Page 638 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Following on the skull measurements, intelligence tests began being employed. According to the re-

sults, it was decided that some should be sterilized and kept under lifetime observation and supervision.
Later, however, it was realized that the intelligence tests used did not provide reliable results. These total-
ly unreliable analyses reflected the scientific ignorance of the times. Factors such as the conditions under

which test subjects were raised and the education they received were ignored, and it was concluded only
whether they were inherently intelligent. In any case, the objective was not actually to secure reliable re-
sults, but to eliminate or isolate the "undesirable" poor, the sick and races regarded as "inferior."

Eugenics in the USA

After Galton's death, the leadership of the eugenics movement passed to America. Henry Goddard,
Henry Fairfield Osborn, Harry Laughlin and Madison Grant were just a few of Galton's American heirs.

The Rockefeller Institute and the Carnegie Foundation headed the list of the supporters of eugenics in
the USA. The Rockefeller Institute financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, one of the leaders of the eugen-
ics movement in Germany, and in the 1920s, had a special building constructed for the genetic research of
Professor Ernst Rüdin, who was obsessed by the idea of racial hygiene. The Mental Hygiene Movement

was largely supported by the Rockefeller Institute. Moreover, the Nobel prize-winning Dr. Alexis Carrel,
also from the Rockefeller Institute, happily applauded the slaughter carried out in Germany, and had no
reservations over the mentally ill and convicted prisoners being subjected to mass killings. 114
The perversion of eugenics led to a great many American states passing compulsory sterilization laws.

In the USA, a total of 100,000 people were sterilized mostly against their will. As just one example of the
dimensions that eugenist barbarity assumed, in the early 20th century, 8,000 "unsuitable" people were ster-
ilized in Virginia. This inhuman practice was legal in many states until as late as 1974. 115
One of the foremost Americans in eugenics was Charles B. Davenport, known for his articles that

sought to combine genetic laws with Darwinism. Yet the claims put forward in his articles went no further
than mere assumptions. In 1906 he insisted that the American Breeders' Association carry out studies on
eugenics. In 1910 he founded the Eugenics Record Office (ERO), which received from 13 to 29% of the bud-
get set aside for the Station for Experimental Evolution. In short, the ERO was much better financed than

other scientific institutions of its time. This organization trained many people to
work on spreading the barbarity of eugenics. Students were taught to im-
plement and evaluate various intelligence tests, such as Stanford-Binet,
intensively employed in eugenic practices. 116

People trained by the ERO were charged with collecting statistics in
their working areas. With these data, the ERO aimed to prevent those it
deemed unsuitable from marrying and having children. In 1924, the
ERO drew up a sterilization bill which recommended that people re-

garded as committing the "crime" of being sick be sterilized.
To both reason and conscience, it is unacceptable for people to be
sterilized against their will. Those with genetic defects, sicknesses of
various kinds, and physical or mental handicaps should be treated with

affection and compassion. In societies where religious moral values
prevail, such people are protected, and their needs met in the best way
possible. It is nothing short of barbarity to seek to forcibly sterilize or
eliminate those described as having "criminal tendencies" by the pro-

ponents of the barbarity of eugenics. Such people can be educated with
the requisite cultural programmes and made useful members of soci-

The University of Heidelberg honored H. Laughlin, a prominent eugenist, for his
work on "the science of racial hygiene." This newspaper cutting carries the report in
question.

636 Atlas of Creation Vol. 3