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Statistics
are the only tools by which an opening may be cut through the
formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those
who pursue the Science
of Man.
~ Quoted in K Pearson, The Life, Letters and
Labours of Francis Galton (London 1914)
Born:
February 16, 1822 in Sparkbrook, England
Died: January, 17 1911 in Grayshott House, England
An
explorer and anthropologist, Francis Galton is known for his pioneering
studies of human intelligence. He devoted the latter part of his
life to eugenics, i.e. improving the physical and mental makeup
of the human species by selected parenthood.
Although
weak in mathematics his ideas strongly influenced the development
of statistics particularly his proof that a normal mixture of
normal distributions is itself normal. Another of his major findings
was reversion. This was his formulation of regression and its
link to the bivariate normal distribution.
He
also made important contributions to the fields of meteorology,
anthropometry, and physical anthropology. Galton was an indefatigable
explorer and an investigator of human intelligence.
Galton,
the cousin of Charles Darwin, was convinced that pre-eminence
in various fields was due almost entirely to hereditary factors.
He opposed those who claimed intelligence or character were determined
by environmental factors. He inquired into racial differences,
something almost unacceptable today, and was one of the first
to employ questionnaire and survey methods, which he used to investigate
mental imagery in different groups of people.
His
work led him to advocate breeding restrictions.
Galton
was knighted in 1909.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/Mathematicians/Galton.html
References
Biography
in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).
Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. (WWW version)
Books:
D W Forrest, Francis Galton : the life and work of a Victorian
Genius (London, 1974).
F
Galton, Memories of my life (London, 1908).
K
Pearson, The Life, Letters, and Labours of Francis Galton (London,
1914-30).
Articles:
R E Fancher, Galton on examinations : an unpublished step in the
invention of correlation, Isis 80 (303) (1989), 446-455.
P
J FitzPatrick, Leading British statisticians of the nineteenth
century, Journal of the American Statistical
Association 55 (1960), 38-70.
P
J FitzPatrick, Leading British statisticians of the nineteenth
century, in M G Kendall and R L Plackett (eds.), Studies in the
History of Statistics and Probability II (London, 1977), 180-212.
R
W Morgan, Sir Francis Galton (1822-1910), in Some nineteenth century
British scientists (Oxford, 1969), 65-95.
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