Why Eugenics Is Tied to Evolution
Why one university now openly
teaches eugenics, and thoughts on
the failed attempt to disengage
eugenics from Darwinian evolution
by Jerry Bergman, PhD
I have long been interested in the enormous harm caused by Darwinism, including eugenics. This interest has resulted in my publishing several hundred papers on this topic. I have also completed several college-level classes in genetics, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, and have also taught genetics at the college level for many years. Never once was eugenics discussed, either in class or in the textbooks we used. (I must confess that one of my genetics students wrote a paper on eugenics and she discussed it in class. It was obvious to the student, and the class as well, that eugenics is a logical result of Darwinian evolution.)
For this reason, when I noticed an article titled, “We must not ignore eugenics in our genetics curriculum, says professor,”[1] I read it with much interest. University of North Carolina biology professor, Mark Peifer, opined that knowledge of the history of the eugenics field is critical for geneticists. One of the reasons is that “Eugenics is not dead, but continues to influence science and policy today. We should include eugenics in our undergraduate classes, reminding students that scientists must speak out when others lie about science and use it to further their political views.”[2] Peifer writes it is his opinion that
to be a scientist in the 19th and early 20th century, you needed to be white, male, and upper class. We all bring biases to the table, and 19th-century biologists were no different. The result was the invention of eugenics. I added a content warning, noting that we would review shocking and indefensible words and views, but emphasized that I think it is very important to understand the history of the science we are studying.[3]
Peifer adds historical context for his opinion that eugenics must be taught:
Eugenicists worldwide believed that they could perfect human beings and eliminate so-called social ills through genetics and heredity. They believed the use of methods such as involuntary sterilization, segregation and social exclusion would rid society of individuals deemed by them to be unfit. “Scientific racism” is an ideology that appropriates the methods and legitimacy of science to argue for the superiority of white Europeans and the inferiority of non-white people whose social and economic status have been historically marginalized. Like eugenics, scientific racism grew out of the misappropriation of … Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection.[4]
The drawings are from Introducing Evolution by Dean Evans and Howard Selina. Icon Books. UK. 2001. Pp. 56, 61, 62.
Can Darwinism Be Exonerated from Eugenics?
Because the current trend now is to apologize for this “racist” teaching, Peifer attempts to explain away the obvious fact that evolution logically leads to eugenics. The core teaching of evolution is that genetic differences exist in all life-forms which are selected due to the survival of the fittest reality. Some of these differences allow the animal an edge in the competition for life which enables them to outcompete those animals without this slight advantage. An example is the evolutionary claim that some of our ancient pre-humans had a slight advantage in intelligence, consequently, they were able to outcompete their slightly less-intelligent brethren. By this process, after eons of time, the dumb australopithecines were able to evolve into the intelligent humans existing today.
Condemning the basis of eugenics negates the core of how evolution works. If there are no genetic differences that affect survival, there cannot be evolution. As one textbook stated, No mutations (genetic differences), no evolution (see illustrations). I asked the Google AI engine, “Is it correct to say that if there are no genetic differences that affect survival, there cannot be evolution?” The answer came back, “Yes, that’s correct. Without genetic variation that affects survival and reproduction, there can be no evolution by natural selection, as there’s nothing for natural selection to act upon.”[5] An AI query agreed with this idea that evolution
relies on the existence of genetic variation within a population. This means that individuals within a population must have different traits, some of which are heritable (meaning they can be passed down to offspring). … If there is no variation in traits, there is nothing for natural selection to favor or disfavor. If all individuals in a population are genetically identical, then regardless of the environment, all individuals will have the same survival and reproductive success. There will be no evolutionary change over time. Genetic variation arises through mutations (changes in DNA) and through the shuffling of genes during sexual reproduction (recombination). These processes are crucial for providing the raw material for evolution.[6]
Peifer illustrates some reasons why it is not taught in colleges today, adding that eugenics
came into modern science through the work of Francis Galton … Darwin’s cousin. ‘eugenics’ – ‘the study of agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally’ … Eugenics was embraced in Europe and the USA. … [and] championed by many leading geneticists, including Harvard’s William Castle, a founder of the journal Genetics. Castle’s prominent textbook Genetics and Eugenics ended with a chapter entitled, “The possibility and prospects of breeding a better human.” Castle argued that “from the viewpoint of a superior race, there is nothing to be gained by crossing with an inferior race.”[7]
All eugenics does is to allow humans to attempt to copy natural selection and select the more evolved humans to reproduce and, concurrently, to prevent the less evolved from reproducing. As Darwin explained, artificial selection by breeders selects for specific traits, as also does eugenics. Galton recognized this similarity when he read Darwin’s work on evolution, motivating him to found the eugenics movement. If evolution is untrue, then eugenics is also untrue.
