Who Is Sir Francis Galton?

Below we see the major awards received by Francis Galton during his long and productive professional life, spanning 57 years, from age 31 to age 88. Galton was justly proud of these awards, but I believe that no honor ever exceeded, in his view, his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The Copley Medal was the most prestigious British award given to a scientist. Galton called it the “blue ribbon” of the scientific world. He received it less than three months before his death in January 1911.

The listing on the right illustrates another area in which Sir Francis was way ahead of his time. Today, records of family history with regard to health are not common but are sometimes quite useful in screening for possibly heritable genetic tendencies.

So the Life History Album and the Record of Family Faculties are quite practical ways to collect the important information for a family.

It is worth taking a little time here to read what The Times had to say in its review of Family Faculties. “A new and instructive recreation is offered by an eminent man of science to the families of England. It may be called the game of ‘Family Records.’ It is at least as attractive as most of the games, puzzles, and strings of questions with which many families now beguile their leisure and weary their acquaintances, and it is likely to be far more useful in its results.”

This listing above illustrates, in a way never done before, as far as I know, the position and importance of Sir Francis Galton in the history and development of the science of statistics. Here we can see vividly that Francis Galton is, with regard to statistical thinking, the central figure in history. He gathered in the data from the past, from the eminent men who preceded him, withdrew from it insights which no one had ever seen before, and became the great evangelist for statistical thinking, and a mentor and powerful resource for those who have followed him.

Of course, there were scores of noteworthy persons who contributed to the development of statistical thinking. But it was Galton who made the crucial breakthroughs in the last half of the nineteenth century, and who arranged to leave a legacy which is still growing today.

Laplace was a Frenchman; an astronomer and mathematician.

Gauss was a German; an astronomer and mathematician, and a pioneer in the fields of electricity and magnetism.

Quetelet was a Belgian; an astronomer and sociologist. He was one of the first to use the normal distribution in the study of human populations.

It is noteworthy that all three men were astronomers, men who were concerned with measurements, and their accuracy. When their efforts resulted in the discovery of the normal distribution, they called it the “law of error”, believing that (incorrectly) all deviations from the average or mean value of a distribution were due to “errors” made by the observers.

These men and others gathered data, developed the concept of the normal distribution, and found it to occur in many of the variables they studied.

But it remained for Galton to see the tremendous power inherent in the existence of the normal distribution. For example: stability; if a distribution was not disturbed by alien forces, its characteristics could be predicted with considerable accuracy into the future. Economy; that a normal distribution represented the most economical state for a process or system.

In the case of human populations and the distribution of a characteristic, there is a “niche for every man”. This says that in a stable, harmonious population, all men are not created equal, but each man has a place of equal value for contribution to the well-being of society. In addition, Galton discovered the correlation coefficient, regression towards the mean, and other methods still much in use today.

But Galton also wanted to strengthen the development of statistical thinking as a science. So in 1904, he made a grant of 1500 pounds for a three year fellowship within the University of London. Thus began the Galton Laboratory, which evolved into the Department of Statistics and the Department of Genetics and Biometry. In 1991, more than 50 scientists were involved in the work of the Laboratory.

Karl Pearson became the first professor of statistics in the world, followed by Sir Ronald Fisher, considered by many to be the greatest scientist yet in the field of statistics. Our own Dr. Deming studied under Sir Ronald, and what he learned became the core of his management methods. Egon Pearson, Karl Pearson’s son, became the next professor of statistics, and along with Walter Shewhart (from Bell Laboratories) developed control charts; a simple yet powerful method for process analysis (see example on right). George E P Box not only studied with Egon Pearson, but also married Sir Ronald Fisher’s daughter, Joan. Professor Box became the pre-eminent authority in the US on the subject of design of experiments.

So we see that Francis Galton is the central figure in the history of statistical thinking, and with his resources, strength of character, and great insights, he laid the groundwork for the legacy which is to follow.

For a thorough and fascinating adventure into the world of statistical thinking and its powerful uses today, please see the references to Stigler, Box, Wheeler, and Deming (to be included with the final article in the series). And nothing is more interesting than to read Galton’s straightforward and very lucid style in his own books on the subject.

Here we see a page from the appendix of Walter Shewhart’s famous book which is a scholarly presentation of the development of a powerful addition to statistical thinking: control charts. These are nothing more than distributions spread over time, and have been shown to be the “best bargain in statistical methods” because of the return on investment. So much insight into a process for so little effort.

We see Shewhart’s acknowledgement of the value to him of the information obtained from Biometrika. He mentions the now famous names of Karl Pearson, Egon Pearson, R A Fisher, and others.

Indirectly, we see the tie to Francis Galton, since he and Karl Pearson, along with W F R Weldon, founded Biometrika in 1901.