There was a time when eugenics wasn’t generally viewed as dark, racist, or evil. Before the atrocities of World War II, eugenics was something that you could bring up over brunch and expect to elicit nods and smiles of support. We’ve tried to erase this from our past, but eugenics was once viewed as the height of enlightened scientific thought.

Eugenics – the system of measuring human traits, seeking out the desirable ones, and cutting out the undesirable ones – was once practiced the world over. The idea of controlling human breeding to strengthen the evolutionary process wasn’t some dark, fringe theory. On the contrary, it was a popular idea.

[Read the full article at All That Is Interesting.]