io9
Charles Darwin first explained the principles of sexual selection in his controversial book The Descent of Man (1871). Ever since then, people have wanted to tinker with human evolution via artificial sexual selection. Dictators, mad doctors, and crazed social scientists have proposed — and even carried out — human breeding experiments aimed at improving the species. For some definition of "improving." Here are five of the most bizarre and tragic experiments with human evolution from the last century.
The Eugenics Movement
The most famous example of eugenics in action is Adolf Hitler's forced breeding program, in which SS officers systematically impregnated women deemed to be appropriately Aryan. The children, bred in a program called Lebensborn, were supposed to be the beginning of a new master race. Hitler's evolutionary intervention also involved genocides of "undesirables," because while you're building a new race, why not get rid of the supposedly undesirable ones too? The Eugenics movement didn't start with Hitler, though. It had a long, rich history that began in the nineteenth century and was very popular in the United States. Early twentieth-century country fairs in the U.S. often featured eugenics contests at country fairs, with awards going to the most "genetically sound" white families. Below, you can see a group of girls from a 4H club who won in a genetic fitness contest circa 1925. 
Nicolae Ceausescu's Decree No. 770
In the late 1960s, Romanian dictator Ceausescu decided that the population of his country needed to grow much larger to provide strapping workers for industrial labor. First he tried to reward women who had several babies, but that program didn't work quickly enough. So in 1966, he outlawed abortion. Women were forbidden from using contraception, and underwent fertility checks at work. In 1967, the birth rate in the country doubled. The children born that year were called Decreteii, or children of the decree. Many suffered or died young because they were unwanted or had been born under adverse circumstances.
Chinese 1 Child Per Couple Policy
To cut back on its population, the Chinese government in the early 1980s mandated that each couple may have only one child or suffer penalties. There have been widespread reports of couples choosing to abort or abandon girl children. In some areas of the country, this breeding program has turned homo sapiens into a species whose male population exceeds its female population by 163.5 to 100. Apparently the UN recommends a "normal" ratio is no more than 107 to 100. 
Clonaid
Clonaid is a company that purports to be engaging in human cloning, specifically to change the human species. They were embroiled in scandal when it was revealed that many Clonaid "scientists" were members of the Raelian cult (or religion, depending on how you feel about it) that believed humans were descended from cloned aliens. Scientists from Clonaid claim to have cloned a human, though they offer no concrete proof. So far, they have had zero impact on human evolution, but get points for trying to achieve evolutionary intervention via publicity.
Fertility Treatments and IVF
Two years ago, 3 million babies had been born world-wide thanks to IVF and other fertility treatments. In a scenario of pure, wild Darwinian sexual selection, none of those babies would have been born. Those 3 million plus babies represent a dramatic shift in human evolution that we are only beginning to understand.
Comments
I'm all for the next phase: Transhumanism. I'm not overly attached to this meat bag I'm working out of at this time; I'd much perfer my brain be compossed of nano-encapsulated Bose-Einstein condensate suported by a matrix of diamond lattice foam.
My wiki-sense tells me that Lebensborn was not a breeding program:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Then again, this entry may have been composed by a secret underground cabal of Nazis, hidden away, breeding their supermen, planning their return to power.
don't forget caesarian births - the restrictions imposed by the human birth canal need not apply.
I didn't know about Clonaid. That's kind of the most awesome thing I've ever heard.
Also, Ceaucescu's Decreteii--a lot of them (a LOT) ended up in State run orphanages, purposefully deprived of nuclear families and GIVEN BLOOD TO DRINK, so that they would grow up to be invincible proletarian supermen.
@braak: ew. and talk about playing into the whole Dracula thing.
@CMG: I know, right? Way to live up to your cultural stereotypes, Ceaucescu.
Personally, I think that the fertility treatment clinics are going to be the downfall of the human race. I have nothing against the infertile couple that would like to have a child of their own (A CHILD, as in just one) and would like to state that there are many, many orphans out there. And not just orphans in other countries, but in your own towns that need families with loving parents.
However, this whole going berserk and a woman having 7-12 fetus growing at once is just wrong. Maybe there are reasons a person's genetic code is dictating that you do not pass your genes along. what if out of the eight children, only one or two of those are ever able to have kids. Then the rest go to a fertility clinic and they each have eight kids that can't reproduce without help, and so on.
I know it sounds harsh, but the direct opposite of the extremely horrible forced breeding programs for a "master race" are the equally extremely horrible assisted breeding programs that will eventually lead to a "sub-human race".
And the reverse genetic experiment, birth control.
Apparently you can't breed out ugly.
Ok, it's time for an article on freakish alien cults please. How about: "Everything you always wanted to know about Xenu but were too afraid to ask"
I can't defend my distant relatives on how they perverted the one child policy.
That male female ratio is worse than the numbers I had. More male babies are a surefire way of guaranteeing a population and societal collapse.
The next 20 years in China and India are going to be very very very ugly.
@ManchuCandidate: Yeah, it's pretty bad--though that says "some areas of the country," so it may be that overall, the ratio is a little tighter.
Still, it's going to be problematic.
