Jenab6
There is a manner of speaking (or of writing) which endeavors to place doubt upon facts without quite contradicting those facts. Instances of that rhetorical technique are rife in this article.
For example:
"The Jukes and the Kallikaks were pseudonyms for two families used as examples during the latter 19th century and early 20th century to argue that there was a genetic disposition toward anti-social behavior or low intelligence."
There are certainly such genetic predispositions; that is, intelligence has been scientifically determined to be about 80% heritable. (Reference: "How much can we boost IQ and academic achievement," Arthur Jensen, 1969, Harvard Educational Review.) There is no need to suppose, as your article does, that this connection is speculative. It isn't speculative. It has been observed for a long time and is statistically very well documented.
There is also certainly a genetic influence in a person's general behavior. Behavior genetics is a respectable and established field of psychology. Once again, there is no need to refer to the phenomenon as speculative. Why your article does so regardless of any necessity, I can only guess.
Another example:
"The arguments were used to bolster advocacy of eugenics."
Despite more or less continuous efforts at smearing intelligent breeding practices among humans, eugenics was, is, and will remain a necessary function of a population, and a good function on account of the necessity. The alternative to eugenics is dysgenics, a genetic degeneration of the breeding pool resulting from entropy and the propagation of unhealthy traits.
The people who conduct these smears might say that they advocate personal freedom in human breeding and mating choices. I don't believe them. I think that their purpose is foul, not noble, that it involves weakening one group of people so that they may be more easily controlled, enslaved, or exterminated by another group, in due time. In other words, hostility to eugenics is intended to dissolve a race in the same manner that acid is used to dissolve metal.
Why this article, in what purports to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA, joins in the chorus of politically motivated hostility toward eugenics, I can only guess. My guess is that your encyclopedia is propaganda, at least on this subject.
There is a class of propaganda in which corrupted, horizontally wide information sources participate. Wikipedia seems to be one of them. This encyclopedia, judging by this article, appears to be another. Many truthful and impartial articles are offered, all of them on subjects in which the propagandists have no special interest: astronomy and mathematics, for example. On such subjects, much useful information may be found. But on the subjects for which the propagandist wishes something other than the truth to be known, the related articles contain lies and misleading forms of Newspeak (a term I've borrowed from George Orwell).
I post this comment in order to draw attention to the evidence that this article is corrupted on the subject of heredity and eugenics.
For example:
"The Jukes and the Kallikaks were pseudonyms for two families used as examples during the latter 19th century and early 20th century to argue that there was a genetic disposition toward anti-social behavior or low intelligence."
There are certainly such genetic predispositions; that is, intelligence has been scientifically determined to be about 80% heritable. (Reference: "How much can we boost IQ and academic achievement," Arthur Jensen, 1969, Harvard Educational Review.) There is no need to suppose, as your article does, that this connection is speculative. It isn't speculative. It has been observed for a long time and is statistically very well documented.
There is also certainly a genetic influence in a person's general behavior. Behavior genetics is a respectable and established field of psychology. Once again, there is no need to refer to the phenomenon as speculative. Why your article does so regardless of any necessity, I can only guess.
Another example:
"The arguments were used to bolster advocacy of eugenics."
Despite more or less continuous efforts at smearing intelligent breeding practices among humans, eugenics was, is, and will remain a necessary function of a population, and a good function on account of the necessity. The alternative to eugenics is dysgenics, a genetic degeneration of the breeding pool resulting from entropy and the propagation of unhealthy traits.
The people who conduct these smears might say that they advocate personal freedom in human breeding and mating choices. I don't believe them. I think that their purpose is foul, not noble, that it involves weakening one group of people so that they may be more easily controlled, enslaved, or exterminated by another group, in due time. In other words, hostility to eugenics is intended to dissolve a race in the same manner that acid is used to dissolve metal.
Why this article, in what purports to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA, joins in the chorus of politically motivated hostility toward eugenics, I can only guess. My guess is that your encyclopedia is propaganda, at least on this subject.
There is a class of propaganda in which corrupted, horizontally wide information sources participate. Wikipedia seems to be one of them. This encyclopedia, judging by this article, appears to be another. Many truthful and impartial articles are offered, all of them on subjects in which the propagandists have no special interest: astronomy and mathematics, for example. On such subjects, much useful information may be found. But on the subjects for which the propagandist wishes something other than the truth to be known, the related articles contain lies and misleading forms of Newspeak (a term I've borrowed from George Orwell).
I post this comment in order to draw attention to the evidence that this article is corrupted on the subject of heredity and eugenics.