Introduction: Eugenics as Colonial Violence—Why Its Legacy Demands Our Vigilance Now
Eugenics—forged in the crucible of European colonialism by Francis Galton—was never neutral science. It was a weapon. Galton’s theories, born from observing racial hierarchies in British-occupied South Africa, weaponized biology to frame non-Europeans as inherently “inferior.” This “pseudoscience” became a blueprint for colonial control: from forced sterilizations of Indigenous women in the U.S. to Australia’s stolen generations of Aboriginal children, all justified under the guise of “racial purity.”
Eugenics didn’t just reflect white supremacy; it sought to codify it as natural law, recasting colonial violence as “scientific progress.” For scholars, scientists, medical professionals, and policy architects today, understanding this origin story is not optional. It is essential—because the same logic persists, repackaged in modern institutions.
Why Neutrality Enables Atrocity: The Scheveningen Lesson
The 1936 International Federation of Eugenics Organizations (IFEO) conference in Scheveningen, Netherlands, was the last global interdisciplinary meeting focused on Eugenics. It laid bare the deadly fiction of scientific neutrality. Organizers deliberately exploited Holland’s reputation for liberal tolerance to sanitize conversations about racial hygiene.
Dutch scientists—many of whom privately doubted Nazi methods—remained silent on the colonial roots of racial classification. They sidestepped the role that anthropology labs played in normalizing skull measurements, “mental defect” diagnostics, and population hierarchies—technologies of control developed first on colonized peoples.
A chilling quote from the conference minutes reflects the mood: “No need to let politics interfere with scientific progress.” This wasn’t objectivity. It was complicity.
Scheveningen proved that silence enables atrocity—especially inside the echo chambers where it is allowed to grow. Neutrality doesn’t prevent harm. It conceals it.
The Unbroken Chain: From Colonial Practice to Modern Backlash Against Equity in Science
| Colonial Practice | Eugenic Policy | Modern Echo in Science/Medicine |
|---|---|---|
| “Scientific racism” | Nazi Nuremberg Laws (1935) | Anti-DEI attacks on “meritocracy” |
| Forced sterilization camps | Targeting “unfit” populations | Restrictions on reproductive rights |
| Land theft via “inferiority” | IQ tests enabling segregation | Biased algorithms in diagnostics |
Today, the myth of neutrality resurfaces in aggressive backlash against DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) in U.S. science and medicine—the epicenter of global research culture.
Claims that DEI “compromises excellence” or “politicizes objectivity” echo eugenicists’ insistence that hierarchy was “evidence-based.” This rhetorical sleight of hand erases the fact that:
- Medical racism persists: From dismissal of racialized Black patients’ pain to the underrepresentation of racialized populations in clinical trials.
- Exclusion kills: Homogenous research teams yield biased AI tools, drugs, and public health policies.
- Neutrality is a colonial construct: It treats lived experience as “anecdotal” while declaring dominant perspectives “objective.”
Silencing justice in the name of “objectivity” is not neutrality. It’s institutionalized denial.
Global Implications: When U.S. Science Fails Humanity
As the global standard-setter, U.S. science exports its frameworks worldwide. When it fails, it endangers more than national policy—it shapes global injustice:
- Knowledge Extraction: Genetic data from Global South communities—mined by platforms like 23andMe—fuels biotech patents with no equitable benefit-sharing.
- Climate Injustice: Framing climate vulnerability as “genetic” (e.g., Pacific Islanders as naturally at risk) excuses political inaction.
- Weaponized Borders: DNA screening of migrants reanimates colonial “fitness” tests under a technological veneer.
This is not just policy failure. It is a form of scientific colonialism.
This Is a Fight for Human Survival (2024)
The colonial-eugenic chain remains unbroken. Far-right movements in Europe now invoke “demographic decline” to justify ethnic nationalism. U.S. courts roll back affirmative action while dismissing systemic racism as “past history.” Meanwhile, reports of forced sterilizations in ICE detention centers continue with little public outcry.
Science cannot claim to serve humanity while excluding it.
“Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state.”
— Frantz Fanon
Conclusion: Dismantling the Lie of Neutrality
Scheveningen proved that silence enables atrocity, especially inside the air-tight echo chambers where it is allowed to grow. But silence is not the only legacy. Colonized communities—Indigenous nations, racialized Black feminists, disability justice organizers—have long resisted scientific dehumanization, often at great cost. Their survival strategies are not just resistance. They are today blueprints for systemic reform.
To break the silenced cycle of scientific harm:
- Center impacted communities: Indigenous, disabled, and racialized voices must lead ethics oversight in genetics and research design.
- Demand reparative science: Redirect biotech profits toward survivors and descendants (e.g., Canada’s $800M sterilization settlement).
- Decolonize education: Teach the real history—how race “science” grew from colonial laboratories disguised as neutral inquiry.
- Stop mislabeling reality: Talk only about collaborations as “international interdisciplinary ” if participants representing the global majority are empowered in the conversation.
This is not history. It is the operating system of modern science. Neutrality is the mask violence wears to look respectable. Addressing it is not political. It is the precondition for a science that serves all of humanity.
Reappearance 