@steven522: Just wanted to point at that most of the time parents that are not able to conceive are perfectly healthy adults. The source of the fertility problem may be genetic or environmental. Their children, although they might have a problem with fertility, will also most likely be healthy (genetically and phenotypically).
If your interested in Steampunk Eugenics, read up on the Oneida Society. Founded in 1848, they were an egalitarian superhippie commune with extreme focus on Jesus and female sexual pleasure. You've probably eaten off of their silverware.
[en.wikipedia.org]
@92BuickLeSabre:
I resemble that remark
@steven522: I'm not sure about your argument. Should we also cease all research on deafness/blindness? If science can help someone to regain a natural human function, I say exploit it. I suppose religious beliefs muddy the waters here, but for me it's all science.
@steven522: Nice hyperbole.
7 is the maximum number of infants born who lived more than a few weeks. Many of these cases multiple infants do not survive very long.
The reason they have multiple births is the doctors and the patients are trying and have been trying for a while to conceive, so they do go overboard with drugs, and implanting multiple eggs trying for some of them to stick, most patients under going treatments deliver one or two babies, the multi-multi gestation is a rarity.
@ratlas: Awesome statement.. it is true, that is the biggest/long standing pressure being applied to the human evolution..
Maybe we could go to 10-11 month gestations and just remove all babies surgically....
Hey why am I being attacked by 9 month pregnant women alof a sudden...
@ratlas: I am definitely not going to complain about Cesarian sections.
@DocGratis: the point still stands that in almost every area of the globe there are more unwanted children born than there are wanted children unconcieved.
In a world of wild Darwinian selection, tons of us would die from what we now consider minor infections, but instead we have antibiotics.
In a world of wild Darwinian selection, tons of us would die from heart failure much, much younger, but instead we have pacemakers and drugs.
In a world of wild Darwinian selection, a lot of people would be functionally blind, but instead we have contact lenses, eyeglasses and LASIK.
All of the above people have undoubtedly gone on to have children they would not have had save for medical treatments that made them healthier.
This post is too freakin' vague to make any sense. Eugenics was horrible and creepy; IVF is an ordinary scientific advance; Clonaid is apparently no more than cult propaganda. So how are they listed together? Besides the obvious laziness, I mean.
@picardia: And before anyone even asks, no, functional blindness does not make you physically incapable of having a child -- but it does make it more difficult to get employment/get around socially, which can make dating and mating less likely.
@picardia: i don't think human technological advances lie outside the relm of darwinian selection. i'm sure at some point one of our less physically cabable ancestors survived their peers by picking up a rock and tying it to a stick.
@tetracycloide: ...that ancestor was awesome by the way.
@tetracycloide: It is true. Wild Darwinian Selection is how we ended up with technology in the first place.
@tetracycloide: Then by the same token, IVF is normal Darwinian selection. All I'm saying is, under the standards put forth in this article, it's not fundamentally any different than any other way humans have rigged the system to improve our survival since the Stone Age.
Another thing that has impacted society in a large way is the selective breeding of slaves. While it could be grouped with eugenics at large, it is interesting because it wasn't done to create a master race or anything, but to create more physically capable and for that reason useful (as distasteful as it sounds to phrase it that way) slaves.
@codydog: You mean, like this?
+ Watch video
Nice to see the US eugenics history being pointed out - it gets swept under the rug way too much...
I always found the practice of sentencing people to sterilization for being poor especially classy.
-Kle.
@braak: Overall, the ratio is about 120 to 100. In some areas, it has reached as high as 163 to 100 -- mostly in rural regions.
@picardia: It's an intervention into sexual selection as Darwin described it simply because people who aren't able to breed are able to have children. I'm not say it isn't a natural part of evolution though -- just not something that Darwin predicted. I personally think technologically-assisted reproduction and artificial wombs are the way to go. One of the people I love most in the world would not have existed in a pure, wild Darwinian setup. So yay for medical technology!
@Annalee Newitz: ...where the practice of leaving female babies to die of exposure so that the "one child" limit can be filled by a son.
It is a bad scene.
What intrugues me is that every attempt at genetic manipulation is essentially an effort to narrow the genetic field. Cloning is the worst, essentially freezing evolution. Genetics and darwinism tell us that genetic diversity is the key to a healthy species. Dog breeds that get to 'pure' (inbred) always have health problems.
That being said, I believe that the world human population will become a key issue soon. We are in a state where the socially responsible thing to do is to have 1 or 2 kids. This means that if you are socially responsible and limit your reproduction, you are put at a darwinian disadvantage. Our species is devolving. At the same time, our natural resources are running out. Reproduction is of course necessary to continue evolving, but at some point do we say 'ok, there are enough people'? Our current population growth is not infinitely sustainable, and we are going to feel it soon.
@Gann: Excellent point. Also why I stand by my position that future humans will be Braziliomedipinostani.
@Gann: So let's start looking for that stargate.
@femto:
LOVED that. I'm a fellow smartie (I was like "I.Q. 138? Dumbass), but I also really want to have lots of children. I'm super-cereal, guys: I want to have like 3 or 4. There's just one tiny little wrinkle: I'm kinda gay. Any genius ladies out there willing to lend me some eggs and an oven?
