter, stronger, and more psychologically prepared for the environment and for a collective purpose rather than an individual one.

Would you think this is justified?

I would say yes. The human race is an agent in itself. We are a collective species and our intelligence and knowledge is collective. In fact, it could be argued that our teleological purpose as individuals is to further the human species. But I'm still interested in the opinions of others (no emotion-based reasoning, please, this is a philosophical question).

Many of us already partake of eugenics at the individual level; we breed with the very best that we can attain, according to the criteria we value. Now, government-based eugenics would mean that someone else is deciding 'quality', which then (ostensibly) would result in (effectively) sexual assault, because people would be forced to breed with those they normally wouldn't.

The alternative is to allow 'natural breeding' rituals to occur, but then select out the unfit. Now, this has happened in societies for a long, long time. I'm implicitly okay with this occur at the fetal stage, under the consent of the mother. After that, though, you'd need government-sanctioned infanticide (which no one approves of, outside of supporting the Bible). Or, we could allow natural marriages and then legislate birth control, with exceptions being approved of by committee. This would work, but would result in a smaller population. In your scenario, are "fewer babies, but 'good' babies" superior to "more babies, with the same number of 'good' babies"?

Finally, while I kind of feel the instinct myself, I don't know if I philosophically agree that our teleological purpose as individuals is to further the human species. We've an obligation to future generations, yes, but that's not the same thing. I tend to not like arguments that use teleological purposes, because I often see babies being tossed with the bathwater. It's an assumption that needn't be shoehorned as often as it is.

 

[Dachs]

I fail to see how killing people stops people from dying.

You just blew Anakin Skywalker's mind.

 

[Agent327]

Well, it is actually pseudo-science that was debunked long ago.

American Scientist: Debunking Biological Theories of Race

Errr no, that's not eugenics either, sorry. That's Nazism plain and simple.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Eugenics is a pseudo-science born from "Americanism" far more than it was from Nazism. We actually inspired the Nazis to commit even greater atrocities under the guise of "science".

Eugenics is based on the completely absurd notion of social Darwinism. That the human race can prosper to even greater heights if we just had the willpower to ensure "the survival of the fittest" by deliberately killing and sterilizing those who are unfit to live.

What do the SAT, the Kellogg Company, Woodrow Wilson and Adolf Hitler
all have in common? They are all connected by the practice of eugenics
in the first half the 20th century.

From 1904 until shortly after the close of WWII, the United States
aggressively engaged in a scientific quest to create a master race. This
radical new science, dubbed “eugenics” by Sir Francis Galton in 1883,
called for selective breeding between those deemed “fit” for existence
(i.e. generally those of Nordic descent), with sterilization, marriage
prohibition and even euthanasia aimed at those deemed “unfit.”

Based on an extreme view of social Darwinism, eugenics permeated the
scientific and academic elite, securing funding through such notable
organizations as the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation.
The Supreme Court eventually came to sanction eugenic practices, and 27
U.S. states enacted incredibly racist laws enforcing its doctrines.
Overseeing these laws and heinous practices presided a virtual army of
scientists and doctors steeped in the desire to eradicate anyone seen as
a threat to society. These included immigrants flooding in from Europe,
Native Americans, epileptics, alcoholics, Jews, Mexicans, Blacks,
small-time crooks, the mentally ill, and even those unfortunate enough
to be caught unemployed and homeless at the wrong time.

Spreading from Long Island to across the whole United States, from the
Liberty Bell to the Golden Gate Bridge, eugenics wormed its way overseas
to England and the whole of Europe before it ultimately landed, like a
kind of lamp containing an evil genie, into the lap of Adolf Hitler.

Here are 33 disturbing but true facts about eugenics, a pseudoscientific
belief that began in the cradle of the land of liberty and ended in the
clutches of a genocidal regime:

1. Even with concentration camps, euthanasia campaigns and sterilization
wards public knowledge in both Germany and America, early eugenic
founders looked on with approval as Nazi Germany enacted brutal racial
campaigns against its own citizens. Joseph DeJarnette, superintendent of
Virginia’s Western State Hospital even complained in 1934, “Hitler is
beating us at our own game.”

