Francis Galton: Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry

by Michael Bulmer

Overview

If not for the work of his half cousin Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory might have met a somewhat different fate. In particular, with no direct evidence of natural selection and no convincing theory of heredity to explain it, Darwin needed a mathematical explanation of variability and heredity. Galton's work in biometry—the application of statistical methods to the biological sciences—laid the foundations for precisely that. This book offers readers a compelling portrait of Galton as the "father of biometry," tracing the development of his ideas and his accomplishments, and placing them in their scientific context.

Though Michael Bulmer introduces readers to the curious facts of Galton's life—as an explorer, as a polymath and member of the Victorian intellectual aristocracy, and as a proponent of eugenics—his chief concern is with Galton's pioneering studies of heredity, in the course of which he invented the statistical tools of regression and correlation. Bulmer describes Galton's early ambitions and experiments—his investigations of problems of evolutionary importance (such as the evolution of gregariousness and the function of sex), and his movement from the development of a physiological theory to a purely statistical theory of heredity, based on the properties of the normal distribution. This work, culminating in the law of ancestral heredity, also put Galton at the heart of the bitter conflict between the "ancestrians" and the "Mendelians" after the rediscovery of Mendelism in 1900. A graceful writer and an expert biometrician, Bulmer details the eventual triumph of biometrical methods in the history of quantitative genetics based on Mendelian principles, which underpins our understanding of evolution today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801874031
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	12/24/2003
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Michael Bulmer is Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction
1. A Victorian Life
Family Background and Education
Travels
Eastern Europe, 1840
The Near East, 1845–46
South West Africa, 1850–52
Vacation Tours
Scientific Career
The Royal Geographical Society
Exploration in Central Africa
The British Association
Inventions
Meteorology
Heredity and Evolution
Psychology
Photography
Fingerprints
Characterization
2. Hereditary Ability
"Hereditary Talent and Character" (1865)
Hereditary Genius (1869)
English Judges
Comparison of Results for All Professions
Transmission through Male and Female Lines
The Reception of Hereditary Genius
Nature and Nurture
English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture (1874)
"The History of Twins" (1875)
Galton's Hereditarianism
Epilogue
Appendix: Number of Kinsfolk
3. Eugenics
Galtonian Eugenics
Later History of Eugenics
Britain
America
Germany
The Rationale of Eugenics
4. The Mechanism of Heredity
Galton's Knowledge of Heredity in 1865
Biparental Inheritance
The Non-Inheritance of Acquired Characters
The Law of Reversion
Darwin's Provisional Hypothesis of Pangenesis
Reversion
The Inheritance of Acquired Characters
Xenia and Telegony
Galton's Reaction to Pangenesis
Galton's Political Metaphor of Pangenesis
An Experimental Test of Pangenesis
Galton's Theory of Heredity in the 1870s
Similarities Between Relatives
Galton's Ideas on Heredity in 1889
Discussion
Weismann and the Continuity of the Germ-Plasm
De Vries's Theory of Intracellular Pangenesis
Segregation
Blending Inheritance
Fleeming Jenkin and the Problem of Swamping
5. Four Evolutionary Problems
The Domestication of Animals
The Evolution of Gregariousness
The Fertility of Heiresses
The Extinction of Surnames
The Evolution of Sex
"A Theory of Heredity" (1875)
Three Unpublished Essays
6. The Charms of Statistics
Quetelet and the Average Man
Galton and the Normal Distribution
Hereditary Genius (1869)
Natural Inheritance (1889)
The Importance of the Normal Distribution to Galton
Galton's Quincunx
Regression and the Bivariate Normal Distribution
Correlation
Two Concepts of Probability
The Development of Statistics
Appendix: Regression Theory
7. Statistical Theory of Heredity
A Theory Based on Pangenesis
"Typical Laws of Heredity" (1877)
An Experiment with Sweet Peas
Solution of the Problem
Johannsen's Experiments with Beans
The Inheritance of Human Height
The Advantages of Height
The Regression of Offspring on Mid-Parent
Kinship
Fraternal Regression
Variability in Fraternities and Co-Fraternities
8. The Law of Ancestral Heredity
Galton's Formulation of the Ancestral Law
Galton's Derivation of the Law in 1885
Derivation of the Law in 1897
Galton's Law as It Should Have Been
Karl Pearson's Interpretation of the Ancestral Law
The Ancestral Law and Mendelism
Weldon and Mendelism
Pearson and Mendelism
Yule's Reconciliation of the Law with Mendelism
Appendix: The Regression on Mid-Ancestral Values
9. Discontinuity in Evolution
Galton's Theory of Discontinuous Evolution
Stability of Type
Perpetual Regression
Selection Experiments
The Fallacy of Perpetual Regression
"Discontinuity in Evolution" (1894)
Speciation and Saltation
De Vries and The Mutation Theory
Punctuated Equilibria
10. Biometry
The Demonstration of Natural Selection
The Career of W. F. R. Weldon
The Common Shrimp
The Shore Crab
Stabilizing Selection in Snails
Bumpus's Sparrows
Multivariate Selection
Quantitative Genetics
The Multiple Factor Hypothesis
The Hardy-Weinberg Law
Mendelian Theory of Quantitative Genetics
The Response to Selection
Coda
Appendix: Multivariate Selection Theory
Selection Differentials and Selection Gradients
The Response to Selection
References
Index

What People are Saying About This

James Franklin

Well-written, with a good pace, clear explanations, and a good eye for alternating the technical exposition with interesting personal detail. Anyone with a basic interest in the history of biology or of statistics will find it a valuable and enjoyable read.

