Francis Galton

L'eugenetica è ormai una branchia della scienza contemporanea nel 1921, ed un campo teorico multidisciplinare: alcune discipline sono chiaramente riconducibili all'ambito scientifico (medicina, antropologia, biologia, genetica, statistica, psichiatria) ma anche campi disciplinari come la politica, l'economia, il diritto, la storia e la teologia. Si basa sull'idea di una evoluzione controllata e diretta dall'uomo, non più governata dalla selezione naturale. Eugenetica ortodossa Vanno introdotte alcune distinzioni di carattere storiografico, non si può parlare di un'unica tipologia di eugenetica in quanto questa evolve nel tempo: ci concentreremo sulla "mainline eugenics" ossia sull'eugenetica ortodossa, che si sviluppa fra la fine dell'800 e la prima parte del 900. È caratterizzata da questi tre elementi: • Politiche statali di intervento coercitivo rispetto alla riproduzione umana: forme di controllo medico prematrimoniale, leggi di sterilizzazione verso pazienti di cliniche e malati mentali, blocco dei flussi migratori (l'immigrazione determina degli incroci razziali che può portare alla degenerazione della purezza e dell'integrità razziale nazionale) • Fortissimo pregiudizio razzista e classista • Costruzione di modalità di visualizzazione dell'ereditarietà attraverso le generazioni con il metodo del pedigree Il concetto di "eugenics", neologismo derivante dal greco che significa "buona nascita", viene coniato negli anni 60 dell'800 da uno scienziato e intellettuale inglese, cugino di Charles Darwin: il vittoriano Francis Galton. La sua eugenetica, tuttavia, non ha nulla a che vedere con quella nazista, legata, invece, al controllo statale della sfera privata, riproduttiva e sessuale del cittadino. La lettura dell'"Origine delle specie", del cugino Darwin, è illuminante, in questo senso, per Golton: pochi anni dopo pubblica un saggio dal titolo "Hereditary genius" che cerca di applicare la teoria della selezione naturale al problema della distribuzione statistica ereditaria dei talenti naturali fra le famiglie britanniche più eminenti. Si dichiara, inoltre, convinto dell'ereditarietà di tratti fisici e psicologici e, di conseguenza, delinea la possibilità di organizzare un programma di ingegneria sociale ispirato al modello di selezione artificiale applicato, già, nell'allevamento e nell'agricoltura: chiama questo programma "viricultura", ossia "cultura degli uomini". Diversi anni dopo, nel 1883, in una nuova opera "Indagini sulle facoltà umane e sul loro sviluppo" conierà il termine "eugenetica". L'opera di Galton, tuttavia, non può essere interpretata come l'anticamera per l'eugenetica novecentesca e, poi, di quella nazista: al centro della sua ricerca non vi è la volontà di migliorare la razza ma, in quanto figlio dell'ottimismo vittoriano, il desiderio di sostenere l'alta borghesia inglese. Le sue opere, in questo senso, costituiscono una sorta di utopia che prevede l'introduzione da parte dello stato di incentivi economici a sostegno delle unioni matrimoniali fra coloro che sono più dotati dal punto di vista dei talenti, ossia gli intellettuali dell'upper class. Si tratta, quindi, di una critica che Galton rivolge verso i privilegi di cui godeva la classe aristocratica britannica. Seppur utilizzi termini e metafore tratte dall'allevamento, non bisogna pensare che Galton condividesse e/o fosse a favore dell'introduzione di misure coercitive e selettive nell'ambito della riproduzione umana: tanto lui quanto Darwin sono, infatti, intellettuali inglesi liberali piuttosto critici riguardo all'introduzione dello stato nella sfera privata del cittadino. Quello che è presente in Galton non è un pregiudizio di razza ma un pregiudizio classista: crede sia necessario favorire la riproduzione delle classi sociali alte e dotate ai danni di quelle, appunto, meno dotate ossia il sottoproletariato, gli urban poor. Conseguentemente a queste dichiarazioni, nel 1871, Darwin pubblica "L'origine dell'uomo" nel quale assume posizioni nettamente più moderate e prudenti rispetto alle affermazioni del cugino: non ritiene necessaria una selezione artificiale, già la selezione naturale contribuisce a ridurre la riproduzione dei "deboli di corpo e di mente". L'unica misura eugenetica che promuove coincide con un limitato controllo sanitario del matrimonio rispetto alle unioni fra "deboli di corpo e di mente" e fra consanguinei.

