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Francis Galton

February 17, 2023

"Galton" redirects here. For other uses, see Galton (disambiguation).

Sir Francis Galton, FRS FRAI (/ˈɡɔːltən/; 16 February 1822 – 17 January 1911), was an English Victorian era polymath: a statistician, sociologist, psychologist,[1] anthropologist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician and a proponent of social Darwinism, eugenics, and scientific racism. He was knighted in 1909.

Sir

Francis Galton

FRS FRAI
Portrait by Gustav Graef, 1882
Born(1822-02-16)16 February 1822
Birmingham, England
Died17 January 1911(1911-01-17) (aged 88)
Haslemere, Surrey, England
Resting placeClaverdon, Warwickshire, England
Alma materKing's College, London
Trinity College, Cambridge
Known forEugenics
Behavioural genetics
Regression toward the mean
Standard deviation
Anticyclone
Isochrone map
Weather map
Galton board
Galton distribution
Galton–Watson process
Galton's problem
Galton's whistle
AwardsRoyal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal (1853)
Royal Medal (1886)
Huxley Memorial Medal (1901)
Darwin–Wallace Medal (Silver, 1908)
Copley Medal (1910)
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology, Sociology, Psychology, Statistics
InstitutionsMeteorological Council
Royal Geographical Society
Academic advisorsWilliam Hopkins
Notable studentsKarl Pearson
Author abbrev. (zoology)F. Galton, Galton

Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean. He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies. He was a pioneer of eugenics, coining the term itself in 1883, and also coined the phrase "nature versus nurture".[2] His book Hereditary Genius (1869) was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.[3]

As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties) and differential psychology, as well as the lexical hypothesis of personality. He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science. He also conducted research on the power of prayer, concluding it had none due to its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for.[4] His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea.[5]

As the initiator of scientific meteorology, he devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a European scale.[6] He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability.[7] He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin.[8]

Early life

Galton was born at "The Larches", a large house in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham, England, built on the site of "Fair Hill", the former home of Joseph Priestley, which the botanist William Withering had renamed. He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin, sharing the common grandparent Erasmus Darwin. His father was Samuel Tertius Galton, son of Samuel Galton, Jr. He was also a cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton. The Galtons were Quaker gun-manufacturers and bankers, while the Darwins were involved in medicine and science.

Both the Galton and Darwin families included Fellows of the Royal Society and members who loved to invent in their spare time. Both Erasmus Darwin and Samuel Galton were founding members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which included Matthew Boulton, James Watt, Josiah Wedgwood, Joseph Priestley and Richard Lovell Edgeworth. Both families were known for their literary talent. Erasmus Darwin composed lengthy technical treatises in verse. Galton's aunt Mary Anne Galton wrote on aesthetics and religion, and her autobiography detailed the environment of her childhood populated by Lunar Society members.

 
Portrait of Galton by Octavius Oakley, 1840

Galton was a child prodigy – he was reading by the age of two; at age five he knew some Greek, Latin and long division, and by the age of six he had moved on to adult books, including Shakespeare for pleasure, and poetry, which he quoted at length.[9] Galton attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, but chafed at the narrow classical curriculum and left at 16.[10] His parents pressed him to enter the medical profession, and he studied for two years at Birmingham General Hospital and King's College London Medical School. He followed this up with mathematical studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1840 to early 1844.[11]

According to the records of the United Grand Lodge of England, it was in February 1844 that Galton became a freemason at the Scientific lodge, held at the Red Lion Inn in Cambridge, progressing through the three masonic degrees: Apprentice, 5 February 1844; Fellow Craft, 11 March 1844; Master Mason, 13 May 1844. A note in the record states: "Francis Galton Trinity College student, gained his certificate 13 March 1845".[12] One of Galton's masonic certificates from Scientific lodge can be found among his papers at University College, London.[13]

A nervous breakdown prevented Galton's intent to try for honours. He elected instead to take a "poll" (pass) B.A. degree, like his half-cousin Charles Darwin.[14] (Following the Cambridge custom, he was awarded an M.A. without further study, in 1847.) He briefly resumed his medical studies but the death of his father in 1844 left him emotionally destitute, though financially independent,[citation needed] and he terminated his medical studies entirely, turning to foreign travel, sport and technical invention.

In his early years Galton was an enthusiastic traveller, and made a notable solo trip through Eastern Europe to Constantinople, before going up to Cambridge. In 1845 and 1846, he went to Egypt and travelled up the Nile to Khartoum in the Sudan, and from there to Beirut, Damascus and down to Jordan.

In 1850 he joined the Royal Geographical Society, and over the next two years mounted a long and difficult expedition into then little-known South West Africa (now Namibia). He wrote a book on his experience, "Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa".[15] He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal in 1853 and the Silver Medal of the French Geographical Society for his pioneering cartographic survey of the region.[16] This established his reputation as a geographer and explorer. He proceeded to write the best-selling The Art of Travel, a handbook of practical advice for the Victorian on the move, which went through many editions and is still in print.

Middle years

 
Galton in the 1850s

Galton was a polymath who made important contributions in many fields, including meteorology (the anticyclone and the first popular weather maps), statistics (regression and correlation), psychology (synaesthesia), biology (the nature and mechanism of heredity), and criminology (fingerprints). Much of this was influenced by his penchant for counting and measuring. Galton prepared the first weather map published in The Times (1 April 1875, showing the weather from the previous day, 31 March), now a standard feature in newspapers worldwide.[17]

He became very active in the British Association for the Advancement of Science, presenting many papers on a wide variety of topics at its meetings from 1858 to 1899.[18] He was the general secretary from 1863 to 1867, president of the Geographical section in 1867 and 1872, and president of the Anthropological Section in 1877 and 1885. He was active on the council of the Royal Geographical Society for over forty years, in various committees of the Royal Society, and on the Meteorological Council.

James McKeen Cattell, a student of Wilhelm Wundt who had been reading Galton's articles, decided he wanted to study under him. He eventually built a professional relationship with Galton, measuring subjects and working together on research.[19]

In 1888, Galton established a lab in the science galleries of the South Kensington Museum. In Galton's lab, participants could be measured to gain knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses. Galton also used these data for his own research. He would typically charge people a small fee for his services.[20]

In 1873, Galton wrote a controversial letter to The Times titled 'Africa for the Chinese', where he argued that the Chinese, as a race capable of high civilization and only temporarily stunted by the recent failures of Chinese dynasties, should be encouraged to immigrate to Africa and displace the supposedly inferior aboriginal blacks.[21]

Heredity and eugenics

 
Galton in his later years
 
Portrait by Charles Wellington Furse, 1903

The publication by his cousin Charles Darwin of The Origin of Species in 1859 was an event that changed Galton's life.[22] He came to be gripped by the work, especially the first chapter on "Variation under Domestication", concerning animal breeding.

Galton devoted much of the rest of his life to exploring variation in human populations and its implications, at which Darwin had only hinted in The Origin of Species, although he returned to it in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, drawing on his cousin's work in the intervening period. Galton established a research program which embraced multiple aspects of human variation, from mental characteristics to height; from facial images to fingerprint patterns. This required inventing novel measures of traits, devising large-scale collection of data using those measures, and in the end, the discovery of new statistical techniques for describing and understanding the data.

Galton was interested at first in the question of whether human ability was hereditary, and proposed to count the number of the relatives of various degrees of eminent men. If the qualities were hereditary, he reasoned, there should be more eminent men among the relatives than among the general population. To test this, he invented the methods of historiometry. Galton obtained extensive data from a broad range of biographical sources which he tabulated and compared in various ways. This pioneering work was described in detail in his book Hereditary Genius in 1869.[3] Here he showed, among other things, that the numbers of eminent relatives dropped off when going from the first degree to the second degree relatives, and from the second degree to the third. He took this as evidence of the inheritance of abilities.

Galton recognized the limitations of his methods in these two works, and believed the question could be better studied by comparisons of twins. His method envisaged testing to see if twins who were similar at birth diverged in dissimilar environments, and whether twins dissimilar at birth converged when reared in similar environments. He again used the method of questionnaires to gather various sorts of data, which were tabulated and described in a paper The history of twins in 1875. In so doing he anticipated the modern field of behaviour genetics, which relies heavily on twin studies. He concluded that the evidence favored nature rather than nurture. He also proposed adoption studies, including trans-racial adoption studies, to separate the effects of heredity and environment.

Galton recognized that cultural circumstances influenced the capability of a civilization's citizens, and their reproductive success. In Hereditary Genius, he envisaged a situation conducive to resilient and enduring civilization as follows:

The best form of civilization in respect to the improvement of the race, would be one in which society was not costly; where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources, and not much through inheritance; where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities, and, if highly gifted, was enabled to achieve a first-class education and entrance into professional life, by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth; where marriage was held in as high honor as in ancient Jewish times; where the pride of race was encouraged (of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name); where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalized.

— Galton 1869, p. 362

Galton invented the term eugenics in 1883 and set down many of his observations and conclusions in a book, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development. In the book's introduction, he wrote:

[This book's] intention is to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race, or, as we might call it, with "eugenic"1 questions, and to present the results of several of my own separate investigations.
1 This is, with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek, eugenes, namely, good in stock, hereditarily endowed with noble qualities. This, and the allied words, eugeneia, etc., are equally applicable to men, brutes, and plants. We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had. The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea; it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viriculture, which I once ventured to use.

— Galton 1883, pp. 24–25

He believed that a scheme of 'marks' for family merit should be defined, and early marriage between families of high rank be encouraged via provision of monetary incentives. He pointed out some of the tendencies in British society, such as the late marriages of eminent people, and the paucity of their children, which he thought were dysgenic. He advocated encouraging eugenic marriages by supplying able couples with incentives to have children. On 29 October 1901, Galton chose to address eugenic issues when he delivered the second Huxley lecture at the Royal Anthropological Institute.[19]

The Eugenics Review, the journal of the Eugenics Education Society, commenced publication in 1909. Galton, the Honorary President of the society, wrote the foreword for the first volume.[19] The First International Congress of Eugenics was held in July 1912. Winston Churchill and Carls Elliot were among the attendees.[19]

According to the Encyclopedia of Genocide, Galton bordered on the justification of genocide when he stated: "There exists a sentiment, for the most part quite unreasonable, against the gradual extinction of an inferior race."[23]

In June 2020, UCL announced the renaming of a lecture theatre named after Galton because of his connection with eugenics.[24]

Model for population stability

 
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s

Galton's formulation of regression and its link to the bivariate normal distribution can be traced to his attempts at developing a mathematical model for population stability. Although Galton's first attempt to study Darwinian questions, Hereditary Genius, generated little enthusiasm at the time, the text led to his further studies in the 1870s concerning the inheritance of physical traits.[25] This text contains some crude notions of the concept of regression, described in a qualitative matter. For example, he wrote of dogs: "If a man breeds from strong, well-shaped dogs, but of mixed pedigree, the puppies will be sometimes, but rarely, the equals of their parents. They will commonly be of a mongrel, nondescript type, because ancestral peculiarities are apt to crop out in the offspring."[26]