2. The term “social Darwinism” never came from Darwin himself. It was a
term distilled around the notion that in the struggle for survival, some
humans were not only less worthy but were actually more or less supposed
to die away. Merely acting to help the weak and needy within society
became itself an unnatural act. This thinking helped propel the eugenic
movement forward during its embryonic stages at the start of the 20th
century.

3. On July 15, 1911, the American Breeders Association, or ABA, an
organization comprised of eugenic-minded scientists and doctors, met in
Manhattan to identify ten groups classified as “socially unfit” and
deserving of elimination. These included, in order of priority: the
feebleminded, the pauper class, alcoholics, criminals of varying degrees
such as petty thieves and those imprisoned for not paying fines,
epileptics, the insane, the constitutionally weak class, those
genetically predisposed to specific diseases, the deformed, and finally,
the deaf, blind and mute.

4. In 1907 Indiana became the first state to legalize forced
sterilization on its mentally impaired patients and poorhouse residents.
Known as Sharp’s Bill (named after a Dr. Harry Clay Sharp who was
already sterilizing and castrating men and women in Indiana’s prisons
well before it became legal) it passed the Indiana House 59 in favor, 22
opposed, and passed in the Senate with 28 ayes and 16 nays.

5. New Jersey passed its own sterilization legislation in 1911. It
allowed for the creation of a three-man board that would determine
whether “procreation is inadvisable” for the reams of prisoners and
children living in poor houses and other charitable organizations. The
governor who signed the bill into law was Woodrow Wilson, who was
elected president of the United States the following year.

6. The term “moron” comes from the eugenic movement. Coined by Henry
Goddard, an early eugenic founder, it comes from the Greek word moros,
meaning “stupid and foolish.” We use the term lightly these days as a
kind of vague, almost teasing insult. For Goddard and the eugenic
community, a “moron” was anyone deemed unfit for life and indeed a
target to be eliminated.

7. The IQ Test also emerged from eugenics. In 1916, using an
intelligence test created by a Dr. Binet of Stanford University, eugenic
activist Lewis Terman devised a simple way to score an individual. By
dividing mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100, Terman
created what he nicknamed “IQ” score, or “intelligence quotient.”

8. In 1917, as America entered WWI, eugenic psychologists devised an
intelligence test for the armed forces known as the Army Alpha Test.
Carl Brigham adapted the test as part of a college entrance exam. The
College Board later asked Brigham to create another qualifying test for
other colleges in the country. Eventually, Brigham’s efforts produced
the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or the SAT.

9. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan served as a member
of the state board of health and operated a sanitarium known for its
unorthodox food regimens. He developed for his patients a natural
product made of wheat flakes. In 1898 his brother, Will Kellogg,
invented the corn flake and began selling it commercially through a
company that would ultimately become the cereal behemoth the Kellogg
Company. In the same year as the founding of the company, Dr. Kellogg
founded the Race Betterment Foundation to help stop the “propagation of
defectives.”

10. President Theodore Roosevelt long held eugenic views. After he left
office, he wrote Charles Davenport, the man considered the father of the
American eugenic movement, and said:

Society has no business to permit degenerates to reproduce their kind.
Some day, we will realize that the prime duty, the inescapable duty, of
the good citizen of the right type, is to leave his or her blood behind
him in the world; and that we have no business to permit the
perpetuation of citizens of the wrong type.

Such a statement certainly takes the old snarky phrase “white man’s
burden” a step further.

11. Virginia may be “for lovers” these days, but shortly after WWI, the
state was well known for sweeping its social outcasts into homes for the
feebleminded and epileptic. While those two terms meant virtually the
same thing in practice, they also equaled another kind of diagnosis:
shiftlessness. Shiftlessness, a term that could easily be applied from
unruly boys to legitimate mental patients, generally meant “worthless”
or “unattached in life.”

