Who is Sir Francis Galton and what did he do?
Francis Galton. Written By: Francis Galton, in full Sir Francis Galton, (born February 16, 1822, near Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England—died January 17, 1911, Grayshott House, Haslemere, Surrey), English explorer, anthropologist, and eugenicist known for his pioneering studies of human intelligence. He was knighted in 1909.
What did Sir John Galton invent?
Galton also invented many statistical tools such as surveys and questionnaires to help him in his research. He invented the Galton Whistle for evaluating hearing ability. Galton determined that the normal upper limit of human hearing was around 18 kHz.
How did Galton contribute to the field of genetics?
After examining forearm and height measurements, Galton independently rediscovered the concept of correlation in 1888 and demonstrated its application in the study of heredity, anthropology, and psychology. Galton's later statistical study of the probability of extinction of surnames led to the concept of Galton–Watson stochastic processes.
Where did Galton go on his exploration?
In the mid-1840s, Galton made his first trip to the Middle East and Africa. He went to Egypt and traveled down the Nile River to the Sudan, among other destinations in the area. His travels inspired him to undertake an exploration of southern Africa.
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What did Francis Henry Galton discover?
Francis GaltonSir Francis Galton FRS FRAIAlma materKing's College, London Trinity College, CambridgeKnown 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 whistle13 more rows
What was Francis Galton's theory?
Galton's eugenics was a program to artificially produce a better human race through regulating marriage and thus procreation. Galton put particular emphasis on "positive eugenics", aimed at encouraging the physically and mentally superior members of the population to choose partners with similar traits.
What did Francis Galton do for intelligence?
In the late 1800s, Englishman Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) became one of the first people to study intelligence. He tried to measure physical characteristics of noblemen and created a laboratory to measure their reaction time and other physical and sensory qualities.
Why is Francis Galton famous?
Sir Francis Galton was a British science writer and amateur researcher of the late nineteenth century. He contributed greatly to the fields of statistics, experimental psychology and biometry. In the history of biology, Galton is widely regarded as the originator of the early twentieth century eugenics movement.
What was Sir Francis Galton's first test of intelligence?
Measuring Intelligence In a time before I.Q. tests, Galton attempted to measure intelligence through reaction time tests. For example, the faster someone could register and identify a sound, the more intelligent that person was.
Who created the first intelligence test?
psychologist Alfred Binet1 But it wasn't until psychologist Alfred Binet was asked to identify which students needed educational assistance that the first intelligence quotient (IQ) test was born. Although it has its limitations, Binet's IQ test is well-known around the world as a way to assess and compare intelligence.
Who is the father of mental test?
Alfred Binet (French: [binɛ]; 8 July 1857 – 18 October 1911), born Alfredo Binetti, was a French psychologist who invented the first practical IQ test, the Binet–Simon test....Alfred BinetKnown forStanford–Binet Intelligence Scales Binet–Simon testSpouse(s)Laure BalbianiScientific careerFieldsPsychology7 more rows
Who discovered intelligence testing?
The first modern intelligence test in IQ history was developed in 1904, by Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and Theodore Simon (1873-1961).
What did Francis Galton contributed to psychology?
His psychological studies also embraced mental differences in visualization, and he was the first to identify and study "number forms", now called "synaesthesia". He also invented the word-association test, and investigated the operations of the sub-conscious mind.
Who developed the triarchic theory of intelligence?
Robert SternbergRobert Sternberg developed another theory of intelligence, which he titled the triarchic theory of intelligence because it sees intelligence as comprised of three parts (Sternberg, 1988): practical, creative, and analytical intelligence (Figure 7.12).
Who Was Francis Galton?
Francis Galton was an explorer and anthropologist known for his studies in eugenics and human intelligence. As a child, Galton rejected conventional methods of teaching, and he began studying medicine in his teens. He soon embraced a passion for travel with the help from a sufficient fortune left to him from his father. A cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton researched the implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution, focusing on human genius and selective mating.
What did Galton study?
He studied identical twins and worked on the first intelligence test in his exploration of the roles of "nature and nurture" — a phrase created by Galton — in human attributes. According to some sources, Galton also coined the term "eugenics," a controversial field of study about selective breeding in humans to produce preferred traits.
What did Galton do after his father died?
At first, Galton planned to become a doctor. He studied medicine at Birmingham's General Hospital and at King's College in London in the late 1830s. But he abandoned this idea and went on to study mathematics at Cambridge University. After his father's death in 1844, Galton received a substantial inheritance. This inheritance enabled him to pursue whatever topic piqued his curiosity. And he soon decided that it was time to explore more distant shores.
What did Galton think about his final years?
Galton spent much of his life studying heredity and eugenics, and he later thought that a person's fingerprints might be a part of human genetic puzzle. He thought that these prints might provide information on differences between people, from race to moral character to intelligence.
What was the name of the book that Galton published in 1863?
