Earlier, I pointed out how remarkable it is that Charles Darwin has, in recent decades, been promoted to near-divine status in our culture, while his 13-year younger half-cousin Francis Galton has been demonized.
I don't know a huge amount about the two, having merely read a few biographies. Still, the two don't strike me as polar opposites the way they seem to strike the conventional wisdom today. Instead, they seem more notable for their similarities than their differences. The two, grandsons of Erasmus Darwin, both seem like models of the Victorian gentleman amateur scientist.
The differences between them seem fairly exiguous. Darwin wasn't as healthy as Galton, who was hugely productive from age 30 onward (after a breakdown at university), working out the math of correlation and regression in advanced middle age. James Surowiecki's book "The Wisdom of Crowds" begins with an anecdote about the discovery of his topic: an 85-year-old Galton attended a country fair where there was a contest to guess the weight of a bull. Galton collected all the guesses with the intention of demonstrating the stupidity of crowds, but discovered to his amazement that crowds could be pretty wise in situations where random errors canceled each other out. So, the octogenarian wrote up his surprising discovery and published it in Nature.
One difference is obvious: Galton had more ideas, while Darwin had the biggest idea of the century: natural selection. Galton always saw himself as following in Darwin's footsteps.
But, here's the thought experiment that just occurred to me: What if Galton had been born in 1809 and died in 1881, while Darwin was born in 1822 and lived until 1911? My guess would be that Galton might have eventually stumbled upon natural selection first, leaving Darwin to engage in follow-up work rather like Galton's.
The obvious reason for the difference:
ReplyDelete- Darwin is primarily identified with the idea of Darwinism, which has been employed as the primary weapon by liberals (broadly speaking) in their quest to destroy Christianity.
- Galton is primarily identified with his idea of Eugenics, which runs entirely contrary to the liberal idea.
Our elites have had liberalism as their ersatz religion for some time now.
What, Steve, is a "half-cousin"?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Darwin is famous for inventing natural selection, but Wallace did that, too. Darwin is important for his thorough work on it.
ReplyDeleteThere was a big fight of credit between Newton and Hooke about the inverse square law leading to Kepler's laws. But Newton wrote a book and won.
Stop it with the "exiguous" already. I don't even recall WFB using a 20-dollar word like that.
ReplyDeleteGalton collected all the guesses with the intention of demonstrating the stupidity of crowds, but discovered to his amazement that crowds could be pretty wise in situations where random errors canceled each other out. So, the octogenarian wrote up his surprising discovery and published it in Nature.
ReplyDeleteWow, a real scientist.
A guy who can start with an idea.
Check to see if it is correct.
Prove his idea false.
And...
Admit it.
Truly rare.
In the root sense of the term "genius" Galton, of the two, appears to have been THE genius; both were,
ReplyDeleteof course, brilliant.
Darwin could stick to details and a single path--a demon for details they say; Galton covered the landscape from travel narratives, to finger prints, to twins, to quantifying relationships, to the efficacy of prayer, to imagery studies, to induced paranoia... everywhere and in someways nowhere. The contributions of Pearson and Spearman made his quantification and co-relationships of individual differences important.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of what people may claim, Galton's work in mathematics has more effect on our day-to-day lives than Darwin's work on evolution.
ReplyDeleteAnd frankly, if their birth orders were reversed, Darwin's competitor for Evolution (Alfred Wallace) would be better known, but Galton would still be Galton.
Galton did have another breakdown, in his 40s - see page 150 of Nicholas Gillham's biography.
ReplyDeleteBoth Darwin and Galton were very productive: Darwin wrote about 20 books and a relatively small number of shorter pieces, while Galton wrote hundreds of short pieces and about a dozen books (some of which were basically collections of articles).
I suppose Galton's work was more diverse in subject matter than Darwin's, though Darwin's diversity should not be underestimated: not many people have written books of excellent first-hand research on subjects as diverse as volcanic islands, barnacles, orchids, the expression of the emotions, and earthworms, to mention only some.
The most obvious difference of approach between them was that Galton was mathematically (and especially statistically) minded, and Darwin wasn't. But this isn't the place to make a full comparison.