12. On May 2, 1927, with only one justice dissenting, the Supreme Court
officially sanctioned eugenic sterilization in the case of Buck v. Bell.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, a man revered throughout the nation as a
voice of reason and justice, wrote the opinion for the majority that
could have sprung from the Third Reich:

It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute
degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their
imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from
continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory
vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes.

Three generations of imbeciles are enough.

13. The Beach Boys sang about the girls in California. The state is
known for its pristine beaches and laid back populace. But the Golden
State also is famous for something else: leading all states in the U.S.
in eugenic sterilization. From 1907 to July of 1925, at least 4,636
sterilizations were performed. All mental patients and those deemed
feebleminded were allowed to have their procreative powers removed. The
threat of asexualization even included criminals found guilty of any
crime three times, at the discretion of a consulting physician.

14. Although not wholly related to the eugenic movement, the birth
control campaign as orchestrated by Margaret Sanger emerged from the
conjoined spirits of women’s rights and population control. However,
before the term “birth control” reached the American consciousness, it
had many prior variations that included: voluntary parenthood, voluntary
motherhood, the new motherhood, constructive generation, the new
generation, Neo-Malthusianism, Family Limitation, Conscious Generation,
population control, race control, and finally, birth rate control. It
was only when someone suggested dropping the word “rate” from the
previous term that “birth control” became the name of Sanger’s growing
movement.

Is it any surprise that a campaign designed to eliminate the weakest
within the population aborted so many undesirable names before finally
choosing its correct moniker?

15. In its quest to find and identify anyone of mixed blood and separate
them from those of pure, Nordic stock, the state of Virginia enacted the
Racial Integrity Act on March 8, 1924. Falsely registering your race in
the subsequent consensus and questionnaires was considered a felony and
punishable by a year in prison.

16. Following the Racial Integrity Act, Virginia’s registrar encountered
a problem. Some citizens of Indian descent were registering as white but
actually had African ancestry in their genes as well. To remedy this
intolerable snafu, the registrar devised used a highly scientific and
accurate method to differentiate a person of Indian or African stock: a
hair comb. Walter Plecker, health officer of Elizabeth City County,
wrote of the comb solution, “If it passes through the hair of an
applicant he is an Indian. If not, he is a negro.” If those Guinness Ad
guys had been around when Plecker devised his comb strategy, they would
have surely declared “Brilliant!”

17. America was not alone in the growing field of eugenics. Britain
passed its own legislation against the “unfit” in the form of the Mental
Deficiency Act of April, 1914. The Act defined four classes of
undesirables: idiots, imbeciles, the feebleminded and moral defectives.
If you had the misfortune of having a doctor identify you as any one of
those, you could then be carted off to a special colony, sanitarium, or
hospital designed to house your kind.

18. Switzerland passed its own eugenically spirited law in 1928 that
targeted a poorly defined class of “unfit.” While concrete numbers have
never been ascertained concerning Switzerland’s eugenic conduct, some
estimates say that 90% of sterilization procedures were performed on women.

19. Norway had its own forced sterilization legislation on the books for
43 years. After passing a law legalizing it in 1934, it wasn’t until
1977 that the law was amended to make sterilization voluntary. In the
interim, 41,000 operations we performed, with almost 75% done on women.

20. But even if you managed to escape Britain, Germany, and Norway, you
still had Sweden to worry about. Known throughout the world for its
mostly blonde-haired, blue-eyed populace, Sweden passed its own
sterilization law in 1934 as well. Similar to laws in other countries at
the time, the new law targeted pretty much anyone classified as having a
mental illness or having mental defects in any way. It even targeted
those who had an “anti-social way of life.” Again, as with Norway, the
largest victim group was women, who suffered forced sterilization at the
rates of 63% to 90% over their male counterparts. In all, over 63,000
government-approved sterilizations were performed on the “unfit”
individuals who had the misfortune of living within Sweden’s borders.

21. George Bernard Shaw, the renowned Irish playwright who has the
distinction of being the only person to receive both a Nobel Prize for
Literature and an Oscar, was also a eugenic extremist. Speaking at
London’s Eugenic Education Society in 1910, the scribe had this to say
regarding the use of lethal gas chambers on the unfit:

A part of eugenics politics would finally land us in an extensive use of
the lethal chamber. A great many people would have to be put out of
existence, simply because it wastes other people’s time to look after them.

22. However, while lethal gas chambers weren’t employed on the weak
until the rise of Nazi Germany, there were many instances of euthanasia
performed by doctors of eugenic persuasion. On November 12, 1915, a
woman named Anna Bollinger gave birth to a baby with severe intestinal
abnormalities at German-American Hospital in Chicago. But rather than
fighting to keep the baby alive, the hospital chief of staff, Dr. Harry
Haiselden, decided it was not fundamentally worth saving. A friend of
the mother’s pleaded for him to save the baby’s life, but Dr. Haiselden
only laughed and said, “I’m afraid it might get well.” The baby died
shortly thereafter. A health commission investigation later questioned
the doctor for his decision, but he was ultimately exonerated of any
wrongdoing and allowed to continue practicing.

23. Haiselden persisted in his eugenic euthanasia over the years, and
justified it by declaring that public institutions used to house the
unfit in effect acted as lethal chambers anyway. He secretly visited the
Illinois Institution for the Feebleminded where he discovered that
windows were left open to allow the flies to cover the patients, and the
inmates were given milk from a herd of cattle infected with tuberculosis.

24. Eugenics has its own movie. In 1917, Hollywood produced The Black
Stork, a story about a mismatched couple who are counseled by a doctor
against having children. However, the couple become pregnant anyway and
the woman gives birth to a defective child that she allows to die. The
deceased baby’s spirit then ascends into the arms of Jesus Christ.
Hailing it as a “eugenic love story” in publicity ads, the eugenic
movement had its own propaganda film at last, and it promoted The Black
Stork throughout the nation. It’s catch-phrase: “Kill Defectives, Save
the Nation and See ‘The Black Stork.” Not quite “Save the Cheerleader,
Save the World,” but close. Dr. Haiselden, then famous in eugenics
circles for his baby-killing ways in Chicago, played himself as the
doctor in the film.

25. Even during WWI the American eugenic movement strengthened its ties
with Germany. The book credited with planting eugenics throughout
Germany was Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race. Published in
1916, Grant’s tome asserted that the white Nordic race was destined to
rule the planet. It inspired thousands of German scientists, allowing
them to mask their already racist feelings under the guise of objective
science. It also galvanized the country’s future dictator, Adolf Hitler.

26. Not content to produce books and films extolling the virtues of
eugenics, followers of the new pseudoscience in Germany introduced a
series a race cards in 1927. Coming ten in a package just like baseball
cards today, the cards profiled every racial variation from the Tamils
of India to the Baskirs of the Ural Mountains.

27. Eugenic sterilizations began literally the moment Hitler assumed
power in Germany. Starting on January 1, 1934, the Reich Interior
Ministry’s eugenic expert declared that children as young as ten and men
over the age of fifty were all able targets for the scalpel. Quickly,
this mass program became known as Hitlerschnitte, or “Hitler’s cut.” In
the first year alone, at least 56,000 Germans were sterilized, or almost
1 out of 1200 citizens.

28. While Germany savaged Poland in the beginning of the Second World
War, the Reich also committed euthanasia against elderly German citizens
to conserve its valuable wartime resources. Starting in 1940, between
50,000 and 100,000 Germans were taken from old age homes, mental
institutions, and other places and exterminated in gas chambers.

29. Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen presided over the extermination
practices at the concentration camp Buchenwald. He was also a founding
member of the Eugenics Research Association and chief eugenicist of New
Jersey under then-governor Woodrow Wilson.

30. The rare brain disease Hallervorden-Spatz Syndrome is named after
two Nazi doctors who discovered the condition in 1922.

31. For years one of eugenics greatest crusaders, Harry Hamilton
Laughlin, fought to sterilize the feebleminded and people diagnosed with
epilepsy. He was well known for believing that people with epilepsy did
not belong in society. Laughlin was also known among colleagues for his
occasional seizures. It turned out the doctor kept a tightly held secret
for most of his life: Harry Laughlin, the attacker of the “unfit” and
eugenic co-founder, himself had epilepsy.