This notion created a problem for Galton, as he could not reconcile the tendency of a population to maintain a normal distribution of traits from generation to generation with the notion of inheritance. It seemed that a large number of factors operated independently on offspring, leading to the normal distribution of a trait in each generation. However, this provided no explanation as to how a parent can have a significant impact on his offspring, which was the basis of inheritance.[27]

Galton's solution to this problem was presented in his Presidential Address at the September 1885 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, as he was serving at the time as President of Section H: Anthropology.[28] The address was published in Nature, and Galton further developed the theory in "Regression toward mediocrity in hereditary stature" and "Hereditary Stature."[29][30] An elaboration of this theory was published in 1889 in Natural Inheritance. There were three key developments that helped Galton develop this theory: the development of the law of error in 1874–1875, the formulation of an empirical law of reversion in 1877, and the development of a mathematical framework encompassing regression using human population data during 1885.[27]

Galton's development of the law of regression to the mean, or reversion, was due to insights from the Galton board ('bean machine') and his studies of sweet peas. While Galton had previously invented the quincunx prior to February 1874, the 1877 version of the quincunx had a new feature that helped Galton demonstrate that a normal mixture of normal distributions is also normal.[31] Galton demonstrated this using a new version of quincunx, adding chutes to the apparatus to represent reversion. When the pellets passed through the curved chutes (representing reversion) and then the pins (representing family variability), the result was a stable population. On Friday 19 February 1877 Galton gave a lecture entitled Typical Laws of Heredity at the Royal Institution in London.[31] In this lecture, he posited that there must be a counteracting force to maintain population stability. However, this model required a much larger degree of intergenerational natural selection than was plausible.[25]

In 1875, Galton started growing sweet peas, and addressed the Royal Institution on his findings on 9 February 1877.[31] He found that each group of progeny seeds followed a normal curve, and the curves were equally disperse. Each group was not centered about the parent's weight, but rather at a weight closer to the population average. Galton called this reversion, as every progeny group was distributed at a value that was closer to the population average than the parent. The deviation from the population average was in the same direction, but the magnitude of the deviation was only one-third as large. In doing so, Galton demonstrated that there was variability among each of the families, yet the families combined to produce a stable, normally distributed population. When Galton addressed the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1885, he said of his investigation of sweet peas, "I was then blind to what I now perceive to be the simple explanation of the phenomenon."[28]

Galton was able to further his notion of regression by collecting and analyzing data on human stature. Galton asked for help of mathematician J. Hamilton Dickson in investigating the geometric relationship of the data. He determined that the regression coefficient did not ensure population stability by chance, but rather that the regression coefficient, conditional variance, and population were interdependent quantities related by a simple equation.[27] Thus Galton identified that the linearity of regression was not coincidental but rather was a necessary consequence of population stability.

The model for population stability resulted in Galton's formulation of the Law of Ancestral Heredity. This law, which was published in Natural Inheritance, states that the two parents of an offspring jointly contribute one half of an offspring's heritage, while the other, more-removed ancestors constitute a smaller proportion of the offspring's heritage.[32] Galton viewed reversion as a spring, that when stretched, would return the distribution of traits back to the normal distribution. He concluded that evolution would have to occur via discontinuous steps, as reversion would neutralize any incremental steps.[33] When Mendel's principles were rediscovered in 1900, this resulted in a fierce battle between the followers of Galton's Law of Ancestral Heredity, the biometricians, and those who advocated Mendel's principles.[34]

Empirical test of pangenesis and Lamarckism

Galton conducted wide-ranging inquiries into heredity which led him to challenge Charles Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis. Darwin had proposed as part of this model that certain particles, which he called "gemmules" moved throughout the body and were also responsible for the inheritance of acquired characteristics. Galton, in consultation with Darwin, set out to see if they were transported in the blood. In a long series of experiments in 1869 to 1871, he transfused the blood between dissimilar breeds of rabbits, and examined the features of their offspring.[35] He found no evidence of characters transmitted in the transfused blood.[36]

Darwin challenged the validity of Galton's experiment, giving his reasons in an article published in Nature where he wrote:

Now, in the chapter on Pangenesis in my Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication I have not said one word about the blood, or about any fluid proper to any circulating system. It is, indeed, obvious that the presence of gemmules in the blood can form no necessary part of my hypothesis; for I refer in illustration of it to the lowest animals, such as the Protozoa, which do not possess blood or any vessels; and I refer to plants in which the fluid, when present in the vessels, cannot be considered as true blood. The fundamental laws of growth, reproduction, inheritance, &c., are so closely similar throughout the whole organic kingdom, that the means by which the gemmules (assuming for the moment their existence) are diffused through the body, would probably be the same in all beings; therefore the means can hardly be diffusion through the blood. Nevertheless, when I first heard of Mr. Galton's experiments, I did not sufficiently reflect on the subject, and saw not the difficulty of believing in the presence of gemmules in the blood.

— Darwin 1871, pp. 502–503

Galton explicitly rejected the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarckism), and was an early proponent of "hard heredity"[37] through selection alone. He came close to rediscovering Mendel's particulate theory of inheritance, but was prevented from making the final breakthrough in this regard because of his focus on continuous, rather than discrete, traits (now regarded as polygenic traits). He went on to found the biometric approach to the study of heredity, distinguished by its use of statistical techniques to study continuous traits and population-scale aspects of heredity.

This approach was later taken up enthusiastically by Karl Pearson and W. F. R. Weldon; together, they founded the highly influential journal Biometrika in 1901. (R. A. Fisher would later show how the biometrical approach could be reconciled with the Mendelian approach.[38]) The statistical techniques that Galton invented (correlation and regression—see below) and phenomena he established (regression to the mean) formed the basis of the biometric approach and are now essential tools in all social sciences.

Anthropometric Laboratory at the 1884 International Health Exhibition

In 1884, London hosted the International Health Exhibition. This exhibition placed much emphasis on highlighting Victorian developments in sanitation and public health, and allowed the nation to display its advanced public health outreach, compared to other countries at the time. Francis Galton took advantage of this opportunity to set up his anthropometric laboratory. He stated that the purpose of this laboratory was to "show the public the simplicity of the instruments and methods by which the chief physical characteristics of man may be measured and recorded."[39] The laboratory was an interactive walk-through in which physical characteristics such as height, weight, and eyesight, would be measured for each subject after payment of an admission fee. Upon entering the laboratory, a subject would visit the following stations in order.

First, they would fill out a form with personal and family history (age, birthplace, marital status, residence, and occupation), then visit stations that recorded hair and eye color, followed by the keenness, color-sense, and depth perception of sight. Next, they would examine the keenness, or relative acuteness, of hearing and highest audible note of their hearing followed by an examination of their sense of touch. However, because the surrounding area was noisy, the apparatus intended to measure hearing was rendered ineffective by the noise and echoes in the building. Their breathing capacity would also be measured, as well as their ability to throw a punch. The next stations would examine strength of both pulling and squeezing with both hands. Lastly, subjects' heights in various positions (sitting, standing, etc.) as well as arm span and weight would be measured.[39]

One excluded characteristic of interest was the size of the head. Galton notes in his analysis that this omission was mostly for practical reasons. For instance, it would not be very accurate and additionally it would require much time for women to disassemble and reassemble their hair and bonnets.[40] The patrons would then be given a souvenir containing all their biological data, while Galton would also keep a copy for future statistical research.

Although the laboratory did not employ any revolutionary measurement techniques, it was unique because of the simple logistics of constructing such a demonstration within a limited space, and because of the speed and efficiency with which all the necessary data were gathered. The laboratory itself was a see-through (lattice-walled) fenced off gallery measuring 36 feet long by 6 feet long. To collect data efficiently, Galton had to make the process as simple as possible for people to understand. As a result, subjects were taken through the laboratory in pairs so that explanations could be given to two at a time, also in the hope that one of the two would confidently take the initiative to go through all the tests first, encouraging the other. With this design, the total time spent in the exhibit was fourteen minutes for each pair.[39]

Galton states that the measurements of human characteristics are useful for two reasons. First, he states that measuring physical characteristics is useful in order to ensure, on a more domestic level, that children are developing properly. A useful example he gives for the practicality of these domestic measurements is regularly checking a child's eyesight, in order to correct any deficiencies early on. The second use for the data from his anthropometric laboratory is for statistical studies. He comments on the usefulness of the collected data to compare attributes across occupations, residences, races, etc.[39] The exhibit at the health exhibition allowed Galton to collect a large amount of raw data from which to conduct further comparative studies. He had 9,337 respondents, each measured in 17 categories, creating a rather comprehensive statistical database.[40]

After the conclusion of the International Health Exhibition, Galton used these data to confirm in humans his theory of linear regression, posed after studying sweet peas. The accumulation of this human data allowed him to observe the correlation between forearm length and height, head width and head breadth, and head length and height. With these observations he was able to write Co-relations and their Measurements, chiefly from Anthropometric Data.[41] In this publication, Galton defined what co-relation as a phenomenon that occurs when "the variation of the one [variable] is accompanied on the average by more or less variation of the other, and in the same direction."[42]

Innovations in statistics and psychological theory

Historiometry

The method used in Hereditary Genius has been described as the first example of historiometry. To bolster these results, and to attempt to make a distinction between 'nature' and 'nurture' (he was the first to apply this phrase to the topic), he devised a questionnaire that he sent out to 190 Fellows of the Royal Society. He tabulated characteristics of their families, such as birth order and the occupation and race of their parents. He attempted to discover whether their interest in science was 'innate' or due to the encouragements of others. The studies were published as a book, English men of science: their nature and nurture, in 1874. In the end, it promoted the nature versus nurture question, though it did not settle it, and provided some fascinating data on the sociology of scientists of the time.[citation needed]

The lexical hypothesis

Sir Francis was the first scientist to recognise what is now known as the lexical hypothesis.[43] This is the idea that the most salient and socially relevant personality differences in people's lives will eventually become encoded into language. The hypothesis further suggests that by sampling language, it is possible to derive a comprehensive taxonomy of human personality traits.

The questionnaire

Galton's inquiries into the mind involved detailed recording of people's subjective accounts of whether and how their minds dealt with phenomena such as mental imagery. To better elicit this information, he pioneered the use of the questionnaire. In one study, he asked his fellow members of the Royal Society of London to describe mental images that they experienced. In another, he collected in-depth surveys from eminent scientists for a work examining the effects of nature and nurture on the propensity toward scientific thinking.[44]

Variance and standard deviation

Core to any statistical analysis is the concept that measurements vary: they have both a central tendency, or mean, and a spread around this central value, or variance. In the late 1860s, Galton conceived of a measure to quantify normal variation: the standard deviation.[45]

Galton was a keen observer. In 1906, visiting a livestock fair, he stumbled upon an intriguing contest. An ox was on display, and the villagers were invited to guess the animal's weight after it was slaughtered and dressed. Nearly 800 participated, and Galton was able to study their individual entries after the event. Galton stated that "the middlemost estimate expresses the vox populi, every other estimate being condemned as too low or too high by a majority of the voters",[46] and reported this value (the median, in terminology he himself had introduced, but chose not to use on this occasion) as 1,207 pounds. To his surprise, this was within 0.8% of the weight measured by the judges. Soon afterwards, in response to an enquiry, he reported[47] the mean of the guesses as 1,197 pounds, but did not comment on its improved accuracy. Recent archival research[48] has found some slips in transmitting Galton's calculations to the original article in Nature: the median was actually 1,208 pounds, and the dressed weight of the ox 1,197 pounds, so the mean estimate had zero error. James Surowiecki[49] uses this weight-judging competition as his opening example: had he known the true result, his conclusion on the wisdom of the crowd would no doubt have been more strongly expressed.