For many astronomers, the progressive development of life has been seen as a natural occurrence given proper environmental conditions on a planet: even though such beings would not be identical to humans, there would be significant parallels. A striking contrast is seen in writings of nonphysical scientists, who have held more widely differing views. But within this diversity, reasons for differences become more apparent when we see how views about extraterrestrials can be related to the differential emphasis placed on modern evolutionary theory by scientists of various disciplines. One clue to understanding the differences between the biologists, paleontologists, and anthropologists who speculated on extraterrestrials is suggested by noting who wrote on the subject. Given the relatively small number of commentators on the topic, it seems more than coincidental that four of the major contributors to the evolutionary synthesis in the 1930s and 1940s are among them. Upon closer examination it is evident that the exobiological arguments of Theodosius Dobzhansky and George Gaylord Simpson and, less directly, of H. J. Muller and Ernst Mayr are all related to their earlier work in formulating synthetic evolution. By examining the variety of views held by nonphysical scientists, we can see that there were significant disagreements between them about evolution into the 1960s. By the mid-1980s, many believed that “higher” life, particularly intelligent life, probably occurs quite infrequently in the universe; nevertheless, some held out the possibility that convergence of intelligence could occur across worlds. Regardless of the final conclusions these scientists reached about the likely prevalence of extraterrestrial intelligence, the use of evolutionary arguments to support their positions became increasingly common.

This is an overview of the emergence of psychology in France, beginning with the philosophical origins, and moving into the psychoanalytic, psychiatric, and psychological fields.  It may be useful for some research papers on the topic, especially in summarizing some key ideas and figures in early French psychology.

Testimonies about aphantasia are still surprisingly rare, more than a century after Galton. It is therefore difficult to understand how a person devoid of (a kind of) imagination actually thinks. In order to outline "what it is like" to be aphantasic, I will start by compiling two qualitative interviews with aphantasics that I will then compare with other testimonies collected in literature and online. The fact that aphantasia is poorly documented may also explain why few philosophers (with the notable exception of Phillips 2014) seem to take this phenomenon seriously – contrary to others phenomena such as blindsight for instance. To redress the balance, the second part of this paper will consider three debates to which aphantasia could contribute.

Late nineteenth-century anthropology already seems to have split into two cultures: racial anthropology on the one hand and social anthropology on the other. However, an intriguing analytical method exists that mediates this divide between nature and culture, the so-called “genealogical method.” I will trace the emergence of this method from Francis Galton’s Hereditary Genius (1869) and Lewis H. Morgan’s Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity (1871) to W. H. R. Rivers “Genealogical Method of Anthropological Inquiry” (1910) and Franz Boas’ The Mind of Primitive Man (1911). My aim in doing this is to re-contextualize the genealogical method. This method originated in, and continues to represent, a long-standing Western tradition of analyzing, and potentially interfering with, reproductive relations within populations. Rather than being grounded in the “naturalization” of a particular family model, therefore, the genealogical method originated as an analytical tool that mapped out these reproductive relations in a manner that was as consistent and exhaustive as possible. As such, it was not grounded in biology but rather in legal traditions of measuring kinship by degrees, as well as practices of administering and surveying populations in which notions of racial belonging often played a crucial role.

Volume 1 of the first comprehensive collection of correspondence by Sir Richard Francis Burton, together with reminiscences by his contemporaries, arranged together in chronological order, making up roughly 800 items. Detailed annotations throughout clarify references. A Register provides biographical information about the principal players, while a detailed Chronology provides an overview of Burton's career. Many rare illustrations and plates are included.