32. Even though they have not been used for years, eugenic sterilization
laws are still officially on the books in North Carolina. Chapter 35,
Article 7 permits the state to perform them for moral as well as medical
improvement.

33. Despite post-war Germany denouncing its Nazi past, investigators
discovered that some universities still house body parts taken from
prisoners used in eugenic experiments and later killed in concentration
camps. The University of Vienna’s Institute of Neurobiology still houses
four hundred Holocaust victim’s brains. In addition, tissue samples and
skeletons have also been found in Tubingen and Heidelberg.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I fail to see how killing people stops people from dying.

I thought Tolstoyanism is supposed to be my schtick.

 

[Agent327]

Eugenics is a pseudo-science born from "Americanism" far more than it was from Nazism. We actually inspired the Nazis to commit even greater atrocities under the guise of "science".

What you're quoting is what indeed the Nazis (and certain other misguided types) called eugenics, which is indeed complete pseudo-science. Again, that is not eugenics as a scientific discipline. (You may recall that in psychiatry until well in the 1960s some pretty barbaric "treatments" were employed in the name of "science". No patient was ever "healed" because of it though.)

Oddly, wiki cites this:

Eugenics is the applied science of the bio-social movement which advocates practices that improve the genetic composition of a population, usually a human population.[2][3] It is a social philosophy advocating the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of more desired people and traits, and reduced reproduction of less desired people and traits.[4]

Calling it "applied science" suggests there is some science involved in what follows. However, at the time this line of thought was popular there was little or no knowledge concerning the workings of human genetics. AFAIK this movement pretty much died in 1945.

Modern eugenics is something quite different though. (Here's an overview: http://scienceinsociety.northwester...nics/modern-eugenics-building-a-better-person)

 

[Formaldehyde]

They should definitely come up with a different term for genetic engineering to "correct genetic deficiencies" than calling it eugenics due to the history.

And that definition from Wikipedia is essentially the same as the old one. The entire notion of "promotion of higher reproduction of more desired people and traits, and reduced reproduction of less desired people and traits" is quite reminiscent of the old practices which were so reprehensible. It is one thing for individuals to be attracted to particular genetic traits such as height or a particular body type, but it is quite another for society to try to encourage or discourage the reproduction of people on that same basis.

 

[Agent327]

Well, I mentioned the psychiatric treatment example to show that pseudo-scientific ideas do not necessarily disqualify a discipline as unscientific. There are plenty of dodgy ideas in the history of most sciences, which were taken very seriously at the time, but have been dismissed since. (Astrology was long taken to be quite serious, to name another example.)

 

[Traitorfish]

Eugenics is never justified because eugenics doesn't work. Genetics simply doesn't work that way. You may as well ask if sacrificing virgins to the rain-gods is ever justified.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Eugenics is never justified because eugenics doesn't work. Genetics simply doesn't work that way. You may as well ask if sacrificing virgins to the rain-gods is ever justified.

No Traitorfish you don't understand. This is a Mouthwash thread, meaning all remarks will be met with snarky backlash and comments about how stupid cfc is until you acknowledge Mouthwash as an absolute genius OP (thumbs up for references to Socrates) with flawless logic.

 

[Mouthwash]

No Traitorfish you don't understand. This is a Mouthwash thread, meaning all remarks will be met with snarky backlash and comments about how stupid cfc is until you acknowledge Mouthwash as an absolute genius OP (thumbs up for references to Socrates) with flawless logic.

“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.” ― Socrates

 

[Borachio]

"You can lead a horticulture [whore to culture], but you can't make her think."
-Dorothy Parker (attrib.)

 

[Berzerker]

The OP assumes the program helps with our survival, not hinders it. So it aint logical to argue against the OP based on the program hindering our survival, unless it is literally impossible for any program to "improve" the species. But since ElMac beat me to it...