Did Chance engineer legs for fish or did the fish just realize that they needed to grow legs?
@picardia: IVF is an ordinary scientific advance and antibiotics, drugs, and corrective lenses are not? Don't understand the distinction here. Most people's vision problems can hardly be equated with functional blindness, and probably have more to do with the "unnatural" practice of reading and viewing video screens from a very early age, neither of which evolution adapted our eyes for. Living to breeding age is mostly attributable to being able to produce lots of food and modern sanitation practices rather than anything you mentioned.
Eugenics/social darwinianism was a wacky idea promoted by white "intellectuals" (and I'm using the term facetiously here) to promote the superiority of the "white race" (whatever that is) over the allegedly inferior races. Funny how "mongrels" always seem to be more evolutionarily sound than "pure breds." Dog breeding is a great example of this. Much of our ability to resist pathogens is also a result of mixing genes, not isolating them. The problem with eugenic type breeding is that no one has a clue as to what "superior" characteristics really are surperior. So it all devolves to a strictly arbitrary judgement (almost always racially motivated) that our group's characteristics are superior to your group's characteristics.
@frndlybnny: Become a sperm donor?
I think the whole laissez-faire Darwinism being proposed is a matter of semantics and interpretation. Is evolution only a biological mechanism? If so, the human race has stalled for a long time. Or does evolution include behavioral mechanism, social mechanisms, etc? Which of these is evolved: 1> human beings who have lived in hostile environments and are now have a biological immunity to many germ-laden afflictions, or 2> human beings who have developed thought and culture so that they have practices and customs whose practice make them functionally immune to many germ-laden afflictions?
Are we talking about the evolution of a species as a whole, or just the evolution of the species' biology?
None of those are examples of sexual selection, even artificially. SS has three conditions:
1. A population must show variation on a trait of one sex (breast size, tail feather coloration).
2. These variations must be associated with differential mating success.
3. These variations must be is heritable.
The only one of those five where sex even matters is the One Child Policy (because of the patrilineal institutions in most cultures in China, parents want sons), but that has nothing to do with mating success.
And as others have pointed out - "pure, wild" human populations don't get modern medicines, hospitals, nutrition, sanitation, civil order, etc. so it's a bit silly to single out IVF.
where can i buy those cute marzipan babies?-blurey
you fail to mention the alteration of humans by the use of legal and illegal chemicals.-blurey
@Gann:
Agreed. Most people fail to equate eugenics with animal/plant breeding programs - it's the same idea, essentially. People who support eugenics (be they nazis or seriously misinformed biological idealists) programs fail to see the necessity of certain seemingly 'benign' (non-obvious) or even negative traits. Take sickle cell disease, for example. Those who possess homozygous genotypes for SCD are at a great disadvantage health-wise, but those individuals who have heterozygous phenotypes are provide poor habitats for malaria, while the rest of us who have normal blood cells are a malaria buffet. Mutations like those coding for bizarre traits like SCD may seem detrimental initially, but can serve their purposes in evolution - ie: allowing certain portions of a population to survive potential epidemics (and other environmental events).
There are tons of examples of plant breeding (and the ensuing monocultures in crop lands) where the plant/crop in question has defects in reproduction or some various metabolic phenotype. Corn is functionally incapable of detaching its seed from the cob (disfunction in seed dispersal) and so this process must performed by human hands. The ancestor of corn, teosinte, from which the present day corn plant was bred, disperses its seeds readily. If the human race suddenly ceased to exist tomorrow, the corn plant as we know it would not persist.
Something to ponder regarding transhumanism and eugenics.
@steven522:
orpahanages are a little different now, though what u said still (for the most part) applies. they tend to be kids who have parents who have either sexually abused them (which kinda plays into the artile?) or are in prison (or something like that).
@Gann:
"Our current population growth is not infinitely sustainable, and we are going to feel it soon"
agreed. the way it has worked in the past is that not only do you get a food shortage, but you have so many people living so close to one another, that there is a big population die out due to disease and famine, and you are left with a small group of people who now have acess to alot of food and space
though i think this all becomes distorted when u bring technology into the equation. our machines are so efficient that we can can grow alot more in alot shorter time with alot less land. we also have medical technology which is getting better all the time, and we are teaching (on a global level) plenty of people to be doctors. you can also go on line and learn about different illnesses. basically what i am getting at is, i think the population die out will be much later than it should have been, and as a result will have a much bigger impact.
@ManchuCandidate:
"That male female ratio is worse than the numbers I had. More male babies are a surefire way of guaranteeing a population and societal collapse.
"The next 20 years in China and India are going to be very very very ugly."
This assumes that Chinese and Indians are unable to travel to where women are (other countries) or will be unable to import brides. As China and India gain greater wealth, many men who might be otherwise unable to find wives will likely marry women from poor nations like Myanmar and Indonesia.
@femto: Why is it that when someone posts a video, nobody has ever, in the time I have browsed gawker blogs, replied to the poster? I have now to see if it works!