In 1863, he published a book on the subject, called Meteorgraphica, or Methods of Mapping the Weather. Strongly influenced by Darwin's The Origin of Species (1859), Galton developed his own theories on inherited traits.
Where was Francis Galton born?
He was born on February 16, 1822, and grew up in a wealthy family near Birmingham, England . At an early age, he began to show great intellectual promise.
What was Galton's most famous book?
He published on a book on his exploration, entitled Tropical South Africa (1853).
What did Sir Francis Galton do?
He contributed greatly to the fields of statistics, experimental psychology and biometry. In the history of biology, Galton is widely regarded as the originator of the early twentieth century eugenics movement. Galton published influential writings on nature versus nurturein human personality traits, developed a family study method to identify possible inherited traits, and devised laws of genetic inheritance prior to the rediscovery of Gregor Mendel’s work. His most important contribution to the field of embryology was his work in statistical models of heredity.
What did Galton do in his work?
Galton’s work in heredity and genetics precedes the rediscovery of Mendel’s seminal work on pea plants. Galton did not ascribe to the idea of particulate inheritance with independent assortment – Mendel’s First and Second Laws. Rather, he was a proponent of blended inheritance, the theory of inheritance as a blending of parental characteristics, ...
What did Galton believe about breeding?
On the basis of his descriptive work showing heredity of talent, Galton believed that society ought to encourage the breeding of those who showed great talent.
What did Galton observe about fingerprints?
Galton’s intensive use of measurement methodologies led him to discover and establish fingerprinting as a reliable method of identification.
What did Galton reject?
Galton rejected the prevailing view that acquired characteristics could be passed from parent to offspring, both as described by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and as described by Darwin’s theory of pangenesis. Due to his views on the pre-eminence of nature over nurture, Galton held the so called hard view of heredity, in which the hereditary material is transmitted unaltered from parent to offspring. His view was later supported by August Weismann’s theory of the continuity of the germ plasm.
Why was Galton so intelligent?
However, he was regarded by contemporaries and later by historians as unusually intelligent, owing to the value of his writings and the breadth of his work. Upon his wealthy father’s death, Galton inherited a fortune that allowed him to leave his medical studies and travel.
Why was Galton's method of eugenics called positive eugenics?
Galton’s method of eugenics came to be termed positive eugenics, to distinguish it from later attempts to prevent the progeny of the untalented, sickly, or criminal. However, his arguments for increasing the fecundity of the noble, beautiful, and talented were easily turned to serve the task of negative eugenics.
When did Galton become a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society?
As a result, at the age of only 31, Galton was in 1853 elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and, three years later, of the Royal Society. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Subscribe Now. In 1853 Galton married. There were no children of the marriage.
Who is Francis Galton?
British scientist. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Francis Galton, in full Sir Francis Galton, (born February 16, 1822, near Sparkbrook, Birmingham, Warwickshire, ...
What did Galton do to improve the physical and mental makeup of the human species?
Although Galton made contributions to many fields of knowledge, eugenics remained his fundamental interest, and he devoted the latter part of his life chiefly to propagating the idea of improving the physical and mental makeup of the human species by selective parenthood. Galton was among the first to recognize the implications for humankind of the theory of evolution developed by Darwin. He saw that it invalidated much of contemporary theology and that it also opened possibilities for planned human betterment. Galton coined the word eugenics to denote scientific endeavours to increase the proportion of persons with better than average genetic endowment through selective mating of marriage partners. In his Hereditary Genius (1869), in which he used the word genius to denote “an ability that was exceptionally high and at the same time inborn,” his main argument was that mental and physical features are equally inherited —a proposition that was not accepted at the time. It is surprising that when Darwin first read this book, he wrote to the author: “You have made a convert of an opponent in one sense for I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work.” This book doubtless helped Darwin to extend his evolution theory to humankind. Galton, unmentioned in Origin of Species (1859), is several times quoted in Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871). Galton’s conviction that mental traits are no less inherited than are physical characteristics was strong enough to shape his personal religious philosophy. “We cannot doubt,” he wrote, “the existence of a great power ready to hand and capable of being directed with vast benefit as soon as we have learned to understand and apply it.”
What does Galton say about eugenics?
On all his topics, Galton has something original and interesting to say, and he says it with clarity, brevity, distinction, and modesty. Under the terms of his will, a eugenics chair was established at the University of London.
Why did Galton coin the term "eugenics"?
Galton coined the word eugenics to denote scientific endeavours to increase the proportion of persons with better than average genetic endowment through selective mating of marriage partners.
What did Galton do in 1853?
In 1853 Galton married . There were no children of the marriage. Galton wrote 9 books and some 200 papers. They dealt with many diverse subjects, including the use of fingerprints for personal identification, the correlational calculus (a branch of applied statistics )—in both of which Galton was a pioneer— twins, blood transfusions, criminality, the art of travel in undeveloped countries, and meteorology. Most of Galton’s publications disclose his predilection for quantifying; an early paper, for example, dealt with a statistical test of the efficacy of prayer. Moreover, over a period of 34 years, he concerned himself with improving standards of measurement.
