Charles Darwin theorized that in a thriving economy, the small, weaker companies would eventually become bankrupt, while the larger companies would continue to succeed. Darwin realized that animals compete in the same manner. Darwin applied the principles of capitalism to biology, which created the term Darwinism.
Once Darwin’s work was published, Darwinism became well known due to Herbert Spencer. Continuing with Darwin’s work and his theory, Spencer produced the term “Social Darwinism”. According to Spencer, to receive social progress, the unfit eventually becomes extinct and the fittest, must survive. From Spencer’s theory, he popularized the term “Survival of the Fittest”.
Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, argued that only the fittest should be able to reproduce. He believed that the toughest, most desired traits were the ones worth reproducing. Based on Galton’s belief, it was a whole new way of changing human evolution. Deriving his beliefs from Social Darwinism, Galton became the father of the Eugenics movement.
Indiana was the first state to legalize sterilization in 1907. Sterilization became widely known during the late 1920s. In 1914, Harry Laughlin
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Carrie Buck, a teenager from Virginia was the first person to be chosen to be operated on. Officials declared that Buck was a potential candidate because she and her mother, Emma, carry the trait of “feeblemindedness”. A legal challenge was put to test how constitutional the Sterilization Law was. The final decision was appealed by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. of the United States Supreme Court. He argued that three generations, grandmother, mother, and daughter, were justified to be sterilized. Due to their shared trait, he believed that future off springs should not have to be punished for their shared trait, when it can be stopped. He claimed that sterilization can prevent those manifestly unfit from