What Is Transhumanism and Why Do People Associate It With Eugenics?
By Aditi Murti,
The Swaddle
| 08. 07. 2019
The New York Times recently reported that financier and recently-arrested sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein apparently believes in a philosophical strain called transhumanism, “the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.” This is unrelated to medical innovation and technology that help people with disabilities function better. Transhumanism intends to use sophisticated technology to engineer and upgrade the human population’s intellect and physiology to superhuman levels.
The question is: who would supervise and participate in this improvement of the population? Some of transhumanism’s most vocal adherents are making it clear it’s a limited few. In doing so, they’re pushing the philosophy closer and closer to the effects of eugenics.
Eugenics is the science of improving the human species by selectively mating people with specific, ‘desirable’ hereditary traits to breed out disease, disabilities, and other ‘undesirable’ human traits. It was super popular with the Nazis. While even transhumanism does not explicitly encourage breeding for the superiority of one specific group, the methods endorsed by some prominent transhumanists aim for the same end.
Take, for example...
Related Articles
By George Janes, BioNews | 01.12.2026
A heart attack patient has become the first person to be treated in a clinical trial of an experimental gene therapy, which aims to strengthen blood vessels after coronary bypass surgery.
Coronary artery bypass surgery is performed to treat...
By Staff, ScienceDaily | 01.05.2026
Scientists at UNSW Sydney have developed a new form of CRISPR technology that could make gene therapy safer while also resolving a decades-long debate about how genes are switched off. The research shows that small chemical markers attached to DNA
...
Following a long-standing CGS tradition, we present a selection of our favorite Biopolitical Times posts of the past year.
In 2025, we published up to four posts every month, written by 12 authors (staff, consultants and allies), some in collaboration and one simply credited to CGS.
These titles are presented in chronological order, except for three In Memoriam notices, which follow. Many more posts that are worth your time can be found in the archive. Scroll down and “VIEW...
By Jonathan Matthews, GMWatch | 12.11.2025
In our first article in this series, we investigated the dark PR tactics that have accompanied Colossal Bioscience’s de-extinction disinformation campaign, in which transgenic cloned grey wolves have been showcased to the world as resurrected dire wolves – a...