— James Franklin, University of New South Wales, author of The Science of Conjecture

A. W. F. Edwards

Sir Francis Galton is a neglected scientific genius. Buried under the ignominy of having coined the word eugenics only his reputation as a dilettante amateur scientist survived. But in this book, Michael Bulmer shows that Galton was to the science of heredity what Charles Babbage was to computing. Babbage knew no electrons and Galton no genes, but their ideas have transcended the discovery of both. Bulmer gives the first full account of Galton's theory of ancestral heredity which so influenced Pearson, and shows how, with his experiments on the inheritance of seed-weight in the sweet pea, Galton did for the inheritance of continuous characters what Gregor Mendel (unknown to Galton and his generation) had done for discrete characters. Bulmer's book is a major contribution to an understanding of the path-breaking biological and statistical work of 'the father of biometry.'.

— A. W. F. Edwards, University of Cambridge, author of Pascal's Arithmetic Triangle and Likelihood

From the Publisher

Well-written, with a good pace, clear explanations, and a good eye for alternating the technical exposition with interesting personal detail. Anyone with a basic interest in the history of biology or of statistics will find it a valuable and enjoyable read.
—James Franklin, University of New South Wales, author of The Science of Conjecture

Sir Francis Galton is a neglected scientific genius. Buried under the ignominy of having coined the word eugenics only his reputation as a dilettante amateur scientist survived. But in this book, Michael Bulmer shows that Galton was to the science of heredity what Charles Babbage was to computing. Babbage knew no electrons and Galton no genes, but their ideas have transcended the discovery of both. Bulmer gives the first full account of Galton's theory of ancestral heredity which so influenced Pearson, and shows how, with his experiments on the inheritance of seed-weight in the sweet pea, Galton did for the inheritance of continuous characters what Gregor Mendel (unknown to Galton and his generation) had done for discrete characters. Bulmer's book is a major contribution to an understanding of the path-breaking biological and statistical work of 'the father of biometry.'.
—A. W. F. Edwards, University of Cambridge, author of Pascal's Arithmetic Triangle and Likelihood

Editorial Reviews

Chapters on Galton's early scientific career . . . are followed by meatier chapters on statistical theory of heredity, the law of ancestral heredity, discontinuity in evolution, and biometry. For historians of science the book provides a clear roadmap to what Galton did, or said he did, and what he thought, or what he believed he thought.
—Hamilton Cravens, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences

Michael Bulmer's book is only partially about Galton the man. It begins with a biographical chapter but most of the book describes and evaluates Galton's quantitative work . . . Bulmer guides us skillfully through a great deal of the beginnings of our science. We are where we are because of the labors of people like Francis Galton. Science is not the same thing as progress but Galton's story is relevant to understanding something about the way in which science is related to progress.
—R.J. Berry, Human Genetics

From the Publisher

Chapters on Galton's early scientific career . . . are followed by meatier chapters on statistical theory of heredity, the law of ancestral heredity, discontinuity in evolution, and biometry. For historians of science the book provides a clear roadmap to what Galton did, or said he did, and what he thought, or what he believed he thought.

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences - Hamilton Cravens

Michael Bulmer's book is only partially about Galton the man. It begins with a biographical chapter but most of the book describes and evaluates Galton's quantitative work . . . Bulmer guides us skillfully through a great deal of the beginnings of our science. We are where we are because of the labors of people like Francis Galton. Science is not the same thing as progress but Galton's story is relevant to understanding something about the way in which science is related to progress.

Human Genetics - R.J. Berry

Michael Bulmer's book is only partially about Galton the man. It begins with a biographical chapter but most of the book describes and evaluates Galton's quantitative work... Bulmer guides us skillfully through a great deal of the beginnings of our science. We are where we are because of the labors of people like Francis Galton. Science is not the same thing as progress but Galton's story is relevant to understanding something about the way in which science is related to progress.

— R.J. Berry

Human Genetics

Chapters on Galton's early scientific career... are followed by meatier chapters on statistical theory of heredity, the law of ancestral heredity, discontinuity in evolution, and biometry. For historians of science the book provides a clear roadmap to what Galton did, or said he did, and what he thought, or what he believed he thought.

— Hamilton Cravens

Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences