A Historical Overview of Human Enhancement and Its Societal Impacts [Part II]

A Historical Overview of Human Enhancement and Its Societal Impacts [Part II]

Plato’s Eugenics  The term ‘eugenics’ was first coined in 1883 by a British natural scientist named Francis Galton and was defined as a “science” for the betterment of society through selective breeding of individuals with desirable traits (F. Galton, 1978; Proctor, 1988, p. 29). Despite the term’s origin, the roots of eugenics stretch long before Galton’s time.  The earliest known inception of eugenics comes from Plato, a Greek philosopher,…