karl pearson

 

  • [17][18] Einstein and Pearson’s work When the 23-year-old Albert Einstein started the Olympia Academy study group in 1902, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and
    Conrad Habicht, his first reading suggestion was Pearson’s The Grammar of Science.

  • in the Criticisms of the Galton Laboratory Memoir: A First Study of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism, &c. London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl; Nettleship, Edward, & Usher,
    Charles (1911–1913).

  • After Bateson rejected one of Pearson’s manuscripts that described a new theory for the variability of an offspring, or homotyposis, Pearson and Weldon established Biometrika
    in 1902.

  • The New University for London: A Guide to its History and a Criticism of its Defects.

  • 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring
    quantitative solutions.

  • “Data for the Problem of Evolution in Man, I: A First Study of the Variability and Correlation of the Hand,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol.

  • [30] Karl Pearson was a follower of Galton, and although the two differed in some respects, Pearson used a substantial amount of Francis Galton’s statistical concepts in his
    formulation of the biometrical school for inheritance, such as the law of regression.

  • [11] Pearson then returned to London to study law, emulating his father.

  • Quoting Pearson’s own account: Coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, drew up bills of sale, and was called to the Bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing
    on heat at Barnes, on Martin Luther at Hampstead, and on Lassalle and Marx on Sundays at revolutionary clubs around Soho.

  • Pearson became the editor of Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford died.

  • [10] In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects: I rush from science to philosophy, and from philosophy
    to our old friends the poets; and then, over-wearied by too much idealism, I fancy I become practical in returning to science.

  • “Data for the Problem of Evolution in Man, II: A First Study on the Inheritance of Longevity and the Selective Death-rate in Man,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
    Vol.

  • (Preface to second Ed., The Grammar of Science) Further, he stated, “…science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind…” “In truth, the
    field of science is much more consciousness than an external world.”

  • He gave lectures on such issues as “the woman’s question” (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK)[24] and upon Karl Marx.

  • [27] My endeavour during the twenty-two years in which I have held the post of Galton Professor has been to prove in the first place that Eugenics can be developed as an academic
    study, and in the second place to make the conclusions drawn from that study a ground for social propagandism only when there are sound scientific reasons upon which to base our judgments and as a result our opinions as to moral conduct.

  • His series of eighteen papers, “Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution” established him as the founder of the biometrical school for inheritance.

  • [28] Contributions to biometrics Karl Pearson was important in the founding of the school of biometrics, which was a competing theory to describe evolution and population
    inheritance at the turn of the 20th century.

  • [37] In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika whose object was the development of statistical theory.

  • The couple had three children: Sigrid Loetitia Pearson, Helga Sharpe Pearson, and Egon Pearson, who became a statistician himself and succeeded his father as head of the Applied
    Statistics Department at University College.

  • This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists.

  • [3][4] He founded the world’s first university statistics department at University College, London in 1911, and contributed significantly to the field of biometrics and meteorology.

  • “On a General Theory of the Method of False Position”, Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol.

  • In The Myth of the Jewish Race[25] Raphael and Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson’s 1925 opposition (in the first issue of the journal Annals of Eugenics which he founded) to
    Jewish immigration into Britain.

  • He edited and completed both William Kingdon Clifford’s Common Sense of the Exact Sciences (1885) and Isaac Todhunter’s History of the Theory of Elasticity, Vol.

  • [35] Although the biometric approach to inheritance eventually lost to the Mendelian approach, the techniques Pearson and the biometricians at the time developed are vital
    to studies of biology and evolution today.

  • He wrote his mother, “I used to think athletics and sport was overestimated at Cambridge, but now I think it cannot be too highly valued.

  • National Life from the Stand-point of Science: An Address Delivered at Newcastle.

  • “[9] On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge: Back in Cambridge, I worked in the engineering shops, but drew up the schedule in Mittel- and Althochdeutsch
    for the Medieval Languages Tripos.

  • [citation needed] After Galton’s death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography — a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries,
    and photographs — published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson’s own money paying for their print runs.

  • Comparing Cambridge students to those he knew from Germany, Karl found German students inathletic and weak.