One of the oldest, and surely the most obsessive, topics in the history of photography is the relationship between art and photography. In the past, efforts were made to prove that artists had used photographic models, the aim at the time being to ennoble the medium of photography. The 'influence' it exerted on art was to turn photography itself into an art. In contrast to this theoretically unreflective and unfruitful practice, an approach will be outlined here which shifts the focus of attention to the fundamentally historcial conditions that made the encounter between the two media possible in the first place.
Even though Muybridge's photograph series were not primarily intended as models for artists, they were bound to unleash a fierce debate among representatives of a painting bent on exact reproduction of physical reality. The supporters of traditional artistic representation lost no time in raising doubts about the veracity of Muybridge's photographs. However, once the authenticity of the photographs had been proven by (re-)animation, the question that was then raised was how painting should deal with a reality that was simultaneously visible and invisible. The ensuing discussion was characterised by two equally positivstic positions: the one position, taken by Muybridge, declared flatly that any representation that did not correspond to the instantaneous photographs was simply false, thus arguing in favour of an objective modus of painting free of conventions; the other position rejected instantaneous photography because it did not comply with what the human eye was capable of grasping of a swift movement and demanded that representation be in accordance with the physiology of perception. Photography became involved in this debate not via the aesthetic influence it exercised, but via a questioning of the epistmological character of painting. Only on the periphery could voices be heard that granted art the right to represent reality according to its own laws, above and beyond what was either sensually perceptible or knowable.

El presente estudio fue realizado en el marco de la maestría 2 en Investigación del Instituto de
Altos Estudios de América Latina, Universidad París 3 Sorbonne Nouvelle en 2008-2009. Este estudio
lo integran tres partes que desarrollaron una genealogía del retrato humano en la formación de las
antiguas ciencias naturales, hasta la consolidación de la antropología y las ciencias criminológicas de
fin del siglo XIX en Europa; y revisa su repercusión en América Latina, particularmente en México. La
primera parte del estudio; “descifrar el cuerpo a través de la mirada” explica el uso de la fisiognomía
como antiguo saber, donde el retrato es el vehículo por el que transitan los dispositivos y las técnicas
modernas de observación del cuerpo. La segunda parte “El dispositivo fisiognómico en la observación
legal” integra los antiguos paradigmas de la observación del hombre con los modelos de la ciencia
ilustrada que utilizaron herramientas y tecnologías aplicadas a la observación etnográfica y
antropológica. Finalmente, en la tercera parte, “La universalización del dispositivo fisiognómico a
través de la fotografía” se presentan los elementos transferenciales entre Francia y México,
mostrando el papel de la fotografía como auxiliar de los dispositivos de observación y clasificación
antropológicas a través de la antropometría.

Twins appear remarkably often in the earliest examples of Victorian detective fiction. However, they do not merely stand for simple ‘cop-outs’ in the sense of unlikely final-act resolutions. As a reading of C.W. Adams’s recently rediscovered "Notting Hill Mystery" (1865) illustrates, twins always run the risk of exceeding the grasp of the detective’s (as well as contemporary science’s) comprehension and were thus integral as heuristic aids in the formation of the genre.

How much was archaeology founded on prejudice? The Archaeology of Race explores the application of racial theory to interpret the past in Britain during the late Victorian and Edwardian period. It investigates how material culture from ancient Egypt and Greece was used to validate the construction of racial hierarchies. Specifically focusing on Francis Galton's ideas around inheritance and race, it explores how the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie applied these in his work in Egypt and in his political beliefs. It examines the professional networks formed by societies, such as the Anthropological Institute, and their widespread use of eugenic ideas in analysing society.

Archaeology of Race draws on archives and objects from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Galton collection at UCL. These collections are used to explore anti-Semitism, skull collecting, New Race theory and physiognomy. These collections give insight into the relationship between Galton and Petrie and place their ideas in historical context.

Table Of Contents

Foreword by Natasha McEnroe, former Curator of the Galton Collection and Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum.

Introduction
Races and Men Before the 1860s
Galton and Genius
Fitting Aesthetics
Photographing Races from Antiquity
Greek Art, Greek Faces?
Peopling the Old Testament
Akhenaten's Heredity
The New Ancient Race
Flinders Petrie and Edwardian Politics
Memphis Heads

Afterword by Kathleen Sheppard, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Appendices

Comparison of Francis Galton and H. G. Wells in their attitudes to eugenics based on their use of the breeding of animals as a model for the modification of the human population. Michel Foucault's theory of "biopower" provides a conceptual framework to place their debate in the context of the definition of the human as a species in the same terms as animals.