Consequently, as creationists have repeatedly done, by disproving evolution, we are also negating the core idea of eugenics. These facts are likely one of the reasons why the history of eugenics is rarely taught. A major reason eugenics does not work is because the human body is far more complex than both the eugenists and early evolutionists taught. At best, eugenics may reduce the number of deleterious mutations and traits in the population.
The creationists’ response both to eugenics and evolution is that breeding has very clear limits. Although an oversimplification of its results, natural selection functions mainly to reduce de-evolution, as also does eugenics. The support by evolutionists of the eugenics movement is an enormous embarrassment to evolutionists today. Peifer admitted that American eugenics was
connected with eugenics proponents in Germany. They praised a Nazi sterilization law that drew on their research, and their leader Harry Laughlin accepted an Honorary degree from Heidelberg University for his work on the science of ‘race hygiene’. Their ideas influenced Adolf Hitler – in Mein Kampf, he stated: ‘No more than Nature desires the mating of weaker with stronger individuals, even less does she desire the blending of a higher with a lower race, since, if she did, her whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow.’ We know where that led: the genocide of more that 6 million Jews… by the Nazis.[8]
Darwin’s connection to eugenics documented.
Understandably, the Darwin-Nazi connection is strongly resisted by evolutionists today. I know this because the many books and articles I have published documenting this connection have been aggressively condemned by Darwinists. (See the reviews of my books on this topic published on Amazon). Peifer added another reason to discuss eugenics is because the harm of eugenics is still with us, even today:
In 1994, the best-selling book The Bell Curve … suggested that ‘IQ’ is highly heritable and concluded, “It seems highly likely to us that both genes and environment have something to do with racial differences. …The United States already has policies that inadvertently social engineer who has babies, and it is encouraging the wrong women … The technically precise description of America’s fertility policy is that it subsidizes births among poor women, who are also disproportionately at the low end of the intelligence distribution.”[9]
The scientists making claims like this include some of the world’s leading scientists, such as the Nobel laureate for his work on DNA structure, James Watson, who
spent his career making statements about gender and race that suggest inherent differences in abhorrent ways. This finally came home to him – but only after nearly 70 years … The core ideas of eugenics are not things of the past – they fuel current political discourse as political candidates talk about ‘good genes’ and ‘bad genes’ and suggest that immigration is “poisoning the blood of our country” the question: should scientists just stay in the lab or is it their job to speak out when others lie about our science and use it to further their own political views?[10]
Picture of Impoverished men employed to carry pro-eugenic propaganda signs in New York City on October 27, 1914.
Summary
Eugenics is an overt attempt to apply artificial breeding to humans. Actually, Darwin’s major inspiration for evolution was his knowledge of artificial breeding, specifically the breeding of pigeons. Instead of the breeder selecting the traits to use to guide breeding, evolution substitutes natural selection, producing evolution, which evolutionists believe created the natural world that we see all around us. The evidence against both evolution and eugenics is now overwhelming.
References
[1] Cell Press, “We must not ignore eugenics in our genetics curriculum, says professor,” (March 27, 2025); retrieved March 28, 2025, from https://phys.org/news/2025-03-eugenics-genetics-curriculum- professor.html, March 2025.
[2] Cell Press, 2025.
[3] Cell Press, 2025.
[4] Peifer, Mark, “We must not ignore eugenics in our genetics curriculum,” Trends in Genetics, DOI: 10.1016/j.tig.2025.02.002, 2025.
[5]https://www.google.com/search?q=If+there+are+no+genetic+differences+that+affect+survival,+there+cannot+be+evolution.
[6] Peifer, 2025.
[7] Peifer, 2025.
[8] Peifer, 2025.
[9] Peifer, 2025.
[10] Peifer, 2025.
Chart showing the grading used to classify levels of mental deficiency. From the report Mental Defectives in Virginia 1915.
Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.