As to whether if Galton were born earlier he would have got the idea of natural selection before Darwin, I rather doubt it. Darwin first hit on the idea before the age of 30, but didn't publish it for another 20 years. Galton was older (around 37) when the Origin of Species was published, and wasn't even particularly interested in biology or heredity until then. (There is surprisingly little about animals and plants in his book of South African exploration.) So there is nothing to suggest that he would have found the idea of natural selection for himself.
One obvious difference between them is that Darwin fathered 10 children and Galton none, that we know of, but the reasons are unknown, and may be more to do with Galton's wife than Galton himself.
Another thing that hurts Galton in a modern, contemporary sense is that he was an unapologetic snob. This is the kiss of death if your political beliefs are right-wing, whereas with left-wing snobs it's ignored or explained away. Bertrand Russell and John M. Keynes were just as snobbish as Galton but it's OK because they are left-wing icons.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nationalreview.com/corner/275569/qaddafis-darling-black-african-woman-daniel-foster
ReplyDeleteMr. Sailer off topic but interesting.
@grumpy old man - "What, Steve, is a 'half-cousin'?"
ReplyDelete"Half-cousins are the children of two half-siblings (and their different partners)."
Galton once measured Darwin's head and then said:
ReplyDelete"Well, Charles, you have the second best developed frontal lobes in England." "SECOND best" expostulated Darwin, "whose are better then?"
"My own, of course." replied Francis loftily.
Oh, and half first cousins are cousins who have only one grandparent in common, who in this case was Erasmus Darwin.
"What if Galton had been born in 1809 and died in 1881, while Darwin was born in 1822 and lived until 1911? My guess would be that Galton might have eventually stumbled upon natural selection first, leaving Darwin to engage in follow-up work rather like Galton's."
ReplyDelete- Question is, would Wallace have bowed out of accepting credit for the idea, against Galton?
Like Barack Obama's doorstops, Charles Darlin's written works are universally beloved by the left, but almost universally unread. Imagine if they actually read the stuff in there. How would they defend it, given what we know now?
ReplyDeleteAnd no, I'm not a natural selection denier. I'm just saying that Darwin leaves more unexplained than he explains, and, with the wisdom of hindsight, we now know he mis-explains.
And speaking of cousins, Darwin married his (full) first cousin, FWIW.
"Galton is primarily identified with his idea of Eugenics, which runs entirely contrary to the liberal idea."
ReplyDelete- It does now, after a famous socialist of German persuasion permanently poisoned the idea. Prior to WWII, it was quite popular with the lefties.
Communism was later permanently poisoned by the lefties several decades later with the fall of USSR.
It seems everything from the left eventually gets proven to be the wrong course of action, but only after the liberals in charge of a society have created a national catastrophe.
I guess we'll have to wait for what, economic collapse in the US? before we finally get rid of AA and some of these other social programs.
Why these guys are ever allowed again within 1000 yds of the gears of government is anyone's guess.
Was it Talleyrand who said 'Treason is a matter of dates'?
ReplyDeleteReally, a lot of how people are perceived has to do with historical events occurring much later that have nothing to do with them. Poor Wagner made some music that some nasty people later liked and got involved with a political movement (nationalism) _strands_ of which later turned nasty and plunged Europe into the biggest bloodbath in human history, and now everyone thinks he's a jerk even while they admit (even his detractors) that he was a genius.
(Yes, part of it was that he pissed off the Jews, but Tchaikovsky was anti-Semitic too... Wagner just had bad luck.)
So, Galton gets linked to the Nazis, and Darwin gets loved because his ideas later were used against Christianity. But I suspect both men would have been puzzled at the relative esteem of their ideas in the modern day.
So, yeah...It makes no sense. ;)
Had Galton been a homosexual or Mexican he would be the subject of a holiday in California.
ReplyDelete"Half-cousins are the children of two half-siblings (and their different partners)."
ReplyDeletePhooey. A cousin is the child of your parent's sibling, and it doesn't admit of degree. Unless you call your parent's half-sibling your "half aunt" or "half uncle". But only a lunatic would do that.
