Abstract

The view that eugenics was based on unscientific views has been put forward by a number of historians. It has been claimed that the early phase of eugenics, so-called mainline eugenics, was unscientific, biased against the lower classes, and racist. An ensuing reform eugenic phase, however, has been considered scientifically sound and politically progressive. This paper, based on recent studies of eugenic sterilisation in Scandinavia, challenges this view. The political and scientific arguments in favour of eugenic sterilisation laws in Scandinavia were complex and ambiguous, and it is empirically impossible to identify a problematic mainline eugenic phase and separate it from a more acceptable reform phase. Social and scientific arguments for sterilisation appeared side by side. To improve the gene pool was only one of a host of aims of eugenics, which “was” not a fixed, well-defined ontological entity with one definite purpose, but a concept with multiple meanings.