Unpopular Science 230925 Eugenics

If there's ever been scientific consensus on a public policy, this was it

If you were the educated elite in the early 20th century and you "followed the science", you were a Progressive — and a Eugenicist. Go down the list of your favorite Progressive forbearers: Jane Addams, Irving Fisher, David Starr Jordan, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, John Maynard Keynes, all the founders of American economics (and today's prestigious AEA), sociology, and revered legal scholars like Oliver Wendell Holmes. Every one of them believed in the *scientific* superiority of the Anglo Saxon race, and the responsibility of educated elites like them to mold society their way. If there has ever been a scientific consensus about any public policy, this was one.