The same year, Galton suggested in a letter to the journal Nature a better method of cutting a round cake by avoiding making radial incisions.[50]

Experimental derivation of the normal distribution

 
Galton's 1889 illustration of the quincunx or Galton board.

Studying variation, Galton invented the Galton board, a pachinko-like device also known as the bean machine, as a tool for demonstrating the law of error and the normal distribution.[9]

Bivariate normal distribution

He also discovered the properties of the bivariate normal distribution and its relationship to correlation and regression analysis.

Correlation and regression

 
Galton's correlation diagram 1886[51]

In 1846, the French physicist Auguste Bravais (1811–1863) first developed what would become the correlation coefficient.[52] After examining forearm and height measurements, Galton independently rediscovered the concept of correlation in 1888[53][54] and demonstrated its application in the study of heredity, anthropology, and psychology.[44] Galton's later statistical study of the probability of extinction of surnames led to the concept of Galton–Watson stochastic processes.[55]

Galton invented the use of the regression line[56] and for the choice of r (for reversion or regression) to represent the correlation coefficient.[44]

In the 1870s and 1880s he was a pioneer in the use of normal theory to fit histograms and ogives to actual tabulated data, much of which he collected himself: for instance large samples of sibling and parental height. Consideration of the results from these empirical studies led to his further insights into evolution, natural selection, and regression to the mean.

Regression toward the mean

Galton was the first to describe and explain the common phenomenon of regression toward the mean, which he first observed in his experiments on the size of the seeds of successive generations of sweet peas.

The conditions under which regression toward the mean occurs depend on the way the term is mathematically defined. Galton first observed the phenomenon in the context of simple linear regression of data points. Galton[57] developed the following model: pellets fall through a quincunx or "bean machine" forming a normal distribution centered directly under their entrance point. These pellets could then be released down into a second gallery (corresponding to a second measurement occasion). Galton then asked the reverse question "from where did these pellets come?"

The answer was not "on average directly above". Rather it was "on average, more towards the middle", for the simple reason that there were more pellets above it towards the middle that could wander left than there were in the left extreme that could wander to the right, inwards.

— Stigler 2010, p. 477

Theories of perception

Galton went beyond measurement and summary to attempt to explain the phenomena he observed. Among such developments, he proposed an early theory of ranges of sound and hearing, and collected large quantities of anthropometric data from the public through his popular and long-running Anthropometric Laboratory, which he established in 1884, and where he studied over 9,000 people.[19] It was not until 1985 that these data were analysed in their entirety.

He made a beauty map of Britain, based on a secret grading of the local women on a scale from attractive to repulsive. The lowest point was in Aberdeen.[58]

Differential psychology

Main article: Differential psychology

Galton's study of human abilities ultimately led to the foundation of differential psychology and the formulation of the first mental tests. He was interested in measuring humans in every way possible. This included measuring their ability to make sensory discrimination which he assumed was linked to intellectual prowess. Galton suggested that individual differences in general ability are reflected in performance on relatively simple sensory capacities and in speed of reaction to a stimulus, variables that could be objectively measured by tests of sensory discrimination and reaction time.[59] He also measured how quickly people reacted which he later linked to internal wiring which ultimately limited intelligence ability. Throughout his research Galton assumed that people who reacted faster were more intelligent than others.

Composite photography

Galton also devised a technique called "composite portraiture" (produced by superimposing multiple photographic portraits of individuals' faces registered on their eyes) to create an average face (see averageness). In the 1990s, a hundred years after his discovery, much psychological research has examined the attractiveness of these faces, an aspect that Galton had remarked on in his original lecture. Others, including Sigmund Freud in his work on dreams, picked up Galton's suggestion that these composites might represent a useful metaphor for an Ideal type or a concept of a "natural kind" (see Eleanor Rosch)—such as Jewish men, criminals, patients with tuberculosis, etc.—onto the same photographic plate, thereby yielding a blended whole, or "composite", that he hoped could generalise the facial appearance of his subject into an "average" or "central type".[7][60] (See also entry Modern physiognomy under Physiognomy).

This work began in the 1880s while the Jewish scholar Joseph Jacobs studied anthropology and statistics with Francis Galton. Jacobs asked Galton to create a composite photograph of a Jewish type.[61] One of Jacobs' first publications that used Galton's composite imagery was "The Jewish Type, and Galton's Composite Photographs," Photographic News, 29, (24 April 1885): 268–269.

Galton hoped his technique would aid medical diagnosis, and even criminology through the identification of typical criminal faces. However, his technique did not prove useful and fell into disuse, although after much work on it including by photographers Lewis Hine and John L. Lovell and Arthur Batut.

Fingerprints

The method of identifying criminals by their fingerprints had been introduced in the 1860s by Sir William James Herschel in India, and their potential use in forensic work was first proposed by Dr Henry Faulds in 1880. Galton was introduced to the field by his half-cousin Charles Darwin, who was a friend of Faulds's, and he went on to create the first scientific footing for the study (which assisted its acceptance by the courts[62]) although Galton did not ever give credit that the original idea was not his.[63]

In a Royal Institution paper in 1888 and three books (Finger Prints, 1892; Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints, 1893; and Fingerprint Directories, 1895),[64] Galton estimated the probability of two persons having the same fingerprint and studied the heritability and racial differences in fingerprints. He wrote about the technique (inadvertently sparking a controversy between Herschel and Faulds that was to last until 1917), identifying common pattern in fingerprints and devising a classification system that survives to this day. He described and classified them into eight broad categories: 1: plain arch, 2: tented arch, 3: simple loop, 4: central pocket loop, 5: double loop, 6: lateral pocket loop, 7: plain whorl, and 8: accidental.[65]

Final years

 
Francis Galton (right), aged 87, on the stoep at Fox Holm, Cobham, with the statistician Karl Pearson.

In an effort to reach a wider audience, Galton worked on a novel entitled Kantsaywhere from May until December 1910. The novel described a utopia organized by a eugenic religion, designed to breed fitter and smarter humans. His unpublished notebooks show that this was an expansion of material he had been composing since at least 1901. He offered it to Methuen for publication, but they showed little enthusiasm. Galton wrote to his niece that it should be either "smothered or superseded". His niece appears to have burnt most of the novel, offended by the love scenes, but large fragments survived,[66] and it was published online by University College, London.[67]

Galton is buried in the family tomb in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels, in the village of Claverdon, Warwickshire.[68]

Personal life and character

In January 1853, Galton met Louisa Jane Butler (1822–1897) at his neighbour's home and they were married on 1 August 1853. The union of 43 years proved childless.[69][70]

 
Louisa Jane Butler

It has been written of Galton that "On his own estimation he was a supremely intelligent man."[71] Later in life, Galton proposed a connection between genius and insanity based on his own experience:

Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who, being gifted and full of nervous power, are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea, and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity.

— Pearson & 1914, 1924, 1930

Awards and influence

Over the course of his career Galton received many awards, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (1910). He received in 1853 the Founder's Medal, the highest award of the Royal Geographical Society, for his explorations and map-making of southwest Africa. He was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club in 1855 and made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1860. His autobiography also lists:[72]

  • Silver Medal, French Geographical Society (1854)
  • Gold Medal of the Royal Society (1886)
  • Officier de l'Instruction Publique, France (1891)
  • D.C.L. Oxford (1894)
  • Sc.D. (Honorary), Cambridge (1895)
  • Huxley Medal, Anthropological Institute (1901)
  • Elected Hon. Fellow Trinity College, Cambridge (1902)
  • Darwin Medal, Royal Society (1902)
  • Linnean Society of London's Darwin–Wallace Medal (1908)

Galton was knighted in 1909. His statistical heir Karl Pearson, first holder of the Galton Chair of Eugenics at University College, London (now Galton Chair of Genetics), wrote a three-volume biography of Galton, in four parts, after his death.[73][74][75][76]

The flowering plant genus Galtonia was named after Galton.

University College London has in the twenty-first century been involved in a historical inquiry into its role as the institutional birthplace of eugenics. Galton established a laboratory at UCL in 1904. Some students and staff have called on the university to rename its Galton lecture theatre. "Galton's seductive promise was of a bold new world filled only with beautiful, intelligent, productive people. The scientists in its thrall claimed this could be achieved by controlling reproduction, policing borders to prevent certain types of immigrants, and locking away "undesirables", including disabled people."[77]

Published works

  • The art of travel, or, Shifts and contrivances available in wild countries. London: John Murray. 1855.
  • Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa. London. 1853.
  • Hereditary Genius. London: Macmillan. 1869.
  • "Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer". Fortnightly Review. 12: 125–35. 1872.
  • "On men of science, their nature and their nurture". Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain. 7: 227–236. 1874.
  • "Typical laws of heredity". Nature. 15 (388): 492–495, 512–514, 532–533. 1877. Bibcode:1877Natur..15..492.. doi:10.1038/015492a0.
  • "Composite portraits" (PDF). Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 8: 132–142. 1878. doi:10.2307/2841021. JSTOR 2841021. (PDF) from the original on 18 June 2006.
  • Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development. Macmillan. 1883. p. 24.
  • "Anthropometric Laboratory", Science, London: William Clowes, 5 (114): 294–295, 1884, Bibcode:1885Sci.....5..294., doi:10.1126/science.ns-5.114.294, PMID 17831706
  • "On the Anthropometric Laboratory at the Late International Health Exhibition". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 14: 205–221. 1 January 1885a. doi:10.2307/2841978. JSTOR 2841978. Zenodo: 1449574.
  • "Regression Towards Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature". The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 15: 246–263. 1886. doi:10.2307/2841583. JSTOR 2841583. Zenodo: 1449548.
  • "Hereditary stature". Nature. 33 (848): 295–298. 1886b. Bibcode:1886Natur..33..295.. doi:10.1038/033295c0.
  • "Co-Relations and Their Measurement, Chiefly from Anthropometric Data". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 45 (273–279): 135–145. 1 January 1888. Bibcode:1888RSPS...45..135G. doi:10.1098/rspl.1888.0082. JSTOR 114860. S2CID 13851067.
  • Natural Inheritance (PDF). London: Macmillan. 1889. (PDF) from the original on 14 December 2007.
  • "Cutting a Round Cake on Scientific Principles (Letters to the Editor)" (PDF). Nature. 75 (1938): 173. 20 December 1906. Bibcode:1906Natur..75..173G. doi:10.1038/075173c0. S2CID 3980060. (PDF) from the original on 14 November 2006.
  • "Vox Populi" (PDF). Nature. 75 (1949): 450–451. 7 March 1907. Bibcode:1907Natur..75..450G. doi:10.1038/075450a0. S2CID 4013898. (PDF) from the original on 1 March 2006.
  • Memories of My Life. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company. 1909. p. 331.
  • Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences. Macmillan. 1914.
  • "The Eugenic College of Kantsaywhere". Utopian Studies. 12 (2): 191–209. 2001. ISSN 1045-991X. JSTOR 20718325. OCLC 5542769084.

