How Darwin's ideas were twisted into 'social Darwinism'

At its most extreme, what came to be known as "social Darwinism" was invoked to defend the practice of eugenics: enhancing the "quality" of the human race by weeding out -- through sterilisation, even extermination -- persons deemed feeble of mind, body or both.Darwin, a Christian, a Victorian liberal and opponent of slavery, rejected these ideas as not only scientifically unsound but also morally repugnant.

But that did not stop them from spreading and persisting in one form or another up to the present dayAdding insult to injury, the person who first sketched a theory of eugenics, Francis Galton, was a second cousin of Darwin.

Unaware of the influence of genes, Galton and most of his scientific contemporaries were convinced that traits acquired over a lifetime could be passed on to one's offspring.He also assumed that some races were innately superior, giving comfort to racist theories that placed white Europeans at the pinnacle of evolution.His claims were supported in the late 19th century by the pseudo-science of anthropometrics, which equated facial structure and skull capacity with intelligence.

Italian criminologist Cesare Lombroso went so far as to conclude that some individuals were born criminals -- "uomo delinquente," he dubbed them -- who could be unmasked through their physiognomy.The use of slang, and ape-like features such as a narrow skull and an unusually mobile big toe, were brandished as proof that these irredeemable specimens were in fact a human sub-species.