Francis Galton Quotes

Sir Francis Galton, FRS was an English Victorian era statistician, polymath, sociologist, psychologist, anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, and psychometrician. He was knighted in 1909.

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 in eugenics, coining the term itself in 1883, and also coined the phrase "nature versus nurture". His book Hereditary Genius was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness.As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics and differential psychology and 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 by its null effects on the longevity of those prayed for. His quest for the scientific principles of diverse phenomena extended even to the optimal method for making tea.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. He also invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability. He was Charles Darwin's half-cousin. Wikipedia  

✵ 16. February 1822 – 17. January 1911
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Hereditary Genius
Francis Galton
Francis Galton: 14   quotes 2   likes

Famous Francis Galton Quotes

“One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection.”

"Hereditary Talent and Character" in MacMillan's Magazine Vol. XII (May - October 1865), p. 326.
Other works
Context: One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

“All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.”

Source: Memories of My Life (1908), Chapter V Cambridge

Francis Galton Quotes about nature

Francis Galton Quotes

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