World History

It wasn't really until the 1940s that eugenics as a science got fully discredited. Hitler helped with that, but so did a more rational approach to scientific research and the rise of gene theory. During its heyday, however, it was seen as a logical progression from other scientific disciplines applied to practical human problems. Eugenics expressed a desire for the ultimate culmination scientific pragmatism in the betterment of society.



For instance, scientific government was a fancy word for what today we call the Progressive Movement. Scientific business management, which today we call Palmerism, was responsible for many of the improvements in working conditions for blue collar workers and was often supported by labor unions. Among the supporters of eugenics, in one form or another, were liberal icons like Margaret Sanger, H. G. Wells, Theodore Roosevelt, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, and Linus Pauling.

I got this list from Wikipedia, the article for which also points out that the premise of DU favorite movie Idiocracy is based on the fallacies of eugenics theory. More recently, Ross Perot seems to have used the practical side of eugenics theory in the selection of his wife, if not in the selection of his political advisors.