What did Galton do after his father died?
But before they were completed, his father died, leaving him “a sufficient fortune to make me independent of the medical profession.” Galton was then free to indulge his craving for travel. Leisurely expeditions in 1845–46 up the Nile River with friends and into the Holy Land alone were preliminaries to a carefully organized penetration into unexplored parts of southwestern Africa. After consulting the Royal Geographical Society, Galton decided to investigate a possible opening from the south and west to Lake Ngami, which lies north of the Kalahari desert some 550 miles east of Walvis Bay. The expedition, which included two journeys, one northward, the other eastward, from the same base, proved to be difficult and not without danger. Though the explorers did not reach Lake Ngami, they gained valuable information. As a result, at the age of only 31, Galton was in 1853 elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and, three years later, of the Royal Society.
What did Galton do in his book?
He proposed encouraging talented young men and women to have children earlier on in life, thus improving the human race.
Where was Francis Galton born?
Early Life and Education: Francis Galton was born in Sparkbrook, Birmingham, England, on the 18th February 1822, the youngest of seven children. His father Samuel Tertius Galton was a successful businessman and his mother was Francis Anne Viollette Darwin. Interestingly, Francis’s maternal grandfather was physician Erasmus Darwin and ...
Why did Galton make the whistle?
He invented the Galton Whistle for evaluating hearing ability. Galton determined that the normal upper limit of human hearing was around 18 kHz. He also established that the ability to hear higher frequencies declined with age. Galton adapted his whistle to test the hearing of various animals.
What did Galton discover about sweet peas?
Galton carried out several studies on the inheritance patterns in sweet peas, discovering if seed size was an inherited trait so that, for example, very large seeds produced very large plants. In his studies he devised the regression coefficient that became an everyday tool in statistical analysis.
What did Galton's theory of eugenics aim to do?
Galton spent much his of the next thirty years of his life developing his theories on eugenics, which aimed to improve the physical and mental make-up of the human species by selected parenthood.
What was Galton's measure data?
Measurement data was also gathered about families, such as height, weight, chest span, head size , arm strength, hearing, visual acuity, and colour sense. Galton prepared graphs of his data including two-way plots of heights of parents and the heights of their adult children. Through his analysis he discovered what was later called the measurement of correlation.
When was Galton awarded the Royal Medal?
Galton was awarded the Royal Medal in 1876 and the Copley Medal in 1910. He was knighted in 1909. He founded the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics, and the Galton Eugenics Professorship, later these positions combined into the department of applied statistics at University College, London.
Why is sir francis galton important?
You can easily fact check it by examining the linked well-known sources.
what is francis galton known for?
He wrote a successful book about his experience, "Narrative of an Explorer in Tropical South Africa, " and was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's gold medal in 1853.
How to pronounce francis galton?
Regression to Mediocrity. Sir Francis Galton discovered that the children of parents with extreme features (e.g. very tall) would tend towards the typical "mediocre" height.
What did Galton learn?
Galton was a child prodigy and by age five he had learned some Latin, Greek and mathematics.
What did Darwin's book The Origin of the Species do?
Darwin's book The Origin of the Species fired a passion in Galton to study the physical and psychological variations in human populations and he created a laboratory for the large-scale collection of statistical data.
Where was Galton born?
Galton was born in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham, England to a wealthy family.
Who was the first person to see the Etosha pan?
The first Europeans to see and record Etosha Pan were Francis Galton and Charles John Anderson, in 1851. They came across the pan while leaving Namutoni with copper ore traders.
What did Galton do in 1894?
This was important groundwork, and prepared the way for the positive findings of the Parliamentary committee of 1894, which soon led to the acceptance of fingerprint testimony in the courts, to identify recidivists, ...
What did Galton's extensive popular advocacy of the use of prints help to convince a skeptical public that they could?
Most of all, Galton's extensive popular advocacy of the use of prints helped to convince a skeptical public that they could be used reliably for identification. For the popular controversy over the role of Henry Faulds in the discovery of fingerprinting, see the following review of the evidence.
Who was the first person to use fingerprints?
Although Galton was not the first to propose the use of fingerprints for identification (Sir William Herschel had used them in India for this purpose) he was the first to place their study on a scientific basis and so lay the groundwork for their use in criminal cases. He was able to collect a large sample of prints through his Anthropological laboratories, eventually amassing over 8,000 sets. His study of minutiae in prints provided the foundation for meaningful comparison of different prints, and he was able to construct a statistical proof of the uniqueness, by minutiae, of individual prints.
Overview
Innovations in statistics and psychological theory
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 occup…
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 cous…
Middle years
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 th…
Heredity and eugenics
The publication by his cousin Charles Darwin of The Origin of Species in 1859 was an event that changed Galton's life. 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 pop…
Model for population stability
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 tr…
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 bloo…
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 met…