Karl Pearson and the Galtonian Tradition:Studies Fri the Rise of Quantitative Social Biology
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Karl Pearson and the Galtonian tradition:studies fri the rise of quantitative social biology. Submitted for degree of Ph.D. by Bernard John Norton. il;n I B.Norton.Karl Pearson and the Galtonian tradition. ABSTRACT This work discusses the growth of a 'Galtonian tradition' in Science, notably as developed by Karl Pearson and his colleagues. It traces the development from Galton's ideas,in Britain, of the disciplines of Statistics,Biometrical Genetics and the Psychology of individual differences. These developments were linked with a number of philosophical and ideological commitments on the parts of the scientists concerned, and the work examines the interplay between these commitments and the theorising of the scientists.It looks also at the relations that may have held between these commitments and the social milieux of the scientists. Particular attention is giv!n tc the role of the strong and influential Eugenics movement which flourished in Britain at the time of these developments. CONTENT S Chapter 1. Introduction 1 Notes 14 Chapter 2. Francis Galton, founder of the Galtonian tradition. 15 Notes 57 Chapter 3. The Biometric School and the Profession of Statistics. 63 Notes 112 Chapter 4. Karl Pearson and Statistics.The cultural relations of scientific innovation 117 Notes 150 Chapter 5. The Mendelian-Biometrician controversy. Problems in the HIstory of Genetics. 153 Appendix l.The rationale for Weldon's opposition to Mendelism 190 Appendix 2.The Esher letter l4 Notes 195 Chapter 6. The rise and fall of the law of ancestral heredity. 2O Notes 221 Chapter 7.Eugenics as a popular movement, would-be science and midwife of science.The case of R.A. Fisher 223 Notes 259 Chapter 8. The growth of Galtonian Psychology. Intelligence objectively defined and measured. 264 Appendix The sampling theory 288 Notes 291 Chapter 9. Conclusions 295 Notes 302 Select Bibliography. 303. Acknowled qeme n t a In preparing these chapters more debts have been incurred than can ever be repaid. In particular I would like to offer thanks to A.D.Birnbaum,W.F.Bynum and E.S.Pearson, all of whom gave without counting the cost. I would also like to acknowledge financial assistance from the Social Science Research Council and the Weilcome Foundation. HAPER I mrioucricz. (a)Sane rationales (b) Sane issues in exp1nation (c)Sane background developnents (d)Contents 2 (a) Sate rationales The nineteenth century is distinquisbed by its biologically minded philosophers. One thinks imt3iately of Chambers, Darwin, Haeckel, Spencer or Huxley. Yet, in truth, few of these can rank in consequence with Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911). He was the founder of a wh1e Galtonian tradition of Darwinian social biology and psychology, which, in its exfoliation, has given rise to several multi-million dollar ]cnz1edge industries. Galton conducted his research inathnatically, and set in train a series of intellectual and institutional developlEnts eventuating in the ntdern discipline and profession of statistics - irore precisely, of mathaoatical statistics. This is ncw widely pursued and taught either as an end in itself, as a methodology capable of rendering the social sciences truly scientific, or as a technology capable of inproving the productivity of agriculture and industry. Because he desired to kncz the differences between men, and between classes and races of men in respect of their mental constitutions, Galton undertook work that laid the foundation for a strong 'individual difference' tradition in psychology. Its developtent has resulted in a series of statistical theories of intelligence and in the cognate social technology of mental testing. Testing requires testers, and they need rroney. It is illuminating to note that by 1954 the Carnegie Foundation alone' had allocated over six million dollars tc mental testing. Being a Darwinian thinker, Galton investigated heredity in man. Thereby he founded a tradition of niathnatica1 biology which, over tine, and via several controversies, has developed into the ndern discipline of biatEtric or quantitative genetics. This has notable applications in agriculture and in the controversy as to whether observed differences between races in performance on standardised tests are of mainly genetical or of mainly environmental origins. There is a direct link, as we shall see, between the thought of Galton and the genetics of Sir Ponald Fisher, and another direct link between these and the work of arthur Jensen. 