Conclusion
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
- Louis Brandeis
Throughout history, society’s elite have embraced ideas that ascribed to the rich and powerful inborn traits that separated them from the rest of the populace. In no form are these ideas more toxic than when cloaked in the guise of science. Eugenics in general, and the American eugenics movement in particular, has taught us that it is all too easy for the state to trample the fundamental rights of a minority of its citizens in its zeal to protect the majority from what it considers a “social menace.” It has taught us that the newest scientific knowledge is not always correct, no matter how tempting it might be to believe it is, and that the law must stand up for the rights of individuals when no one else will even acknowledge those rights exist. And that is a lesson we must never forget.
- Louis Brandeis
Throughout history, society’s elite have embraced ideas that ascribed to the rich and powerful inborn traits that separated them from the rest of the populace. In no form are these ideas more toxic than when cloaked in the guise of science. Eugenics in general, and the American eugenics movement in particular, has taught us that it is all too easy for the state to trample the fundamental rights of a minority of its citizens in its zeal to protect the majority from what it considers a “social menace.” It has taught us that the newest scientific knowledge is not always correct, no matter how tempting it might be to believe it is, and that the law must stand up for the rights of individuals when no one else will even acknowledge those rights exist. And that is a lesson we must never forget.