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The Nazis absolutely loved Eugenics. The entire Western world did. The Nazis literally made it a required subject in grade school.

I was talking about words. Said required subject was called Rassenlehre, very much not a calque of eugenics.

There’s no need to resurrect the name or practices when we’re talking about actual genetic science.

If anti-racist biologists want to reclaim the word, or even appropriate it as the case may be, I’m not going to call them racists over it. That needs to be judged by the practices.

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Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics. And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.

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Yeah that’s not whose arguing we should put call genetic modification eugenics.

I’m sorry but that sentence doesn’t parse for me.

And the Germans didn’t use an English word? Shocking. Truly shocking.

It’s not an English but Greek word and yes it exists in German. Nazis (unsurprisingly) weren’t big on loan words but it doesn’t end there: The non-racially charged German word would be Erbgesundheitslehre, erm, “erf health lore”. Just as neutral as a term as “genome health theory” would be. But that’s not what the Nazis used, they specifically used a term that included “race”.

One factor that comes to mind which would make me, if I were a geneticist, argue in favour of the term would be people using the term “eugenics” to smear things like screening and IFV to get rid of Hutchinson’s. Sure the field has plenty of ethical question marks but much of it is perfectly kosher, yet there’s people who are opposed on principle and are fighting hella dirty. Re-claiming, even appropriating the term then gets you out of the defensive.

But, as said: I don’t have a skin in the game. As said, there’s arguments for and against.

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You really should read your own sources.

…or in Germany [2] mostly synonymous with racial hygiene…

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