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About this quote

What does it mean?
Better understanding of breeding will stop legislators from rejecting plans to check if related marriages harm humans.
In plain terms
When people understand inheritance better, they will accept plans to see if marrying relatives is harmful.
What can you take from it?
Science should guide public policy on health.

Where it applies

  • medical planning
  • political decision making

Putting it to work

  • educate lawmakers
  • study genetic risks

Questions to consider

  • Who should decide marriage laws?
  • How does science inform policy?

Another view

The focus on legislating private marriage choices is ethically fraught.

More from Charles Darwin

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  3. Through the means just specified, aided perhaps by others as yet undiscovered, man has been raised to his present state. But since he attained to the rank of m…

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