The term "eugenics" was first coined by France Galton in 1883 to mean 'truly' or 'purely' born. It was later developed as 'the science of the improvement of the human race by better breeding'. Galton's many disciples believed that traits such as intelligence, feeblemindedness, criminality, alcoholism and prostitution were all caused by genes passed on by parents to successive generations. Eugenicists developed research programmes into all these conditions, as well as medical conditions such as deafness, blindness, depression, cancer and schizophrenia. They also lobbied for compulsory sterilisation and incarceration of the genetically unfit and, eventually, in Nazi Germany, for euthanasia.
Modern genetics has improved our understanding of genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. However, there are also important debates about the extent to which prenatal screening programmes prejudge the value of disabled people's lives. Genetic research into more complex conditions - such as heart disease - can sometimes help to find clues about the biological mechanisms underlying such diseases. In addition, a high risk of some rare familial forms of cancer - including about 5% of breast cancer cases - have been traced to mutations in particular genes, passed from one generation to the next. But genetic research has not delivered the much-promised 'genetic revolution' in health - the prediction and prevention of common diseases in most people - or an explanation of intelligence, criminality, heart disease or schizophrenia.
What more and more research has shown is that the underlying assumptions of eugenics - that some people are born genetically superior to others - are simply wrong. For example, the growing global epidemic of obesity is caused by overeating and lack of exercise, not by an increase in 'genes for obesity'. Of more than 600 obesity genes that have been identified, only a handful have been relevant to just a small number of families with children who are unusually obese. This relative un-importance of genetic factors limits the potential of human genetic engineering to improve our quality of life. Even for those relatively rare conditions known as genetic disorders, the genetic mutation does not determine a person's quality of life or their other attributes and value as a human being.
Genetic research can sometimes help to find new treatments for disease, and today's experimental gene therapy (known as 'somatic gene therapy') may one day become safe enough to treat some people with serious conditions - but this is not the same as altering the genetic make-up that an individual passes on to their children and their grandchildren. Changing genetic make-up (known as 'germline gene therapy') would involve enormous risks, experimenting on mothers and unborn babies, and would have unpredictable biological consequences which are passed to future generations. As most conditions are affected by many complex interactions between our biology and our environment, there is also likely to be little benefit to this approach. Genetic enhancement is a dangerous fantasy, which distracts us from the real issues affecting our quality of life. According to the United Nations, poverty is still the world's biggest killer. A billion people are suffering from malnutrition and another billion are threatening their health by eating too much saturated fat and sugar. Many of the latter are also poor people, living in cities in developing countries, or on our own housing estates. Genetic engineering isn't going to help them - tackling the global fast food industry, agricultural subsidies and other social and environmental factors might.
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