Una manera todavía insuficientemente explorada de pensar el Humanismo puede hallarse en el reconocimiento de su intersección con las formas de ejercer el control social que fueron diseñadas a través de perspectivas utópicas. Para insertarnos en la comprensión de esta problemática, indagaremos aquí cuestiones que comprenden aspectos del origen y el derrotero de la eugenesia. Así, nos detendremos en el análisis de un corpus concebido por el campo científico de la Inglaterra victoriana para incidir en las políticas de estado y, al hacerlo, daremos cuenta de instrumentos teóricos generados dentro de este marco para administrar, con una pretendida eficiencia, los recursos materiales y humanos de la sociedad capitalista. En nuestro abordaje de la eugenesia nos focalizaremos en el pensamiento utópico de Francis Galton, con el propósito de examinar un tipo de Humanismo que nació y se desarrolló con la expresa finalidad de custodiar hegemónicamente a un sistema fundado en la libertad de mercado, a través de medios que incluyeron la creación de una disciplina científica y la voluntad de ungir esa disciplina en religión del futuro.

Tandis que l’ensemble de la tradition philosophique interroge l’idéal de beauté à partir du concept de pureté, Héraclite nous donne à penser un beau impur et contrarié, comme caractéristique d’un monde fait de mélanges désordonnés. Dans leur aspiration à une pure beauté, les penseurs font abstraction de cette dimension cosmologique. Or, ce geste est lourd de conséquences politiques dans la mesure où il contribue à la condamnation de la laideur et de la diversité humaines, et de ce fait à la clôture du monde.

Se c'è una filosofia che guarda al futuro, e promette di acquisire maggiore presenza nel dibattito pubblico e influsso sugli eventi storici, è la filosofia dell'evoluzione autodiretta. Con lo sviluppo dell'ingegneria genetica e delle tecniche di fertilizzazione in vitro, si parla sempre più frequentemente dell'opportunità di modificare la linea germinale umana per indirizzare l'evoluzione della specie. Sia chiaro che non si tratta di una novità, ma semplicemente della ripresa di un discorso che aveva già appassionato intellettuali e studiosi a cavallo tra la seconda metà dell'Ottocento e la prima del Novecento e che era stato poi accantonato in conseguenza degli abusi eugenetici che l'idea aveva innescato. In quest'articolo, proporremo alcuni cenni storici sulla nascita e lo sviluppo dell'eugenetica. Mostreremo che quest'idea, tanto nella sua versione deteriore quanto in quella eticamente sostenibile, attraversa trasversalmente le tradizionali famiglie politiche e religiose.

«Проблема Гэлтона» названа так по имени известного английского метеоролога, биолога, психолога и антрополога - и, наряду с прочим, двоюродного брата Чарльза Дарвина - Фрэнсиса Гэлтона, который впервые отметил ее наличие, указав на воздействие социокультурной диффузии, распространения определенных социокультурных комплексов в пространстве на результаты количественных кросс-культурных и кросс-национальных исследований. Антропологи, выражавшие свою обеспокоенность по поводу этой проблемы и предлагавшие свои решения для нее, беспокоились прежде всего о том, что социокультурная диффузия может привести к появлению корреляции между признаками, не находящимися между собой в закономерной функциональной зависимости, в результате чего ложные теории могут оказаться эмпирически подтвержденными. Предпринятое нами исследование показывает, что обе крайние позиции по вопросу о «проблеме Гэлтона»: первая - заключающаяся в том, что проблема эта дискредитирует все количественные кросс-культурные исследования; и вторая - в том, что эту проблему вообще не стоит принимать всерьез, - не представляются обоснованными. На наш взгляд, к «проблеме Гэлтона» необходимо относиться с полной серьезностью. Но, с другой стороны, ее можно рассматривать не столько как проблему, сколько как достояние количественных кросс-культурных исследований. Другими словами, необходимо совершенно серьезно относиться к любой достаточно сильной и статистически значимой корреляции, выявленной в ходе количественного кросс-культурного исследования, вне зависимости от того, явилась она или нет результатом «Гэлтонова эффекта» (т.е. сетевой автокорреляции). Если она им не является, тогда мы имеем дело с глобальной кросс-культурной закономерностью; но если она им является, то мы имеем дело с результатом функционирования некоторой исторической коммуникативной сети и ее влиянием на ход человеческой истории. Это, на наш взгляд, представляет отнюдь не меньший интерес. В этом плане можно говорить не только о «проблеме Гэлтона», но и о «возможности Гэлтона» - возможности, которую эта проблема дает для исследования исторических коммуникативных сетей и их влияния на глобальное развитие.