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Francis Galton - Biography, Books and Theories". famouspsychologists.org. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
  2. ^ Galton 1874, pp. 227–236.
  3. ^ a b Galton 1869.
  4. ^ Galton 1872, pp. 125–135.
  5. ^ Galton 1855, p. 208.
  6. ^ Barile, Margherita; Weisstein, Eric W. "Francis Galton (1822-1911)". Eric Weisstein's World of Scientific Biography. Retrieved 9 January 2017.
  7. ^ a b Galton 1883.
  8. ^ Darwin 1887, p. 5.
  9. ^ a b Bulmer 2003, p. 4.
  10. ^ Cowan 2005.
  11. ^ "Galton, Francis (GLTN839F)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  12. ^ 'Scientific Lodge No. 105 Cambridge' in Membership Records: Foreign and Country Lodges, Nos. 17–145, 1837–1862. London: Library and Museum of Freemasonry (manuscript)
  13. ^ M. Merrington and J. Golden (1976) A List of the Papers and Correspondence of Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) held in The Manuscripts Room, The Library, University College London. The Galton Laboratory, University College London (typescript), at Section 88 on p. 10
  14. ^ Bulmer 2003, p. 5.
  15. ^ Galton 1853.
  16. ^ Bulmer 2003, p. 16.
  17. ^ "Francis Galton: Meteorologist". Galton.org. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
  18. ^ Bulmer 2003, p. 29.
  19. ^ a b c d e Gillham 2001a.
  20. ^ Hergenhahn & Henley 2013, p. 288.
  21. ^ Galton, Francis (5 June 1873). "Africa For The Chinese:To The Editor Of The Times". The Times – via galton.org.
  22. ^ Forrest 1974, p. 84.
  23. ^ Charny, Israel W.; Adalian, Rouben Paul; Jacobs, Steven L.; Markusen, Eric; Sherman, Marc I. (1999). Encyclopedia of Genocide: A-H. ABC-CLIO. p. 218. ISBN 978-0-87436-928-1.
  24. ^ "UCL renames three facilities that honoured prominent eugenicists". The Guardian. 19 June 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
  25. ^ a b Stigler 2010, pp. 469–482.
  26. ^ Galton 1914, p. 57.
  27. ^ a b c Stigler 1986, pp. 265–299.
  28. ^ a b Galton, Francis (1885b). "Opening address as President of the Anthropology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, September 10th, 1885, at Aberdeen". Nature. 32: 507–510.
  29. ^ Galton 1886, pp. 246–263.
  30. ^ Galton 1886b, pp. 295–298.
  31. ^ a b c Galton 1877, pp. 492–495, 512–514, 532–533.
  32. ^ Bulmer 1998, pp. 579–585.
  33. ^ Gillham 2001b, pp. 1383–1392.
  34. ^ Gillham 2013, pp. 61–75.
  35. ^ . Science Show. 25 November 2000. Archived from the original on 14 January 2008. Retrieved 8 September 2007.
  36. ^ Bulmer 2003, pp. 116–118.
  37. ^ Bulmer 2003, pp. 105–107.
  38. ^ Nelson, Pettersson & Carlborg 2013, pp. 669–676.
  39. ^ a b c d Galton 1885a, pp. 205–221.
  40. ^ a b Galton 1884.
  41. ^ Gillham 2001c, pp. 82–102.
  42. ^ Galton 1888, pp. 273–279.
  43. ^ Caprara & Cervone 2000, p. 68.
  44. ^ a b c Clauser 2007, pp. 440–444.
  45. ^ Chad Denby. "Science Timeline". Science Timeline. Retrieved 22 April 2013.
  46. ^ Galton 1907, p. 450.
  47. ^ "The Ballot Box", Nature, 28 March 1907
  48. ^ Wallis 2014, pp. 420–424.
  49. ^ Surowiecki 2004.
  50. ^ Galton 1906, p. 173.
  51. ^ Galton 1886, p. 248, Plate X.
  52. ^ Bravais 1846, pp. 255–332.
  53. ^ Galton 1888, pp. 135–145.
  54. ^ Bulmer 2003, pp. 191–196.
  55. ^ Bulmer 2003, pp. 182–184.
  56. ^ Bulmer 2003, p. 184.
  57. ^ Galton 1889.
  58. ^ "Francis Galton: The man who drew up the 'ugly map' of Britain". BBC. 16 June 2011. Retrieved 24 June 2020.
  59. ^ Jensen 2002, pp. 145–172.
  60. ^ Galton 1878, pp. 132–142.
  61. ^ Novak 2008, p. 100.
  62. ^ Bulmer 2003, p. 35.
  63. ^ "Tribute to fingerprinting pioneer". BBC News. 12 November 2004. Retrieved 1 June 2019.
  64. ^ Conklin, Gardner & Shortelle 2002.
  65. ^ Innes 2005, pp. 32–33.
  66. ^ Pearson 1930a, p. 413.
  67. ^ Galton & Sargent 2001, pp. 191–209.
  68. ^ Challis, Debbie. "The Grave of Francis Galton". UCL Museums & Collections Blog. Retrieved 27 January 2019.
  69. ^ Pearson 1914b, p. 281.
  70. ^ . Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. Retrieved 28 June 2010.
  71. ^ Winston 2020.
  72. ^ Galton 1909, p. 331.
  73. ^ Pearson 1914a.
  74. ^ Pearson 1914b.
  75. ^ Pearson 1930a.
  76. ^ Pearson 1930b.
  77. ^ Saini 2019.

Sources

  • Bravais, A (1846). "Analyse mathématique sur les probabilités des erreurs de situation d'un point" [Mathematical analysis of the probabilities of errors in a point's location]. Mémoires Presents Par Divers Savants à l'Académie des Sciences de l'Institut de France. Sciences Mathématiques et Physiques. 9: 255–332.
  • Bulmer, Michael (1998). "Galton's law of ancestral heredity". Heredity. 81 (5): 579–585. doi:10.1038/sj.hdy.6884180. PMID 9988590.
  • Bulmer, Michael (2003). Francis Galton: Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7403-1.
  • Caprara, G. V.; Cervone, D. (2000). Personality: Determinants, Dynamics, and Potentials. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58310-7.
  • Clauser, Brian E. (2007). "The Life and Labors of Francis Galton: A Review of Four Recent Books About the Father of Behavioral Statistics". Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics. 32 (4): 440–444. doi:10.3102/1076998607307449. S2CID 121124511.
  • Conklin, Barbara Gardner; Gardner, Robert; Shortelle, Dennis (2002). Encyclopedia of Forensic Science: A Compendium of Detective Fact and Fiction. Oryx Press. ISBN 978-1-57356-170-9.
  • Cowan, Ruth S. (22 September 2005). "Galton, Sir Francis, (1822–1911)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/33315. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Darwin, C. R. (27 April 1871). "Pangenesis". Nature. 3 (78): 502–503. Bibcode:1871Natur...3..502D. doi:10.1038/003502a0.
  • Darwin, Francis (1887). The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. Vol. 1. New York: Appleton and Co.
  • Forrest, D.W. (1974). Francis Galton: The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius. Taplinger. ISBN 978-0-8008-2682-6.
  • Gillham, Nicholas Wright (2001a). A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-534943-6.
  • Gillham, Nicholas (2001b). "Evolution by Jumps: Francis Galton and William Bateson and the Mechanism of Evolutionary Change". Genetics. 159 (4): 1383–1392. doi:10.1093/genetics/159.4.1383. PMC 1461897. PMID 11779782.
  • Gillham, Nicholas W. (2001c). "Sir Francis Galton and the Birth of Eugenics". Annual Review of Genetics. 35: 83–102. doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.35.102401.090055. PMID 11700278.
  • Gillham, Nicholas (9 August 2013). "The Battle Between the Biometricians and the Mendelians: How Sir Francis Galton's Work Caused his Disciples to Reach Conflicting Conclusions About the Hereditary Mechanism". Science & Education. 24 (1–2): 61–75. Bibcode:2015Sc&Ed..24...61G. doi:10.1007/s11191-013-9642-1. S2CID 144727928.
  • Hergenhahn, B. R.; Henley, Tracy (2013). An Introduction to the History of Psychology. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-133-95809-3.
  • Innes, Brian (2005). Body in Question: Exploring the Cutting Edge in Forensic Science. Barnes & Noble. ISBN 978-0-7607-7560-8.
  • Jensen, Arthur R. (April 2002). "Galton's Legacy to Research on Intelligence". Journal of Biosocial Science. 34 (2): 145–172. doi:10.1017/s0021932002001451. PMID 11926452. S2CID 20153127.
  • Nelson, R; Pettersson, M; Carlborg, C (23 October 2013). "A century after Fisher: time for a new paradigm in quantitative genetics". Trends in Genetics. 29 (12): 669–676. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2013.09.006. PMID 24161664.
  • Novak, Daniel A. (May 2008). Realism, Photography and Nineteenth-Century Fiction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-88525-6.
  • Pearson, Karl (1914a). The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton. Vol. 1. Cambridge: University Press.
  • Pearson, Karl (1914b). The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton. Vol. 2. Cambridge: University Press.
  • Pearson, Karl (1930a). The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton. Vol. 3A. Cambridge: University Press.
  • Pearson, Karl (1930b). The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton. Vol. 3B. Cambridge: University Press.
  • Pearson, Karl. "The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton (3 vols. 1914, 1924, 1930)".
  • Saini, Angela (3 October 2019). "In the twisted story of eugenics, the bad guy is all of us". The Guardian.
  • Stigler, Stephen M. (1986). The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-40341-3.
  • Stigler, Stephen M. (1 July 2010). "Darwin, Galton and the Statistical Enlightenment". Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A. 173 (3): 469–482. doi:10.1111/j.1467-985X.2010.00643.x. ISSN 1467-985X. S2CID 53333238.
  • Surowiecki, James (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Random House.
  • Wallis, Kenneth F (2014). "Revisiting Francis Galton's forecasting competition". Statistical Science. 29 (3): 420–424. arXiv:1410.3989. Bibcode:2014arXiv1410.3989W. doi:10.1214/14-STS468. S2CID 53642221.
  • Winston, Robert (23 February 2020). "Robert Winston: eugenics has evil in its DNA". The Times.

Further reading

  • Brookes, Martin (2004). Extreme Measures: The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton. Bloomsbury.
  • Cowan, Ruth Schwartz (1969). Sir Francis Galton and the Study of Heredity in the Nineteenth Century (PhD). Georgetown University. hdl:10822/548629.
  • Ewen, Stuart; Ewen, Elizabeth (2006), "Nordic Nightmares", Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality, Seven Stories Press, pp. 257–325, ISBN 978-1-58322-735-0
  • Quinche, Nicolas (2006). Crime, Science et Identité. Anthologie des textes fondateurs de la criminalistique européenne (1860–1930) [Crime, Science and Identity: An Anthology of Foundational Texts in European Criminology] (in French). Genève: Slatkine. p. 368.