3 Here, then, we have the develoiirent of three disciplines - statistics inathanatical genetics and the psychology of individual differences, iz all elevated to the status of major knowledge industry. They all stan in good degree fran the thought of Galton, Iran that of his greatest follower, Karl Pearson (1857-1936), and, of course, fran the thought of iren who interacted with them. These included man such as William Bateson the geneticist, Bonald Fisher the geneticist and statistician, Charles Spearrnan the author of the notion of a central factor of 'intelligence', and Sirs Cyril Burt and Godfrey Tharson the distinguished rrental testers. The essay that follows examines the developtQnt of the various disciplines fran Galton 's and Pearson's thought, not in a 'whiggish' fashion, but 1n a manner that fo1lcy is historical dead ends as well as the historical paths of glory. So far, I hope to have established the notion that Galton was influential, in the sense that his ideas were taken up and developed by many others into acadaiic disciplines and cognate technologies. And, it might be argued that the fact that this pattern of develont has raDained unstudied is sufficient reason for embarking upon such a study. But, the reasons for looking at the Galtonian tradition go deeper than its unstudied condition and manifest influences. For, its developnent offers a first class case-study of scientific growth which can illuminate the roles of human values, of ideology and of mataphysics in the production and consurption of scientific theories and of associated technologies. The tradition, we shall see, was organically connected with philosophical and ideological views. The essay that follows, then, examines the htia3n well springs of scientific endeavour in sate particular cases. Galtcn himself, and many of his followers - including Pearson, Burt and Fisher - were ciinitted eugenists. That is to say, they believed that alcoholism, pauperism, nental defect and many other conditions were due predaninantly to inherited dispositions or 'diathese.s', and that inprovarent and advance would be best achieved by differential breeding fran those sections of the cairnmity whan they judged to be the 'fit'. They praxoted the view that class differentials in fertility were bringing about national decay via genetic erosion. Eugenics, as we shall see, was generally closely linked to another creed of the age - that of 'social Darwinism' which cmployed Darwin's theory to obtain 'natural' guides to morality and social policy. 4 Social Darwinism was not the only form of 'extra-scientific' a*iinitmant found anong the developers of the Galtonian tradition. Karl Pearson, for exairple, held to an extrae positivism and intended his statistical biology to be an exrplar of his philosophy of science - making him one of the few philosophers of science ever to attt to practice what he preached. Charles Spearinan was also heavily involved In, and notivated by philosophical and social considerations. In the work following I shall trace the strong interactions between the developrent of the Galtonian tradition arid these and other philosophical and ideological strands. So far, it might be thought that the developient of the Galtonian tradition was an exclusively British phencirenon. This is not the case. In iterica too there was a strong pattern of activity. 2½s in Britain, there wex 'Galtonian' statisticians, 'Caltonian' geneticists arid 'Galtonian' psychologists. above all, there was a eugenics mnovrerit whose influence quite outstripped that of its British counterpart. While the British Eugenics Edution Society was still discussing the leg lity of voluntary sterilisation, Airerican states had gone ahead arid passed a veritable spate of canpulsory sterilisation laws. By January 1, 1958, there had been sate 31,038 sterilisations carried out, of which2 no fewer than 7,518 had been conducted in California, then, as now, in the van of change. It was America too which saw the early flowering of mess mental testing - in the form of the Army alpha tests, which assigned first world war recruits to privatehood or to off icerhood, to potato peeling or to intelligence work.3 By ri the picture should seen large, if sketchy. In Britain and in America (and in Europe too), patterns of work growing out of Galton's ideas led to important developnts. It is not that every statistician, psychologist or geneticist of note can be seen as in any strong sense following Galton's progrm. But a goodly nurier of inortant ones can. 7nd, several of the others can be seen either as reacting against the tradition or as working fran institutional bases established y adherents of the Galtonian tradition. Lancelot Hogben is an example of the first sort, George Udny Yule an example of the second. The whole canvas cannot be covered in detail in a reasonably 1ength5 work. A focus is required. Here, it lies squarely with the seminal contributions of Karl Pearson and his 'Biaretric School' 5 of biologically orientated statisticians which developed in London in the last decade of the nineteenth century, arid in the first decades of the twentieth. Pearson's school played a crucial role in transforming Galton's ideas into a series of powerful scientific movements. Roughly speaking, it was Pearson and his school which developed Galtan's ideas while creating a new would-be science of biartry - or, inatheniatical evolutionary biology. C*it of biaTetry caire forth statistical ideas and institutions, including the world' s first ever statistics department in an anglophone university, the journal Biaretrika, a good deal of inathnatical genetics and a methodology which enabled interested psychologists to follai through and develop certain of Galton's ideas in a quantitative fashion.