Charles Darwin’s cousin, Englishman Sir Thomas Galton (1822-1911) coined the term ‘Eugenics’ in 1883. The word was derived from a Greek stem meaning GOOD BIRTH. His main area of study was natural ability through his studies of statistics, and he came to conclude that intelligence and talent were hereditary.

“In fairness to Galton, he came to see the encouragement of ‘good’ marriages as a better way to his eugenic heaven than discouraging or preventing ‘bad’ ones. But the seed of a very dangerous notion had nevertheless been sown.” 1

His research was also culled from his studies on the social patterns of the CUCKOO BIRD. In fact, his findings on the ‘adopted’ Cuckoo bird’s behavior in its foster home was key to his research on environmentalism and heredity. This bird, when raised by its foster parents, continued to exhibit its biological characteristics. Notably, the female Cuckoo bird‘s continued the practice of laying her eggs in other birds nests for them to raise as their own. 2

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1 CURSED BY EUGENICS, Paul Gray. The Future of Medicine, Time Magazine, January 11, 1999.

2 PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOPTION, Ed. by David. M. Brodzinky & Marshall D. Schechter Oxford University Press: New York, 1990 (p.25-26)

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