External links

February 17, 2023
francis, galton, galton, redirects, here, other, uses, galton, disambiguation, frai, ɔː, february, 1822, january, 1911, english, victorian, polymath, statistician, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, tropical, explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologi. Galton redirects here For other uses see Galton disambiguation Sir Francis Galton FRS FRAI ˈ ɡ ɔː l t en 16 February 1822 17 January 1911 was an English Victorian era polymath a statistician sociologist psychologist 1 anthropologist tropical explorer geographer inventor meteorologist proto geneticist psychometrician and a proponent of social Darwinism eugenics and scientific racism He was knighted in 1909 SirFrancis GaltonFRS FRAIPortrait by Gustav Graef 1882Born 1822 02 16 16 February 1822Birmingham EnglandDied17 January 1911 1911 01 17 aged 88 Haslemere Surrey EnglandResting placeClaverdon Warwickshire EnglandAlma materKing s College LondonTrinity College CambridgeKnown forEugenicsBehavioural geneticsRegression toward the meanStandard deviationAnticycloneIsochrone mapWeather mapGalton boardGalton distributionGalton Watson processGalton s problemGalton s whistleAwardsRoyal Geographical Society s Founder s Medal 1853 Royal Medal 1886 Huxley Memorial Medal 1901 Darwin Wallace Medal Silver 1908 Copley Medal 1910 Scientific careerFieldsAnthropology Sociology Psychology StatisticsInstitutionsMeteorological CouncilRoyal Geographical SocietyAcademic advisorsWilliam HopkinsNotable studentsKarl PearsonAuthor abbrev zoology F Galton GaltonGalton produced over 340 papers and books He also created the statistical concept of correlation and widely promoted regression toward the mean He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies He was a pioneer of eugenics coining the term itself in 1883 and also coined the phrase nature versus nurture 2 His book Hereditary Genius 1869 was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness 3 As an investigator of the human mind he founded psychometrics the science of measuring mental faculties and differential psychology as well as the lexical hypothesis of personality He devised a method for classifying fingerprints that proved useful in forensic science He also conducted research on the power of prayer concluding it had none due to its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for 4 His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea 5 As the initiator of scientific meteorology he devised the first weather map proposed a theory of anticyclones and was the first to establish a complete record of short term climatic phenomena on a European scale 6 He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability 7 He was Charles Darwin s half cousin 8 Contents 1 Early life 2 Middle years 3 Heredity and eugenics 4 Model for population stability 5 Empirical test of pangenesis and Lamarckism 6 Anthropometric Laboratory at the 1884 International Health Exhibition 7 Innovations in statistics and psychological theory 7 1 Historiometry 7 2 The lexical hypothesis 7 3 The questionnaire 7 4 Variance and standard deviation 7 5 Experimental derivation of the normal distribution 7 6 Bivariate normal distribution 7 7 Correlation and regression 7 8 Regression toward the mean 7 9 Theories of perception 7 10 Differential psychology 7 11 Composite photography 8 Fingerprints 9 Final years 10 Personal life and character 11 Awards and influence 12 Published works 13 See also 14 References 14 1 Citations 14 2 Sources 14 3 Further reading 15 External linksEarly life EditGalton was born at The Larches a large house in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham England built on the site of Fair Hill the former home of Joseph Priestley which the botanist William Withering had renamed He was Charles Darwin s half cousin sharing the common grandparent Erasmus Darwin His father was Samuel Tertius Galton son of Samuel Galton Jr He was also a cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton The Galtons were Quaker gun manufacturers and bankers while the Darwins were involved in medicine and science Both the Galton and Darwin families included Fellows of the Royal Society and members who loved to invent in their spare time Both Erasmus Darwin and Samuel Galton were founding members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham which included Matthew Boulton James Watt Josiah Wedgwood Joseph Priestley and Richard Lovell Edgeworth Both families were known for their literary talent Erasmus Darwin composed lengthy technical treatises in verse Galton s aunt Mary Anne Galton wrote on aesthetics and religion and her autobiography detailed the environment of her childhood populated by Lunar Society members Portrait of Galton by Octavius Oakley 1840 Galton was a child prodigy he was reading by the age of two at age five he knew some Greek Latin and long division and by the age of six he had moved on to adult books including Shakespeare for pleasure and poetry which he quoted at length 9 Galton attended King Edward s School Birmingham but chafed at the narrow classical curriculum and left at 16 10 His parents pressed him to enter the medical profession and he studied for two years at Birmingham General Hospital and King s College London Medical School He followed this up with mathematical studies at Trinity College Cambridge from 1840 to early 1844 11 According to the records of the United Grand Lodge of England it was in February 1844 that Galton became a freemason at the Scientific lodge held at the Red Lion Inn in Cambridge progressing through the three masonic degrees Apprentice 5 February 1844 Fellow Craft 11 March 1844 Master Mason 13 May 1844 A note in the record states Francis Galton Trinity College student gained his certificate 13 March 1845 12 One of Galton s masonic certificates from Scientific lodge can be found among his papers at University College London 13 A nervous breakdown prevented Galton s intent to try for honours He elected instead to take a poll pass B A degree like his half cousin Charles Darwin 14 Following the Cambridge custom he was awarded an M A without further study in 1847 He briefly resumed his medical studies but the death of his father in 1844 left him emotionally destitute though financially independent citation needed and he terminated his medical studies entirely turning to foreign travel sport and technical invention In his early years Galton was an enthusiastic traveller and made a notable solo trip through Eastern Europe to Constantinople before going up to Cambridge In 1845 and 1846 he went to Egypt and travelled up the Nile to Khartoum in the Sudan and from there to Beirut Damascus and down to Jordan In 1850 he joined the Royal Geographical Society and over the next two years mounted a long and difficult expedition into then little known South West Africa now Namibia He wrote a book on his experience Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa 15 He was awarded the Royal Geographical Society s Founder s Medal in 1853 and the Silver Medal of the French Geographical Society for his pioneering cartographic survey of the region 16 This established his reputation as a geographer and explorer He proceeded to write the best selling The Art of Travel a handbook of practical advice for the Victorian on the move which went through many editions and is still in print Middle years Edit Galton in the 1850s Galton was a polymath who made important contributions in many fields including meteorology the anticyclone and the first popular weather maps statistics regression and correlation psychology synaesthesia biology the nature and mechanism of heredity and criminology fingerprints Much of this was influenced by his penchant for counting and measuring Galton prepared the first weather map published in The Times 1 April 1875 showing the weather from the previous day 31 March now a standard feature in newspapers worldwide 17 He became very active in the British Association for the Advancement of Science presenting many papers on a wide variety of topics at its meetings from 1858 to 1899 18 He was the general secretary from 1863 to 1867 president of the Geographical section in 1867 and 1872 and president of the Anthropological Section in 1877 and 1885 He was active on the council of the Royal Geographical Society for over forty years in various committees of the Royal Society and on the Meteorological Council James McKeen Cattell a student of Wilhelm Wundt who had been reading Galton s articles decided he wanted to study under him He eventually built a professional relationship with Galton measuring subjects and working together on research 19 In 1888 Galton established a lab in the science galleries of the South Kensington Museum In Galton s lab participants could be measured to gain knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses Galton also used these data for his own research He would typically charge people a small fee for his services 20 In 1873 Galton wrote a controversial letter to The Times titled Africa for the Chinese where he argued that the Chinese as a race capable of high civilization and only temporarily stunted by the recent failures of Chinese dynasties should be encouraged to immigrate to Africa and displace the supposedly inferior aboriginal blacks 21 Heredity and eugenics EditThis section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Francis Galton news newspapers books scholar JSTOR January 2018 Learn how and when to remove this template message Galton in his later years Portrait by Charles Wellington Furse 1903 The publication by his cousin Charles Darwin of The Origin of Species in 1859 was an event that changed Galton s life 22 He came to be gripped by the work especially the first chapter on Variation under Domestication concerning animal breeding Galton devoted much of the rest of his life to exploring variation in human populations and its implications at which Darwin had only hinted in The Origin of Species although he returned to it in his 1871 book The Descent of Man drawing on his cousin s work in the intervening period Galton established a research program which embraced multiple aspects of human variation from mental characteristics to height from facial images to fingerprint patterns This required inventing novel measures of traits devising large scale collection of data using those measures and in the end the discovery of new statistical techniques for describing and understanding the data Galton was interested at first in the question of whether human ability was hereditary and proposed to count the number of the relatives of various degrees of eminent men If the qualities were hereditary he reasoned there should be more eminent men among the relatives than among the general population To test this he invented the methods of historiometry Galton obtained extensive data from a broad range of biographical sources which he tabulated and compared in various ways This pioneering work was described in detail in his book Hereditary Genius in 1869 3 Here he showed among other things that the numbers of eminent relatives dropped off when going from the first degree to the second degree relatives and from the second degree to the third He took this as evidence of the inheritance of abilities Galton recognized the limitations of his methods in these two works and believed the question could be better studied by comparisons of twins His method envisaged testing to see if twins who were similar at birth diverged in dissimilar environments and whether twins dissimilar at birth converged when reared in similar environments He again used the method of questionnaires to gather various sorts of data which were tabulated and described in a paper The history of twins in 1875 In so doing he anticipated the modern field of behaviour genetics which relies heavily on twin studies He concluded that the evidence favored nature rather than nurture He also proposed adoption studies including trans racial adoption studies to separate the effects of heredity and environment Galton recognized that cultural circumstances influenced the capability of a civilization s citizens and their reproductive success In Hereditary Genius he envisaged a situation conducive to resilient and enduring civilization as follows The best form of civilization in respect to the improvement of the race would be one in which society was not costly where incomes were chiefly derived from professional sources and not much through inheritance where every lad had a chance of showing his abilities and if highly gifted was enabled to achieve a first class education and entrance into professional life by the liberal help of the exhibitions and scholarships which he had gained in his early youth where marriage was held in as high honor as in ancient Jewish times where the pride of race was encouraged of course I do not refer to the nonsensical sentiment of the present day that goes under that name where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods and lastly where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed and their descendants naturalized Galton 1869 p 362Galton invented the term eugenics in 1883 and set down many of his observations and conclusions in a book Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development In the book s introduction he wrote This book s intention is to touch on various topics more or less connected with that of the cultivation of race or as we might call it with eugenic 1 questions and to present the results of several of my own separate investigations 1 This is with questions bearing on what is termed in Greek eugenes namely