Question

How does the attempt to control and codify plants and animals lead to eugenics? how are both of these views optimistic? Pessimistic? Please answer using the following websites as sources. http://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/ https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/science-as-salvation-weimar-eugenics-1919-1933

Answer 1

When scientists and governments attempt to codify and control plants, there are two main ideas behind it.

• One aim is to list down all the plants/animals based on their genetics. This leads to better documentation, classification and knowledge about the plants and animals.
• The second aim is to improve them. It is clear that humans have modified many plants in the last few decades- to improve yields, to make them resistant to bacterias, to make them tastier etc. Similarly, we have modified animals such as dogs to make them stronger, look better etc.

The second aim is where the main points regarding eugenics come into picture. As we work on animals and plants to improve them, and when we see the factual and clear results of the improvements- it is obvious that the next step leads to thoguhts about improving humans in the same way. This is a logical step in the thought process. While this is not harmful just by thought, and by itself the process of documenting and improving plants and animals is also not damaging, they do indeed work as the pre-step to expanding it to improving humans and hence, eugenics.