Francis Galton

From Philosopedia

Galton, Francis [Sir] (1822—1911)

A grandson of Erasmus Darwin and son of a rich Quaker, Galton was educated in mathematics at Cambridge. An inheritance in 1844 left him free to travel widely. He became a famous explorer, writing several books about his travels in Syria, Egypt and southwest Africa. He wrote a popular Art of Travel, also distinguishing himself by many writings bearing on heredity. His Hereditary Genius was published in 1865.

From 1863 to 1868 he was general secretary of the British Association. From 1862 to 1872 he was President of the Geographical Section and from 1877 to 1885 the Anthropological Section. Also he was President of the Anthropological Insitute. One of his books was about weather mapping. The system he established for classifying fingerprints is still in use today.

Galton coined the term "eugenics," defining it very differently from its current meaning. Galton founded a eugenics research fellowship and chair at University College. Galton's study, "Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer," was first published in the Aug. 1, 1872, issue of Fortnightly View.

In his Inquiries into Human Faculty and Development (1883), Galton gives statistical refutation of the theory of prayer. He showed how royalty, the most-prayed-for people in the world, "are literally the shortest lived" of the affluent. Galton observed: "It is a common week-day opinion of the world that praying people are not practical."

In a letter to his friend Darwin, Galton wrote,

• Your book drove away the constraint of my old superstition as if it had been a nightmare.

Karl Pearson, his biographer, described Galton as one who had ceased being “an orthodox Christian in the customary sense” as early as 1846.

{BDF; CE; FFRF; JM; JMRH; RAT; RE}