good in stock hereditarily endowed with noble qualities This and the allied words eugeneia etc are equally applicable to men brutes and plants We greatly want a brief word to express the science of improving stock which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating but which especially in the case of man takes cognizance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had The word eugenics would sufficiently express the idea it is at least a neater word and a more generalized one than viriculture which I once ventured to use Galton 1883 pp 24 25 He believed that a scheme of marks for family merit should be defined and early marriage between families of high rank be encouraged via provision of monetary incentives He pointed out some of the tendencies in British society such as the late marriages of eminent people and the paucity of their children which he thought were dysgenic He advocated encouraging eugenic marriages by supplying able couples with incentives to have children On 29 October 1901 Galton chose to address eugenic issues when he delivered the second Huxley lecture at the Royal Anthropological Institute 19 The Eugenics Review the journal of the Eugenics Education Society commenced publication in 1909 Galton the Honorary President of the society wrote the foreword for the first volume 19 The First International Congress of Eugenics was held in July 1912 Winston Churchill and Carls Elliot were among the attendees 19 According to the Encyclopedia of Genocide Galton bordered on the justification of genocide when he stated There exists a sentiment for the most part quite unreasonable against the gradual extinction of an inferior race 23 In June 2020 UCL announced the renaming of a lecture theatre named after Galton because of his connection with eugenics 24 Model for population stability Edit Sir Francis Galton 1890s Galton s formulation of regression and its link to the bivariate normal distribution can be traced to his attempts at developing a mathematical model for population stability Although Galton s first attempt to study Darwinian questions Hereditary Genius generated little enthusiasm at the time the text led to his further studies in the 1870s concerning the inheritance of physical traits 25 This text contains some crude notions of the concept of regression described in a qualitative matter For example he wrote of dogs If a man breeds from strong well shaped dogs but of mixed pedigree the puppies will be sometimes but rarely the equals of their parents They will commonly be of a mongrel nondescript type because ancestral peculiarities are apt to crop out in the offspring 26 This notion created a problem for Galton as he could not reconcile the tendency of a population to maintain a normal distribution of traits from generation to generation with the notion of inheritance It seemed that a large number of factors operated independently on offspring leading to the normal distribution of a trait in each generation However this provided no explanation as to how a parent can have a significant impact on his offspring which was the basis of inheritance 27 Galton s solution to this problem was presented in his Presidential Address at the September 1885 meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science as he was serving at the time as President of Section H Anthropology 28 The address was published in Nature and Galton further developed the theory in Regression toward mediocrity in hereditary stature and Hereditary Stature 29 30 An elaboration of this theory was published in 1889 in Natural Inheritance There were three key developments that helped Galton develop this theory the development of the law of error in 1874 1875 the formulation of an empirical law of reversion in 1877 and the development of a mathematical framework encompassing regression using human population data during 1885 27 Galton s development of the law of regression to the mean or reversion was due to insights from the Galton board bean machine and his studies of sweet peas While Galton had previously invented the quincunx prior to February 1874 the 1877 version of the quincunx had a new feature that helped Galton demonstrate that a normal mixture of normal distributions is also normal 31 Galton demonstrated this using a new version of quincunx adding chutes to the apparatus to represent reversion When the pellets passed through the curved chutes representing reversion and then the pins representing family variability the result was a stable population On Friday 19 February 1877 Galton gave a lecture entitled Typical Laws of Heredity at the Royal Institution in London 31 In this lecture he posited that there must be a counteracting force to maintain population stability However this model required a much larger degree of intergenerational natural selection than was plausible 25 In 1875 Galton started growing sweet peas and addressed the Royal Institution on his findings on 9 February 1877 31 He found that each group of progeny seeds followed a normal curve and the curves were equally disperse Each group was not centered about the parent s weight but rather at a weight closer to the population average Galton called this reversion as every progeny group was distributed at a value that was closer to the population average than the parent The deviation from the population average was in the same direction but the magnitude of the deviation was only one third as large In doing so Galton demonstrated that there was variability among each of the families yet the families combined to produce a stable normally distributed population When Galton addressed the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1885 he said of his investigation of sweet peas I was then blind to what I now perceive to be the simple explanation of the phenomenon 28 Galton was able to further his notion of regression by collecting and analyzing data on human stature Galton asked for help of mathematician J Hamilton Dickson in investigating the geometric relationship of the data He determined that the regression coefficient did not ensure population stability by chance but rather that the regression coefficient conditional variance and population were interdependent quantities related by a simple equation 27 Thus Galton identified that the linearity of regression was not coincidental but rather was a necessary consequence of population stability The model for population stability resulted in Galton s formulation of the Law of Ancestral Heredity This law which was published in Natural Inheritance states that the two parents of an offspring jointly contribute one half of an offspring s heritage while the other more removed ancestors constitute a smaller proportion of the offspring s heritage 32 Galton viewed reversion as a spring that when stretched would return the distribution of traits back to the normal distribution He concluded that evolution would have to occur via discontinuous steps as reversion would neutralize any incremental steps 33 When Mendel s principles were rediscovered in 1900 this resulted in a fierce battle between the followers of Galton s Law of Ancestral Heredity the biometricians and those who advocated Mendel s principles 34 Empirical test of pangenesis and Lamarckism EditGalton conducted wide ranging inquiries into heredity which led him to challenge Charles Darwin s hypothesis of pangenesis Darwin had proposed as part of this model that certain particles which he called gemmules moved throughout the body and were also responsible for the inheritance of acquired characteristics Galton in consultation with Darwin set out to see if they were transported in the blood In a long series of experiments in 1869 to 1871 he transfused the blood between dissimilar breeds of rabbits and examined the features of their offspring 35 He found no evidence of characters transmitted in the transfused blood 36 Darwin challenged the validity of Galton s experiment giving his reasons in an article published in Nature where he wrote Now in the chapter on Pangenesis in my Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication I have not said one word about the blood or about any fluid proper to any circulating system It is indeed obvious that the presence of gemmules in the blood can form no necessary part of my hypothesis for I refer in illustration of it to the lowest animals such as the Protozoa which do not possess blood or any vessels and I refer to plants in which the fluid when present in the vessels cannot be considered as true blood The fundamental laws of growth reproduction inheritance amp c are so closely similar throughout the whole organic kingdom that the means by which the gemmules assuming for the moment their existence are diffused through the body would probably be the same in all beings therefore the means can hardly be diffusion through the blood Nevertheless when I first heard of Mr Galton s experiments I did not sufficiently reflect on the subject and saw not the difficulty of believing in the presence of gemmules in the blood Darwin 1871 pp 502 503 Galton explicitly rejected the idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckism and was an early proponent of hard heredity 37 through selection alone He came close to rediscovering Mendel s particulate theory of inheritance but was prevented from making the final breakthrough in this regard because of his focus on continuous rather than discrete traits now regarded as polygenic traits He went on to found the biometric approach to the study of heredity distinguished by its use of statistical techniques to study continuous traits and population scale aspects of heredity This approach was later taken up enthusiastically by Karl Pearson and W F R Weldon together they founded the highly influential journal Biometrika in 1901 R A Fisher would later show how the biometrical approach could be reconciled with the Mendelian approach 38 The statistical techniques that Galton invented correlation and regression see below and phenomena he established regression to the mean formed the basis of the biometric approach and are now essential tools in all social sciences Anthropometric Laboratory at the 1884 International Health Exhibition EditIn 1884 London hosted the International Health Exhibition This exhibition placed much emphasis on highlighting Victorian developments in sanitation and public health and allowed the nation to display its advanced public health outreach compared to other countries at the time Francis Galton took advantage of this opportunity to set up his anthropometric laboratory He stated that the purpose of this laboratory was to show the public the simplicity of the instruments and methods by which the chief physical characteristics of man may be measured and recorded 39 The laboratory was an interactive walk through in which physical characteristics such as height weight and eyesight would be measured for each subject after payment of an admission fee Upon entering the laboratory a subject would visit the following stations in order First they would fill out a form with personal and family history age birthplace marital status residence and occupation then visit stations that recorded hair and eye color followed by the keenness color sense and depth perception of sight Next they would examine the keenness or relative acuteness of hearing and highest audible note of their hearing followed by an examination of their sense of touch However because the surrounding area was noisy the apparatus intended to measure hearing was rendered ineffective by the noise and echoes in the building Their breathing capacity would also be measured as well as their ability to throw a punch The next stations would examine strength of both pulling and squeezing with both hands Lastly subjects heights in various positions sitting standing etc as well as arm span and weight would be measured 39 One excluded characteristic of interest was the size of the head Galton notes in his analysis that this omission was mostly for practical reasons For instance it would not be very accurate and additionally it would require much time for women to disassemble and reassemble their hair and bonnets 40 The patrons would then be given a souvenir containing all their biological data while Galton would also keep a copy for future statistical research Although the laboratory did not employ any revolutionary measurement techniques it was unique because of the simple logistics of constructing such a demonstration within a limited space and because of the speed and efficiency with which all the necessary data were gathered The laboratory itself was a see through lattice walled fenced off gallery measuring 36 feet long by 6 feet long To collect data efficiently Galton had to make the process as simple as possible for people to understand As a result subjects were taken through the laboratory in pairs so that explanations could be given to two at a time also in the hope that one of the two would confidently take the initiative to go through all the tests first encouraging the other With this design the total time spent in the exhibit was fourteen minutes for each pair 39 Galton states that the measurements of human characteristics are useful for two reasons First he states that measuring physical characteristics is useful in order to ensure on a more domestic level that children are developing properly A useful example he gives for the practicality of these domestic measurements is regularly checking a child s eyesight in order to correct any deficiencies early on The second use for the data from his anthropometric laboratory is for statistical