RESUMO: Este artigo busca analisar a trajetória e a posição eugênica do cientista inglês Francis Galton nos três primeiros números da The Eugenics Review, em 1909. Ao longo do texto pretendo responder quais eram os objetivos de Galton com a fundação do periódico que sobreviveu por quase seis décadas. Desse modo, ao trazer a expectativa de Galton no The Eugenics Review, apresento as intenções de um periódico que pretendia ser um fio condutor entre ciência eugênica e sociedade. ABSTRACT: This article seeks to analyze the trajectory and eugenic position of the English scientist Francis Galton in the first three issues of The Eugenics Review in 1909. Throughout the text, I intend to answer what were Galton's objectives with the foundation of the journal that survived for almost six decades. Thus, in bringing Galton's expectation in The Eugenics Review, I present the intentions of a journal that purported to be a thread between eugenic science and society.

In October 2014, I proposed to UCL’s Estates Management Board that my university change the name of a lecture theatre named for Francis Galton. Some people have asked about this. Below is what I wrote. The letter is here. I came to my personal views in this letter after reflecting on Galton’s letter to the Editor of The Times, June 5 1873 titled “Africa for the Chinese.” [here, with a rejoinder from Gilbert Malcolm Sproat.] The opinion he expressed, and the underlying representation of Africans as “lazy, palavering savages” who don’t deserve the land of their birth, is indefensible. Full stop. It alone is enough, for me, to disqualify a person from honoured status. I’m very well aware of arguments about historical empathy and needing to understand people “within the context of their time”. I’m also very well aware of arguments about needing to take a person’s views as a totality: see the whole. As a professional historian, I agree, and I demand we respect these rules in the arena of academic history. But this is misplaced concern that distracts from the point I wanted to make.

This book engages with the relationship between religion, evolution and heredity, by bringing together two of its aspects that are frequently discussed separately: Darwinism and eugenics. It also demonstrates that religion has played a greater role in shaping modern debates on evolution and human improvement than current scholarship has previously acknowledged. Drawing on examples provided by Britain, Italy and Portugal across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the present study provides a fresh discussion of seminal topics such as reproduction, parenthood, the control of population and ideas of human improvement based on eugenics and genetics, which intersected and, at times, dominated the much broader debate between science and religion reignited by the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection in the second half of the nineteenth century.

At first glance, John L. Lovell’s Harvard class portraits appear to represent one man and one woman. But instead, these composite photographs personify the “average” appearance of the entire classes of 1887 at Harvard University and the “Annex,” or Boston’s Protestant Brahmin elite. Composite photographs such as these, which held scientific gravity as part of the Harvard-entrenched Positive Eugenics movement, were composed of an incomplete data set. Thus, they offer a revised view of Allan Sekula’s ideas about composite photography’s requisite statistical potency. In addition, the Harvard composites call for a more nuanced articulation of their indexical functions, within the context of late nineteenth-century trends in the production of visual statistics and knowledge.

The fear of hereditary transmssion of disease within their own family was present in several generations of the Darwin family. Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin and Francis Galton shared in that family anxiety. I trace the presence and influence of it in the works of these 3 influential scientists.

