There's a book I would recommend to anyone interested in the history of the Eugenics movement called The Mismeasure of Man by Stephan Jay Gould. Its a boring and tedious read, so its not for everyone, but it is amazingly insightful in understanding why eugenics became so popular in the US. In the book, Gould recounts all the terrible science that was done in the immediate aftermath of slavery to "prove" the inferiority of blacks, and by extension any other non-whites (and of course females), although certainly blacks were the lowest rung on the ladder. One of the leaders of this brand of science was the Louis Agassiz, for whom, shamefully, the chair of zoology at Harvard is still named, which goes to show that good institutions do bad science all the time. But my point is that when Harvard says something forcefully, people often listen, especially when they're already inclined to believe (like blacks are sub-human). Gould, who before he died occupied the Agassiz chair, was obsessed by the idea that "truth" (accepted truth, not "actual" truth) is so often swayed by popular culture, and not data. I think he was right. Eugenics was Good for America, and that was the truth to those people. We need to always be careful of propositions that are social constructs that are cloaked as truth. That's why I wrote this post http://hubski.com/pub?id=15752. Because shit like eugenics was acceptable to people only a few decades ago. Its tough to look at one's self and ask what we are doing wrong, but well worth it, I think.