“The improvement of our stock seems to me one of the highest objects that we can reasonably attempt,” Galton declared in his 1904 address on the aims of eugenics. “We are ignorant of the ultimate destinies of humanity, but feel perfectly sure that it is as noble a work to raise its level … as it would be disgraceful to abase it.” It might be right to dismiss this (as Martin Brookes does) as a “blathering sermon.” But Galton’s words possess a certain rectitude when set beside the new eugenicists’ talk of a “posthuman” future of designer babies. Galton, at least, had the excuse of historical
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