Es concluyente que el concepto de inteligencia ha ido evolucionando a lo largo de los siglos. Es por eso que no podemos decir que haya una única descripción del concepto más atinada que otra, sino más bien se han ido complementando unas con otras. Francis Galto, introdujo el concepto de inteligencia en la psicología moderna. Según él, la inteligencia es una sola propiedad que pertenece al sistema nervioso y es diferente en cada individuo. Firme defensor de la teoría evolucionista, Galton propuso la hipótesis de que la inteligencia es una capacidad hereditaria. Luego de varios estudios, conjeturó que las personas traían consigo capacidades previas al ambiente donde éste se relacionaba y fue así como nació la Eugenesia, una disciplina, que bajo la postura innatista, buscó estudiar los orígenes genéticos de la inteligencia humana. Desde la perspectiva de Galton, la inteligencia, así como otras funciones mentales, se puede medir; medir, por ejemplo, la agudeza visual, la capacidad de distinguir colores, los tiempos de reacción y las bases genéticas de la reactividad general del sistema nervioso humano. Este test que propuso Galton, generó incluso para sí mismo, cierta controversia. Lo más preocupante para él fue que, a vista de los datos relevados, las personas que obtenían los resultados más desfavorables, pudieran reproducirse. Por lo que estuvo de acuerdo, y defendió, la regulación del matrimonio y el tamaño de la familia según las capacidades innatas en los padres. A su vez, con esto, llevó a la luz ideas sobre la superioridad racial. Lo que el autor Gordon Stobart señala es que éstos tipos de mediciones sobre la inteligencia, han ayudado a hacer juicios relativos sobre los resultados de éstos y a dar como ciertas, premisas, para encubrir y apoyar las creencias y estructuras sociales con cierto rigor científico. Stobart, de este modo, entiende que considerar a la inteligencia como una entidad que existe y se puede medir, es que permite biologizar y genetizar la misma. Es decir, que ésta pueda ser procesada por uno mismo y a su vez, heredada y, por lo tanto, ser medida con precisión. Esto es exactamente lo que critica el autor, ya que considera que ¨La evaluación es una actividad social basaba en premisas sociales y tiene consecuencias sociales¨, haciendo hincapié en el hecho de que éstas mediciones puedan ser usadas indebidamente para fines cívicos-políticos. En conclusión, Gordon Stobart, pone sobre la mesa de discusión los usos y abusos de la evaluación con respecto a las diferentes definiciones de la ¨inteligencia¨. En ésta, expone su punto de vista que nos invita a reflexionar sobre el papel que juega la interacción del ser humano con el medio, siendo el estímulo de éste el que facilita y propone el aprendizaje, más allá de las capacidades con las que nacemos y cómo el contexto según este sea favorecedor o no influye en muestro desarrollo cognitivo.

At first glance, photographer John L. Lovell’s Harvard class portraits appear to represent one man and one woman. But instead, these composite photographs personify the “average” appearance of the entire, all-male and all-female classes of 1887 at Harvard University and the Harvard “Annex,” or the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women (which would be chartered in 1894 as Radcliffe College). To make these portraits, Lovell carefully aligned and re-photographed dozens of portraits on a single negative to create singular accumulated images from the multiple layered exposures. Individual students’ facial features and bodies are obscured in a ghostly haze as they coalesce (with the aid of generous retouching) to form pictures of human beings who never existed.

These photographs, which were archived by Harvard and sold as keepsakes to students and their parents, function as a representation a particular social caste: Boston’s Protestant Brahmin elite. Lovell employed Francis Galton’s technique of composite portraiture – which enjoyed great popularity in those decades at the Brahmin-funded institution of Harvard, for its capacity to evoke the connections between a group’s physical attributes and its perceived intelligence, talents and even – deviant inclinations. Placed within their socio-cultural context, Lovell’s Harvard class portraits represent a visual typology of a class of Bostonian semi-aristocrats whose inherited wealth and elevated social position enabled them to enjoy and wield considerable social, economic, and political power. The figures in Lovell’s portraits are “real” without being “actual.”

This essay takes a closer look at the history of this practice of image-making and the unique questions the Harvard composites conjure about photography’s flexible representations of “the real.” As it does so, this essay offers a revised view of photographer and theorist Allan Sekula’s ideas about composite photography’s relationship to the archive. It also examines the connections between the Harvard class portraits and “Positive Eugenics,” the maintenance of power structures and social classes, and to late-nineteenth-century trends in the production of visual statistics and knowledge.

James Conant's presentation entitled "Family Resemblance, Composite Photography, and Unity of Concept: Goethe, Galton, Wittgenstein"

Lila Lee Morrison and Arild Fetveits titles respectively, "Eigenface: Aesthetics of an Algorithm" and "Idris Khan and the Ghostly Sublimity of Big Data