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Comment by pimmen | Hacker News Reader

A very complicated, fascinating man. On the one hand, statistics owes a lot to this man. On the other hand, he was the man who popularized eugenics.

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Francis Galton was Darwin's cousin. Reading the Origin of Species he became convinced of evolution. He believed that “what Nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.” He was also into statistics and measurement. There is an interesting story of him measuring an African (Khoikhoi) women's impressive derriere without touching her using a sextant from a distance. Women’s beauty consumed him. One of his experiments was to find which place has more beautiful women. Sorta like a 19th century HotORNot. He had two counters in each pocket, one for hot and one for nots. According to his study London had the most attractive women in the UK, Aberdeen the least.

https://sangerpapers.wordpress.com/tag/francis-galton/

https://heterogenoustasks.wordpress.com/2015/09/26/footnote-...

https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2017/05/30/eugenics-to...

Having just briefly skimmed the article, I suspect he would have been horrified at how things developed on that front throughout the 20th century. He very specifically railed against "the nonsensical sentiment of the present day, that goes under that name [pride of race]".

I fear he would have a lot in common with the far-right, populist parties in present day Europe though. In the same paragraph that contains your quote, you also find this:

"Where the weak could find a welcome and a refuge in celibate monasteries or sisterhoods, and lastly, where the better sort of emigrants and refugees from other lands were invited and welcomed, and their descendants naturalised."

Judged with our modern standard, most of people who lived more than 100 years before are barbarians/far right/populists/whatever else you want to call them.

Guess how we will be judged in 100 year from now?

That doesn't really sound far-right or populist to me: he was in favour of immigration, and naturalising the descendants of immigrants, which was a particularly progressive idea back when nationality and ethnicity were so tightly bound together.

Of course, the neat categories of the present don't really apply to the messy past, nor will the neat categories of the future apply to the messy present.

Before Hitler, most of the "wise" men of science and progress in Europe and the US were in favor of eugenics.

If it wasn't for the Nazis, those kind of people (think "Californian Ideology") people would openly be in favor of them still...

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