Phooey. A cousin is the child of your parent's sibling, and it doesn't admit of degree. Unless you call your parent's half-sibling your "half aunt" or "half uncle". But only a lunatic would do that.
ReplyDeleteNot a lunatic, just someone interested in being specific, which is by the way, not incredibly easy to do in the English language. In Chinese and Arabic, for instance, an "aunt" is never just an aunt...what side of the family she's on and whether she's actually a blood relative matters in what you call her. Saying Darwin and Galton were half-cousins is easily understandable because it means that they are less closely related than first cousins and more so than second cousins.
When you are talking about the blood relationship between Darwin and Galton, of all relatives in history, it seems reasonable to be specific.
ReplyDeleteHedgehogs can't be foxes, and vice versa.
ReplyDeleteRight, Galton as fox (lots of ideas), Darwin as hedgehog (one big idea). You could say that lots of Galton's innovations (regression, making fingerprints usable for fighting crime) were all related to human differences. Still, it's hard to fit in inventing the weather map or the silent dog whistle.
ReplyDeleteDarwin is more respected than Wallace not only for publishing first, but the subsequent work he did. Wallace was into spiritualism and thought mere material evolution could not explain higher thought.
ReplyDeleteGalton was a geo-political thinker too. In his 1875 letter to The Times, he recommended importing Chinese settlers to Africa to provide hands-on leadership for the natives. As usual FG was ahead of his time. My understanding is that Johannesburg now has a thriving Chinese quarter, around the formerly mid-level Jewish suburb of Cyrildene. And chinese engineering contractors are at work 24/7 (literally) on construction projects throughout the continent.
ReplyDeleteGilbert P.
I doubt that Galton would have come up with natural selection. The theory of evolution by natural selection was an outgrowth of Darwin's training as a naturalist. Theories are devised by the smartest people living at any particular time, but by the people working in those particular fields. For example, Edwin Hubble was (so say) not some unprecedented scientific genius. He just happened to be a very competent guy who had access to the world's most powerful telescope, hence he discovered other galaxies, the expanding universe, etc. Galton supposedly invented statistics in an effort to prove Darwin right.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of heredity, Charles Darwin had 10 children with his first cousin despite both being 30 years old when married.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the 6 boys (since women then had little opportunity to demonstrate their abilities in the practical world):
* William graduated Christ College Cambridge and became a banker. (childless)
* George was a mathematician and astronomer, professor at Cambridge and barrister, and Fellow of the Royal Society. (4 children)
* Francis became a botanist, was a professor at Cambridge and was a Fellow of the Royal Society. (3 children)
* Leonard became a soldier in the Royal Engineers, taught at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, worked in military intelligence, became a politician and was president of the Royal Geographical Society. (childless)
* Horace graduated Trinity College, Cambridge, became an engineer, founded the Cambridge Scientific Instruments Co, was mayor of Cambridge and a Fellow at the Royal Society. (3 children)
* Charles died at 2 years old.
Of the 7 children that lived into adulthood, both women but only 2 of the 5 men were childless.
A few observations:
* Are supposedly intelligent women like Darwin's daughters less likely to reproduce even if born 150yrs ago?
* In contrast, the demonstrably more intellectual sons had more children than the less intellectual sons (professors vs banker/solider-engineer-politico).
* Despite a regression to the mean at work with Darwin's children, they have a surprising near uniformity of accomplishment. What is the heritability of conscientiousness?
* Darwin's 10 (9 surviving) children produced 10 which is basically replacement rate. This seems low in general for the times, but is perhaps high for the specific social and intellectual class Darwin and his children occupied in England at the time. Any studies on this?
"Had Galton been a homosexual or a Mexican..." Its weel known that Galton was Black.
ReplyDeleteOT Steve. While the NYT covers the extremely camera-friendly Battle For Libya, those stolid, hardworking Mexicans just keep plodding along, unable to attract a single Times Company photographer. Anyway, that thing that happened in that other place--a guy named Calderon says it's our fault.
ReplyDeleteUgh.
ReplyDeleteOT, but Barack Obama's uncle, Omar Onyango Obama, an illegal alien, has been arrested for a DUI in Boston.