studies He comments on the usefulness of the collected data to compare attributes across occupations residences races etc 39 The exhibit at the health exhibition allowed Galton to collect a large amount of raw data from which to conduct further comparative studies He had 9 337 respondents each measured in 17 categories creating a rather comprehensive statistical database 40 After the conclusion of the International Health Exhibition Galton used these data to confirm in humans his theory of linear regression posed after studying sweet peas The accumulation of this human data allowed him to observe the correlation between forearm length and height head width and head breadth and head length and height With these observations he was able to write Co relations and their Measurements chiefly from Anthropometric Data 41 In this publication Galton defined what co relation as a phenomenon that occurs when the variation of the one variable is accompanied on the average by more or less variation of the other and in the same direction 42 Innovations in statistics and psychological theory EditHistoriometry Edit The method used in Hereditary Genius has been described as the first example of historiometry To bolster these results and to attempt to make a distinction between nature and nurture he was the first to apply this phrase to the topic he devised a questionnaire that he sent out to 190 Fellows of the Royal Society He tabulated characteristics of their families such as birth order and the occupation and race of their parents He attempted to discover whether their interest in science was innate or due to the encouragements of others The studies were published as a book English men of science their nature and nurture in 1874 In the end it promoted the nature versus nurture question though it did not settle it and provided some fascinating data on the sociology of scientists of the time citation needed The lexical hypothesis Edit Sir Francis was the first scientist to recognise what is now known as the lexical hypothesis 43 This is the idea that the most salient and socially relevant personality differences in people s lives will eventually become encoded into language The hypothesis further suggests that by sampling language it is possible to derive a comprehensive taxonomy of human personality traits The questionnaire Edit Galton s inquiries into the mind involved detailed recording of people s subjective accounts of whether and how their minds dealt with phenomena such as mental imagery To better elicit this information he pioneered the use of the questionnaire In one study he asked his fellow members of the Royal Society of London to describe mental images that they experienced In another he collected in depth surveys from eminent scientists for a work examining the effects of nature and nurture on the propensity toward scientific thinking 44 Variance and standard deviation Edit Core to any statistical analysis is the concept that measurements vary they have both a central tendency or mean and a spread around this central value or variance In the late 1860s Galton conceived of a measure to quantify normal variation the standard deviation 45 Galton was a keen observer In 1906 visiting a livestock fair he stumbled upon an intriguing contest An ox was on display and the villagers were invited to guess the animal s weight after it was slaughtered and dressed Nearly 800 participated and Galton was able to study their individual entries after the event Galton stated that the middlemost estimate expresses the vox populi every other estimate being condemned as too low or too high by a majority of the voters 46 and reported this value the median in terminology he himself had introduced but chose not to use on this occasion as 1 207 pounds To his surprise this was within 0 8 of the weight measured by the judges Soon afterwards in response to an enquiry he reported 47 the mean of the guesses as 1 197 pounds but did not comment on its improved accuracy Recent archival research 48 has found some slips in transmitting Galton s calculations to the original article in Nature the median was actually 1 208 pounds and the dressed weight of the ox 1 197 pounds so the mean estimate had zero error James Surowiecki 49 uses this weight judging competition as his opening example had he known the true result his conclusion on the wisdom of the crowd would no doubt have been more strongly expressed The same year Galton suggested in a letter to the journal Nature a better method of cutting a round cake by avoiding making radial incisions 50 Experimental derivation of the normal distribution Edit Galton s 1889 illustration of the quincunx or Galton board Studying variation Galton invented the Galton board a pachinko like device also known as the bean machine as a tool for demonstrating the law of error and the normal distribution 9 Bivariate normal distribution Edit He also discovered the properties of the bivariate normal distribution and its relationship to correlation and regression analysis Correlation and regression Edit Galton s correlation diagram 1886 51 In 1846 the French physicist Auguste Bravais 1811 1863 first developed what would become the correlation coefficient 52 After examining forearm and height measurements Galton independently rediscovered the concept of correlation in 1888 53 54 and demonstrated its application in the study of heredity anthropology and psychology 44 Galton s later statistical study of the probability of extinction of surnames led to the concept of Galton Watson stochastic processes 55 Galton invented the use of the regression line 56 and for the choice of r for reversion or regression to represent the correlation coefficient 44 In the 1870s and 1880s he was a pioneer in the use of normal theory to fit histograms and ogives to actual tabulated data much of which he collected himself for instance large samples of sibling and parental height Consideration of the results from these empirical studies led to his further insights into evolution natural selection and regression to the mean Regression toward the mean Edit Galton was the first to describe and explain the common phenomenon of regression toward the mean which he first observed in his experiments on the size of the seeds of successive generations of sweet peas The conditions under which regression toward the mean occurs depend on the way the term is mathematically defined Galton first observed the phenomenon in the context of simple linear regression of data points Galton 57 developed the following model pellets fall through a quincunx or bean machine forming a normal distribution centered directly under their entrance point These pellets could then be released down into a second gallery corresponding to a second measurement occasion Galton then asked the reverse question from where did these pellets come The answer was not on average directly above Rather it was on average more towards the middle for the simple reason that there were more pellets above it towards the middle that could wander left than there were in the left extreme that could wander to the right inwards Stigler 2010 p 477 Theories of perception Edit Galton went beyond measurement and summary to attempt to explain the phenomena he observed Among such developments he proposed an early theory of ranges of sound and hearing and collected large quantities of anthropometric data from the public through his popular and long running Anthropometric Laboratory which he established in 1884 and where he studied over 9 000 people 19 It was not until 1985 that these data were analysed in their entirety He made a beauty map of Britain based on a secret grading of the local women on a scale from attractive to repulsive The lowest point was in Aberdeen 58 Differential psychology Edit Main article Differential psychology Galton s study of human abilities ultimately led to the foundation of differential psychology and the formulation of the first mental tests He was interested in measuring humans in every way possible This included measuring their ability to make sensory discrimination which he assumed was linked to intellectual prowess Galton suggested that individual differences in general ability are reflected in performance on relatively simple sensory capacities and in speed of reaction to a stimulus variables that could be objectively measured by tests of sensory discrimination and reaction time 59 He also measured how quickly people reacted which he later linked to internal wiring which ultimately limited intelligence ability Throughout his research Galton assumed that people who reacted faster were more intelligent than others Composite photography Edit Galton also devised a technique called composite portraiture produced by superimposing multiple photographic portraits of individuals faces registered on their eyes to create an average face see averageness In the 1990s a hundred years after his discovery much psychological research has examined the attractiveness of these faces an aspect that Galton had remarked on in his original lecture Others including Sigmund Freud in his work on dreams picked up Galton s suggestion that these composites might represent a useful metaphor for an Ideal type or a concept of a natural kind see Eleanor Rosch such as Jewish men criminals patients with tuberculosis etc onto the same photographic plate thereby yielding a blended whole or composite that he hoped could generalise the facial appearance of his subject into an average or central type 7 60 See also entry Modern physiognomy under Physiognomy This work began in the 1880s while the Jewish scholar Joseph Jacobs studied anthropology and statistics with Francis Galton Jacobs asked Galton to create a composite photograph of a Jewish type 61 One of Jacobs first publications that used Galton s composite imagery was The Jewish Type and Galton s Composite Photographs Photographic News 29 24 April 1885 268 269 Galton hoped his technique would aid medical diagnosis and even criminology through the identification of typical criminal faces However his technique did not prove useful and fell into disuse although after much work on it including by photographers Lewis Hine and John L Lovell and Arthur Batut Fingerprints EditThe method of identifying criminals by their fingerprints had been introduced in the 1860s by Sir William James Herschel in India and their potential use in forensic work was first proposed by Dr Henry Faulds in 1880 Galton was introduced to the field by his half cousin Charles Darwin who was a friend of Faulds s and he went on to create the first scientific footing for the study which assisted its acceptance by the courts 62 although Galton did not ever give credit that the original idea was not his 63 In a Royal Institution paper in 1888 and three books Finger Prints 1892 Decipherment of Blurred Finger Prints 1893 and Fingerprint Directories 1895 64 Galton estimated the probability of two persons having the same fingerprint and studied the heritability and racial differences in fingerprints He wrote about the technique inadvertently sparking a controversy between Herschel and Faulds that was to last until 1917 identifying common pattern in fingerprints and devising a classification system that survives to this day He described and classified them into eight broad categories 1 plain arch 2 tented arch 3 simple loop 4 central pocket loop 5 double loop 6 lateral pocket loop 7 plain whorl and 8 accidental 65 Final years Edit Francis Galton right aged 87 on the stoep at Fox Holm Cobham with the statistician Karl Pearson In an effort to reach a wider audience Galton worked on a novel entitled Kantsaywhere from May until December 1910 The novel described a utopia organized by a eugenic religion designed to breed fitter and smarter humans His unpublished notebooks show that this was an expansion of material he had been composing since at least 1901 He offered it to Methuen for publication but they showed little enthusiasm Galton wrote to his niece that it should be either smothered or superseded His niece appears to have burnt most of the novel offended by the love scenes but large fragments survived 66 and it was published online by University College London 67 Galton is buried in the family tomb in the churchyard of St Michael and All Angels in the village of Claverdon Warwickshire 68 Personal life and character EditIn January 1853 Galton met Louisa Jane Butler 1822 1897 at his neighbour s home and they were married on 1 August 1853 The union of 43 years proved childless 69 70 Louisa Jane ButlerIt has been written of Galton that On his own estimation he was a supremely intelligent man 71 Later in life Galton proposed a connection between genius and insanity based on his own experience Men who leave their mark on the world are very often those who being gifted and full of nervous power are at the same time haunted and driven by a dominant idea and are therefore within a measurable distance of insanity Pearson amp 1914 1924 1930Awards and influence EditOver the course of his career Galton received many awards including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society 1910 He received in 1853 the Founder s Medal the highest award of the Royal Geographical Society for his explorations and map making of southwest Africa He was elected a member of the Athenaeum Club in 1855 and made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1860 His autobiography also lists 72 Silver Medal French Geographical Society 1854 Gold Medal of the Royal Society 1886 Officier de l Instruction Publique France 1891 D C L Oxford 1894 Sc D Honorary Cambridge 1895 Huxley Medal