Future Human Evolution - Eugenics in the Twenty-First Century

Evolutionary selection has been radically relaxed in the human species as a result of the development of civilization, science in general, and medicine in particular. While these advances have hugely benefited current populations, they have to a significant degree released the species from the biological process which created it and maintains its viability. Formerly, natural selection took place largely as a result of differential mortality, but now that most people survive well beyond their child bearing years, selection is determined largely by differential fertility. Aside from genetic illnesses, this new selection is also characterized by a negative correlation between fertility and intelligence–the core of eugenic concern for over a century.

Eugenics views itself as the fourth leg of the chair of civilization, the other three being a) a thrifty expenditure of natural resources, b) mitigation of environmental pollution, and c) maintenance of a human population not exceeding the planet’s carrying capacity. Eugenics, which can be thought of as human ecology, is thus part and parcel of the environmental movement. Humanity is defined, not as the totality of the currently living population, but as the number of people who will potentially ever live. This is a book about the struggle for human rights and parental responsibility.

John Glad is a retired professor of Russian studies, having taught at Rutgers University, the University of Chicago, the University of Iowa, and the University of Maryland. He is also the former Director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, D.C. A Guggenheim grant recipient, he is the author, editor, or translator of twenty books, some of which have been honored in the American Book Awards. Future Human Evolution is part of his long-standing work on behalf of human rights, in this case of future generations.