Many of us already partake of eugenics at the individual level; we breed with the very best that we can attain, according to the criteria we value. Now, government-based eugenics would mean that someone else is deciding 'quality', which then (ostensibly) would result in (effectively) sexual assault, because people would be forced to breed with those they normally wouldn't.

The alternative is to allow 'natural breeding' rituals to occur, but then select out the unfit. Now, this has happened in societies for a long, long time. I'm implicitly okay with this occur at the fetal stage, under the consent of the mother. After that, though, you'd need government-sanctioned infanticide (which no one approves of, outside of supporting the Bible). Or, we could allow natural marriages and then legislate birth control, with exceptions being approved of by committee. This would work, but would result in a smaller population. In your scenario, are "fewer babies, but 'good' babies" superior to "more babies, with the same number of 'good' babies"?

Finally, while I kind of feel the instinct myself, I don't know if I philosophically agree that our teleological purpose as individuals is to further the human species. We've an obligation to future generations, yes, but that's not the same thing. I tend to not like arguments that use teleological purposes, because I often see babies being tossed with the bathwater. It's an assumption that needn't be shoehorned as often as it is.

yup, life is a eugenics program

 

[lovett]

Unless a program is overridingly unjustifiable -unless there are no considerations which could possibly justify it- there is evidently at least one possible situation in which that program is justified. The only programs I can think of which are overridingly unjustifiable are very highly specified programs. I can think of no general programs which are overridingly unjustifiable (have you thought of one? Consider whether it would be justifiable to enact if aliens threatened to destroy the earth otherwise).

That includes eugenics. So there is at least one possible situation in which eugenics is justified. This tells us precisely nothing interesting about eugenics.

 

[GoodGame]

Let's say the human race faces an existential crisis and the population has been reduced to a few hundred thousand in scattered colonies around the planet. Life is extremely difficult, what with a wasted environment and a severe lack of resources. Merely existing is in itself a minor victory.

On one colony, some remaining scientists have realized that humanity could easily die off in a few generations. They advocate a eugenics program- only allow reproduction for those who are smarter, stronger, and more psychologically prepared for the environment and for a collective purpose rather than an individual one.

Would you think this is justified?

I would say yes. The human race is an agent in itself. We are a collective species and our intelligence and knowledge is collective. In fact, it could be argued that our teleological purpose as individuals is to further the human species. But I'm still interested in the opinions of others (no emotion-based reasoning, please, this is a philosophical question).

I think that even if there is a scientifically valid rationale for such a self-controlled experiment on self that eugenics would be, society would still have to validate the means and methods of the eugenics. That is, you can rationalize a reason for the end, but it's still the old 'the end doesn't justify the means' argument, at least the end doesn't always justify the means. Meaning that just saying 'eugenics' as a means doesn't really clarify whether or not it is an ethical means. There are probably many ways to go about eugenics, just as there are probably factually invalid forms of eugenics (i.e. forms that are based on opinion, but not facts----or even reasonably valid forms of eugenics that still have serious knowledge gaps that make one question whether or not they are worth pursuing whole-heartedly).

In other words, it's not enough to shout "omg-apocalypse: therefore, teleology" in one paragraph to justify such an endeavor.

I can counter my own response and say that it's not enough to shout "omg-get some scientific validation first", but we can look at the history of eugenics and question how often the idea has failed to have decent scientific validation, and has retrospectively, was probably just a veil for overt racist policies.

 

[Lambda Ignaceae]

Eugenics is never justified because eugenics doesn't work. Genetics simply doesn't work that way. You may as well ask if sacrificing virgins to the rain-gods is ever justified.

To be contrary, considering eugenics is no different from the selective breeding we do in farm animals, it certainly can be progressive and its not complete fluff you claim it is.

 

[Traitorfish]

To be contrary, considering eugenics is no different from the selective breeding we do in farm animals, it certainly can be progressive and its not complete fluff you claim it is.

Selective breeding promotes definite physical traits, which is only a very small part of what Moutwash was talking about. A strict eugenics program may make a population taller and stronger on average, but it won't make them reliably more intelligent or psychologically resilient, nor will it address disease immunity or the prevalence of hereditary conditions.