Francis Galton Quotes

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The following question had been much in my mind. How is it possible for a population to remain alike in its features, as a whole, during many successive generations, if the average produce of each couple resemble their parents? Their children are not alike but vary...

Francis Galton
The process of evolution on this earth, so far as we can judge, has been carried out neither with intelligence nor truth, but entirely through the routine of various sequences, commonly called "laws," established or necessitated we know not how.

Francis Galton
It is always well to retain a clear geometric view of the facts when we are dealing with statistical problems, which abound with dangerous pitfalls, easily overlooked by the unwary, while they are cantering gaily along upon their arithmetic.

Francis Galton
The creed of eugenics is founded upon the idea of evolution...

Francis Galton
A special taste for science seems frequently to be so ingrained in the constitution of scientific men, that it asserts itself throughout their whole existence.

Francis Galton
Our part in the universe may possibly in some distant way be analogous to that of cells in an organised body, and our personalities may be the transient but essential elements of an immortal and cosmic mind.

Francis Galton
Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally. The feeble nations of the world are necessarily giving way before the nobler varieties of mankind.

Francis Galton
The primary objects of the Gaussian Law of Error were exactly opposed, in one sense, to those to which I applied them. They were to get rid of, or to provide a just allowance for errors. But these errors or deviations were the very thing I wanted to preserve and to know about.

Francis Galton
The publication in 1859 of the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally. Its effect was to demolish a multitude of dogmatic barriers by a single stroke, and to arouse a spirit of rebellion against all ancient authorities whose positive and unauthenticated statements were contradicted by modern science.

Francis Galton
The object of statistical science is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussion. The possibility of doing this is based on the constancy and continuity with which objects of the same species are found to vary.

Francis Galton
The large do not always beget the large, nor the small the small, and yet the observed proportions between the large and the small in each degree of size and in every quality, hardly varies from one generation to another.

Francis Galton
Life in general may be looked upon as a republic where the individuals are for the most part unconscious that while they are working for themselves they are also working for the public good.

Francis Galton
I know of scarcely anything so apt to impress the imagination as the wonderful form of cosmic order expressed by the "Law of Frequency of Error." The law would have been personified by the Greeks and deified, if they had known of it. It reigns with serenity and in complete self-effacement, amidst the wildest confusion. The huger the mob, and the greater the apparent anarchy, the more perfect is its sway. It is the supreme law of Unreason.

Francis Galton
It has been objected... that I pushed the application of the Law of Frequency of Error somewhat too far. I may have done so.; but I am sure that, with the evidence before me, the applicability of that law is more than justified within... reasonable limits.

Francis Galton
General impressions are never to be trusted. Unfortunately when they are of long standing they become fixed rules of life and assume a prescriptive right not to be questioned. Consequently those who are not accustomed to original inquiry entertain a hatred and horror of statistics. They cannot endure the idea of submitting sacred impressions to cold-blooded verification. But it is the triumph of scientific men to rise superior to such superstitions, to desire tests by which the value of beliefs may be ascertained, and to feel sufficiently masters of themselves to discard contemptuously whatever may be found untrue.

Francis Galton
All the formulæ of Conic Sections having long since gone out of my head, I went on my return to London to the Royal Institution to read them up. Professor, now Sir James Dewar, came in and probably noticing signs of despair in my face, asked me what I was about; then said, "Why do you bother over this? My brother in law, J. Hamilton Dickson of Peterhouse, loves problems and wants new ones. Send it to him." I did so... and he most cordially helped me by working it out... on the basis of the... Gaussian Law of Error.

Francis Galton
The phrase 'nature and nurture' is a convenient jingle of words, for it separates under two distinct heads the innumerable elements of which personality is composed. Nature is all that a man brings with himself into the world; nurture is every influence without that affects him after his birth.

Francis Galton
All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.

Francis Galton
There is a steady check in an old civilisation upon the fertility of the abler classes: the improvident and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up the breed. So the race gradually deteriorates, becoming in each successive generation less fit for a high civilisation.

Francis Galton
Exercising the right of occasional suppression and slight modification, it is truly absurd to see how plastic a limited number of observations become, in the hands of men with preconceived ideas.

Francis Galton
A really intelligent nation might be held together by far stronger forces than are derived from the purely gregarious instincts. A nation need not be a mob of slaves, clinging to one another through fear, and for the most part incapable of self-government, and begging to be led; but it might consist of vigorous self-reliant men, knit to one another by innumerable ties, into a strong, tense, and elastic organisation.

Francis Galton
The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal. It is retained by its extraordinary adhesion to the comforts of the house in which it reared.

Francis Galton
I HAVE no patience with the hypothesis occasionally expressed, and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort. It is in the most unqualified manner that I object to pretensions of natural equality. The experiences of the nursery, the school, the University, and of professional careers, are a chain of proofs to the contrary.

Francis Galton
I wish that hospitals could be turned into places for experiment more than they are, in the following perfectly humane direction. Suppose two different and competing treatments of a particular malady ; I have just mentioned a case in point. Let the patients suffering under it be given the option of being placed under Dr. A. or Dr. B., the respective representatives of the two methods, and the results be statistically compared. A co-operation without partisanship between many large hospitals ought to speedily settle doubts that now hang unnecessarily long under dispute.

Francis Galton
As these lines are being written, the circumstances under which I first clearly grasped the important generalisation that the laws of Heredity were solely concerned with deviations expressed in statistical units, are vividly recalled to my memory. It was in the grounds of Naworth Castle, where an invitation had been given to ramble freely. A temporary shower drove me to seek refuge in a reddish recess in the rock by the side of the pathway. There the idea flashed across me, and I forgot everything else for a moment in my great delight.

Francis Galton