Anthropological Institute 1901 Elected Hon Fellow Trinity College Cambridge 1902 Darwin Medal Royal Society 1902 Linnean Society of London s Darwin Wallace Medal 1908 Galton was knighted in 1909 His statistical heir Karl Pearson first holder of the Galton Chair of Eugenics at University College London now Galton Chair of Genetics wrote a three volume biography of Galton in four parts after his death 73 74 75 76 The flowering plant genus Galtonia was named after Galton University College London has in the twenty first century been involved in a historical inquiry into its role as the institutional birthplace of eugenics Galton established a laboratory at UCL in 1904 Some students and staff have called on the university to rename its Galton lecture theatre Galton s seductive promise was of a bold new world filled only with beautiful intelligent productive people The scientists in its thrall claimed this could be achieved by controlling reproduction policing borders to prevent certain types of immigrants and locking away undesirables including disabled people 77 Published works EditThe art of travel or Shifts and contrivances available in wild countries London John Murray 1855 Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa London 1853 Hereditary Genius London Macmillan 1869 Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer Fortnightly Review 12 125 35 1872 On men of science their nature and their nurture Proceedings of the Royal Institution of Great Britain 7 227 236 1874 Typical laws of heredity Nature 15 388 492 495 512 514 532 533 1877 Bibcode 1877Natur 15 492 doi 10 1038 015492a0 Composite portraits PDF Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 8 132 142 1878 doi 10 2307 2841021 JSTOR 2841021 Archived PDF from the original on 18 June 2006 Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development Macmillan 1883 p 24 Anthropometric Laboratory Science London William Clowes 5 114 294 295 1884 Bibcode 1885Sci 5 294 doi 10 1126 science ns 5 114 294 PMID 17831706 On the Anthropometric Laboratory at the Late International Health Exhibition The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 14 205 221 1 January 1885a doi 10 2307 2841978 JSTOR 2841978 Zenodo 1449574 Regression Towards Mediocrity in Hereditary Stature The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 15 246 263 1886 doi 10 2307 2841583 JSTOR 2841583 Zenodo 1449548 Hereditary stature Nature 33 848 295 298 1886b Bibcode 1886Natur 33 295 doi 10 1038 033295c0 Co Relations and Their Measurement Chiefly from Anthropometric Data Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 45 273 279 135 145 1 January 1888 Bibcode 1888RSPS 45 135G doi 10 1098 rspl 1888 0082 JSTOR 114860 S2CID 13851067 Natural Inheritance PDF London Macmillan 1889 Archived PDF from the original on 14 December 2007 Cutting a Round Cake on Scientific Principles Letters to the Editor PDF Nature 75 1938 173 20 December 1906 Bibcode 1906Natur 75 173G doi 10 1038 075173c0 S2CID 3980060 Archived PDF from the original on 14 November 2006 Vox Populi PDF Nature 75 1949 450 451 7 March 1907 Bibcode 1907Natur 75 450G doi 10 1038 075450a0 S2CID 4013898 Archived PDF from the original on 1 March 2006 Memories of My Life New York E P Dutton and Company 1909 p 331 Hereditary Genius An Inquiry Into Its Laws and Consequences Macmillan 1914 The Eugenic College of Kantsaywhere Utopian Studies 12 2 191 209 2001 ISSN 1045 991X JSTOR 20718325 OCLC 5542769084 See also EditA Large Attendance in the Antechamber a play about Galton Darwin Wedgwood family Efficacy of prayer Eugenics in the United States Historiometry Racial hygiene British peopleReferences EditCitations Edit Francis Galton Biography Books and Theories famouspsychologists org Retrieved 9 January 2017 Galton 1874 pp 227 236 a b Galton 1869 Galton 1872 pp 125 135 Galton 1855 p 208 Barile Margherita Weisstein Eric W Francis Galton 1822 1911 Eric Weisstein s World of Scientific Biography Retrieved 9 January 2017 a b Galton 1883 Darwin 1887 p 5 a b Bulmer 2003 p 4 Cowan 2005 Galton Francis GLTN839F A Cambridge Alumni Database University of Cambridge Scientific Lodge No 105 Cambridge in Membership Records Foreign and Country Lodges Nos 17 145 1837 1862 London Library and Museum of Freemasonry manuscript M Merrington and J Golden 1976 A List of the Papers and Correspondence of Sir Francis Galton 1822 1911 held in The Manuscripts Room The Library University College London The Galton Laboratory University College London typescript at Section 88 on p 10 Bulmer 2003 p 5 Galton 1853 Bulmer 2003 p 16 Francis Galton Meteorologist Galton org Retrieved 22 April 2013 Bulmer 2003 p 29 a b c d e Gillham 2001a Hergenhahn amp Henley 2013 p 288 Galton Francis 5 June 1873 Africa For The Chinese To The Editor Of The Times The Times via galton org Forrest 1974 p 84 Charny Israel W Adalian Rouben Paul Jacobs Steven L Markusen Eric Sherman Marc I 1999 Encyclopedia of Genocide A H ABC CLIO p 218 ISBN 978 0 87436 928 1 UCL renames three facilities that honoured prominent eugenicists The Guardian 19 June 2020 Retrieved 20 June 2020 a b Stigler 2010 pp 469 482 Galton 1914 p 57 a b c Stigler 1986 pp 265 299 a b Galton Francis 1885b Opening address as President of the Anthropology Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science September 10th 1885 at Aberdeen Nature 32 507 510 Galton 1886 pp 246 263 Galton 1886b pp 295 298 a b c Galton 1877 pp 492 495 512 514 532 533 Bulmer 1998 pp 579 585 Gillham 2001b pp 1383 1392 Gillham 2013 pp 61 75 Sir Francis Galton Science Show 25 November 2000 Archived from the original on 14 January 2008 Retrieved 8 September 2007 Bulmer 2003 pp 116 118 Bulmer 2003 pp 105 107 Nelson Pettersson amp Carlborg 2013 pp 669 676 a b c d Galton 1885a pp 205 221 a b Galton 1884 Gillham 2001c pp 82 102 Galton 1888 pp 273 279 Caprara amp Cervone 2000 p 68 a b c Clauser 2007 pp 440 444 Chad Denby Science Timeline Science Timeline Retrieved 22 April 2013 Galton 1907 p 450 The Ballot Box Nature 28 March 1907 Wallis 2014 pp 420 424 Surowiecki 2004 Galton 1906 p 173 Galton 1886 p 248 Plate X Bravais 1846 pp 255 332 Galton 1888 pp 135 145 Bulmer 2003 pp 191 196 Bulmer 2003 pp 182 184 Bulmer 2003 p 184 Galton 1889 Francis Galton The man who drew up the ugly map of Britain BBC 16 June 2011 Retrieved 24 June 2020 Jensen 2002 pp 145 172 Galton 1878 pp 132 142 Novak 2008 p 100 Bulmer 2003 p 35 Tribute to fingerprinting pioneer BBC News 12 November 2004 Retrieved 1 June 2019 Conklin Gardner amp Shortelle 2002 Innes 2005 pp 32 33 Pearson 1930a p 413 Galton amp Sargent 2001 pp 191 209 Challis Debbie The Grave of Francis Galton UCL Museums amp Collections Blog Retrieved 27 January 2019 Pearson 1914b p 281 Sir Francis Galton FRS FRGS I7570 Archived from the original on 20 November 2012 Retrieved 28 June 2010 Winston 2020 Galton 1909 p 331 Pearson 1914a Pearson 1914b Pearson 1930a Pearson 1930b Saini 2019 Sources Edit Bravais A 1846 Analyse mathematique sur les probabilites des erreurs de situation d un point Mathematical analysis of the probabilities of errors in a point s location Memoires Presents Par Divers Savants a l Academie des Sciences de l Institut de France Sciences Mathematiques et Physiques 9 255 332 Bulmer Michael 1998 Galton s law of ancestral heredity Heredity 81 5 579 585 doi 10 1038 sj hdy 6884180 PMID 9988590 Bulmer Michael 2003 Francis Galton Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN 978 0 8018 7403 1 Caprara G V Cervone D 2000 Personality Determinants Dynamics and Potentials New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 58310 7 Clauser Brian E 2007 The Life and Labors of Francis Galton A Review of Four Recent Books About the Father of Behavioral Statistics Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics 32 4 440 444 doi 10 3102 1076998607307449 S2CID 121124511 Conklin Barbara Gardner Gardner Robert Shortelle Dennis 2002 Encyclopedia of Forensic Science A Compendium of Detective Fact and Fiction Oryx Press ISBN 978 1 57356 170 9 Cowan Ruth S 22 September 2005 Galton Sir Francis 1822 1911 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 33315 Subscription or UK public library membership required Darwin C R 27 April 1871 Pangenesis Nature 3 78 502 503 Bibcode 1871Natur 3 502D doi 10 1038 003502a0 Darwin Francis 1887 The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Vol 1 New York Appleton and Co Forrest D W 1974 Francis Galton The Life and Work of a Victorian Genius Taplinger ISBN 978 0 8008 2682 6 Gillham Nicholas Wright 2001a A Life of Sir Francis Galton From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 534943 6 Gillham Nicholas 2001b Evolution by Jumps Francis Galton and William Bateson and the Mechanism of Evolutionary Change Genetics 159 4 1383 1392 doi 10 1093 genetics 159 4 1383 PMC 1461897 PMID 11779782 Gillham Nicholas W 2001c Sir Francis Galton and the Birth of Eugenics Annual Review of Genetics 35 83 102 doi 10 1146 annurev genet 35 102401 090055 PMID 11700278 Gillham Nicholas 9 August 2013 The Battle Between the Biometricians and the Mendelians How Sir Francis Galton s Work Caused his Disciples to Reach Conflicting Conclusions About the Hereditary Mechanism Science amp Education 24 1 2 61 75 Bibcode 2015Sc amp Ed 24 61G doi 10 1007 s11191 013 9642 1 S2CID 144727928 Hergenhahn B R Henley Tracy 2013 An Introduction to the History of Psychology Cengage Learning ISBN 978 1 133 95809 3 Innes Brian 2005 Body in Question Exploring the Cutting Edge in Forensic Science Barnes amp Noble ISBN 978 0 7607 7560 8 Jensen Arthur R April 2002 Galton s Legacy to Research on Intelligence Journal of Biosocial Science 34 2 145 172 doi 10 1017 s0021932002001451 PMID 11926452 S2CID 20153127 Nelson R Pettersson M Carlborg C 23 October 2013 A century after Fisher time for a new paradigm in quantitative genetics Trends in Genetics 29 12 669 676 doi 10 1016 j tig 2013 09 006 PMID 24161664 Novak Daniel A May 2008 Realism Photography and Nineteenth Century Fiction Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 88525 6 Pearson Karl 1914a The Life Letters and Labours of Francis Galton Vol 1 Cambridge University Press Pearson Karl 1914b The Life Letters and Labours of Francis Galton Vol 2 Cambridge University Press Pearson Karl 1930a The Life Letters and Labours of Francis Galton Vol 3A Cambridge University Press Pearson Karl 1930b The Life Letters and Labours of Francis Galton Vol 3B Cambridge University Press Pearson Karl The life letters and labours of Francis Galton 3 vols 1914 1924 1930 Saini Angela 3 October 2019 In the twisted story of eugenics the bad guy is all of us The Guardian Stigler Stephen M 1986 The History of Statistics The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900 Harvard University Press ISBN 978 0 674 40341 3 Stigler Stephen M 1 July 2010 Darwin Galton and the Statistical Enlightenment Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A 173 3 469 482 doi 10 1111 j 1467 985X 2010 00643 x ISSN 1467 985X S2CID 53333238 Surowiecki James 2004 The Wisdom of Crowds New York Random House Wallis Kenneth F 2014 Revisiting Francis Galton s forecasting competition Statistical Science 29 3 420 424 arXiv 1410 3989 Bibcode 2014arXiv1410 3989W doi 10 1214 14 STS468 S2CID 53642221 Winston Robert 23 February 2020 Robert Winston eugenics has evil in its DNA The Times Further reading Edit Brookes Martin 2004 Extreme Measures The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton Bloomsbury Cowan Ruth Schwartz 1969 Sir Francis Galton and the Study of Heredity in the Nineteenth Century PhD Georgetown University hdl 10822 548629 Ewen Stuart Ewen Elizabeth 2006 Nordic Nightmares Typecasting On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality Seven Stories Press pp 257 325 ISBN 978 1 58322 735 0 Quinche Nicolas 2006 Crime Science et Identite Anthologie des textes fondateurs de la criminalistique europeenne 1860 1930 Crime Science and Identity An Anthology of Foundational Texts in European Criminology in French Geneve Slatkine p 368 External links EditFrancis Galton at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata Galton s Complete Works at Galton org including all his published books all his published scientific papers and popular periodical and newspaper writing as well as other previously unpublished work and biographical material Francis Galton at Find a Grave Works by Francis Galton at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Francis Galton at Internet Archive Works by Francis Galton at LibriVox public domain audiobooks The Galton Machine or Board demonstrating the normal distribution on YouTube Portraits of Francis Galton at the National Portrait Gallery London O Connor John J Robertson Edmund F Francis Galton MacTutor History of Mathematics archive University of St Andrews Biography and bibliography in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science History and Mathematics Human Memory University of Amsterdam website with test based on the work of Galton An 8 foot tall 2 4 m Probability Machine named Sir Francis Galton comparing stock market returns to the randomness of the beans dropping through the quincunx pattern on YouTube from Index Funds Advisors IFA com Catalogue of the Galton papers held at UCL Archives Galton s novel Kantsaywhere Francis Galton Management of Savages The Art of Travel 1861 at the Wayback Machine archived 2 January 2017 The Scientific Way to Cut a Cake on YouTube demonstrated by Alex Bellos Biography of Francis Galton Portals Biography Mathematics United Kingdom Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Francis Galton amp oldid 1132490904, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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