ReplyDeleteThe story doesn't say it's Obama's uncle, but the perp's info is very similar to Barack's 67-year-old Uncle Omar
Regarding the wisdom of crowds, I'd bet that country fair attendees in 1906 would be pretty good at guessing the weight of a bull. A knowledgeable crowd will give an accurate estimate of most anything. It seems self-evident, or am I missing something here?
ReplyDeletewasn't galton some guy in atlas shmugged?
ReplyDelete@Uncle Mischling of the Second Degree - "Phooey. A cousin is the child of your parent's sibling, and it doesn't admit of degree. Unless you call your parent's half-sibling your 'half aunt' or 'half uncle'. But only a lunatic would do that."
ReplyDeleteyeah, well i got the ocd, alright? (~_^)
(just to play with your mind a bit -- ever considered double first-cousins? (^_^) )
OT:
ReplyDeleteThis English guy Rob Ager has excellent movie analyses.
http://www.youtube.com/user/robag88
http://www.collativelearning.com/CLS%20FAQ.html
He also seems to be an anti-immigration rightist of some sort, although he's fairly covert about it.
Id heard of the wisdom of crowds before but it was reading iSteve a few years ago that inspired me to use it.
ReplyDeleteIve won a big jar of jellybeans on the strength of it, a decorative windmill to put in the garden and a tray of fruit. Of course it only works if you get to see everybody elses guesses and have a chnace to work out the mean.
Anonymous "Doubts that Galton would have come up with natural selection. The theory of evolution by natural selection was an outgrowth of Darwin's training as a naturalist."
ReplyDeleteThe hypothesis of evolution by natural selection is a materialistic replacement for the Great Chain of Being (Wikipedia, without mentioning the obvious similarities to Darwinism, has a very good entry on this topic), which was all the rage in 19th-century Britain and Europe. Chuck D's hypothesis wasn't striking or original in the least -- he merely replaced an unobserved event (Creation) with an unobserved process (evolution).
It was actually Chuck D's seminary training that gave him thorough and expert knowledge of the Chain of Being, which his hypothesis, and even current evolution "research," mirrors almost exactly. Darwin's training as a naturalist only served to suggest a materialistic replacement for God as the prime force deciding the hierarchy of organisms.
prawnster
Chuck D's hypothesis wasn't striking or original in the least -- he merely replaced an unobserved event (Creation) with an unobserved process (evolution).
ReplyDeleteNo. Chaz came up with a mechanism. A how shit happens that was better than "Allah done did it" or "it was the Jeeboo"
Almost no evolutionary biology deals with the 'creation'. In fact, had creation happened in few days the Allah did it, evolution by selection would still happen.
It is interesting that the notion that the President should be well versed in Evolution has reared its ugly head again.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the President should be well versed in Quantum Mechanics as well.
Of course, the left pays lip service to Evolution, because they clearly do not believe the consequences of Evolution and selection among humans.
The "wisdom of crowds" breaks down where someone has developed an expertise that most people don't have.
ReplyDeleteFor example, a chess grandmaster will always defeat a crowd of beginners.
And sometimes, as with Darwin, such an expertise is gained by working thru a topic when other folks would have moved on.
(It's a funny experience to mull over an issue for weeks/months and then see the "obvious" answer. A pleasure to discover the solution but irksome to be so slow.)
BTW, Galton, being a fox, didn't have had Darwin's patience in amassing the evidence and reflecting on it. That's not a criticism of Galton, but simply an acceptance that he had a different form of genius.
"Darwin's 10 (9 surviving) children produced 10 which is basically replacement rate. This seems low in general for the times, but is perhaps high for the specific social and intellectual class Darwin and his children occupied in England at the time. Any studies on this?"
ReplyDeleteThe British birth rate (and that of the rest of the western world) collapsed after 1870. Before 1870, families of 5, 10, 15 children or more pop up commonly in bios of famous people in all walks of life. Those very large families became much less common afer 1870. Believe it or not, they had fairly effective birth control if they had the will and know-how to use them; and in the late 1900s, 20% of all pregnancies in America were deliberately terminated. No reason to think the Brits were any different.