  • Awards from professional bodies Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects
    this: • 1896: elected FRS: Fellow of the Royal Society[2] • 1898: awarded the Darwin Medal[36] • 1911: awarded the honorary degree of LLD from the University of St Andrews • 1911: awarded a DSc from University of London • 1920: offered (and
    refused) the OBE • 1932: awarded the Rudolf Virchow medal by the Berliner Anthropologische Gesellschaft • 1935: offered (and refused) a knighthood He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh,
    University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries’ Club.

  • [10] His next career move was to the Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised).

  • “On the Correlation Between Duration of Life and the Number of Offspring,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol.

  • In June 2020 UCL announced that it was renaming two buildings which had been named after Pearson, because of his connection with Eugenics.

  • III, § 4)[20] Politics and eugenics A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw war against “inferior races” as a logical implication of the
    theory of evolution.

  • Pearson was offered a Germanics post at King’s College, Cambridge.

  • “On the Influence of Past Experience on Future Expectation,” Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol.

  • [26] Pearson concluding remarks on stepping down as editor of the Annals of Eugenics, indicate a sense of failure of his aim to use the scientific study of Eugenics as a guide
    for moral conduct and public policy.

  • II, § 6) “Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man.”

  • A History of the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength of Materials from Galilei to the Present Time, Vol.

  • In fact, Pearson devoted much time during 1893 to 1904 to developing statistical techniques for biometry.

  • He wrote on Passion plays,[6] religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes,[7] and was a founder of the Men and Women’s Club.

  • The biography, done “to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public”, triumphed Galton’s
    life, work and personal heredity.

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1914-24-30).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1914).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1914).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1913).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1912).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1912).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1912).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1911).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1911).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1910).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1909).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1907).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1907).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1906).

  • London: Dulau & Co. • Pearson, Karl (1905).

  • “My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation,” he wrote, “is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring
    that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races.

  • Side Lights on the Evolution of Man: Being a Lecture Delivered at the Royal Institution.

  • After this, he returned to mathematics, deputising for the mathematics professor at King’s College, London in 1881 and for the professor at University College, London in 1883.

  • He published the Drapers’ Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.

 

Works Cited

[‘o Yule, G. U.; Filon, L. N. G. (1936). “Karl Pearson. 1857–1936”. Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 2 (5): 72–110. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1936.0007. JSTOR 769130.
o ^ Jump up to:a b “Library and Archive catalogue”. Sackler Digital Archive.
Royal Society. Archived from the original on 25 October 2011. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
o ^ Jump up to:a b “Karl Pearson sesquicentenary conference”. Royal Statistical Society. 3 March 2007. Retrieved 25 July 2008.
o ^ “[…] the founder of modern
statistics, Karl Pearson.” – Bronowski, Jacob (1978). The Common Sense of Science, Harvard University Press, p. 128.
o ^ “Pearson, Carl (or Karl) (PR875CK)”. A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1897). “The
German Passion-Play: A Study in the Evolution of Western Christianity,” in The Chances of Death and Other Studies in Evolution. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 246–406.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1888). “A Sketch of the Sex-Relations in Primitive and Mediæval
Germany,” in The Ethic of Freethought. London: T. Fisher Unwin, pp. 395–426.
o ^ Walkowitz, Judith R., History Workshop Journal 1986 21(1):37–59, p 37
o ^ Warwick, Andrew (2003). “4: Exercising the student body: Mathematics, manliness and athleticism”.
Masters of theory: Cambridge and the rise of mathematical physics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 176–226. ISBN 978-0-226-87375-6.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Pearson, Karl (1934). Speeches Delivered at a Dinner Held in University College, London,
in Honour of Professor Karl Pearson, 23 April 1934. Cambridge University Press, p. 20.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1880). The New Werther. London: C, Kegan Paul & Co., pp. 6, 96.
o ^ Provine, William B. (2001). The Origins of Theoretical Population Genetics.
University of Chicago Press, p. 29.
o ^ Tankard, James W. (1984). The Statistical Pioneers, Schenkman Pub. Co.
o ^ Blaney, Tom (2011). The Chief Sea Lion’s Inheritance: Eugenics and the Darwins. Troubador Pub., p. 108. Also see Pearson, Roger
(1991). Race, Intelligence and Bias in Academe. Scott-Townsend Publishers.
o ^ McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes’ Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries
of Controversy: Yale UP, 2011. Print. “Karl Pearson…was a zealous atheist…”
o ^ Porter, Theodore M. Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2004. Print.
o ^ “Karl Pearson Blue Plaque,” at Openplaques.org.
o ^
Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
o ^ Herbert, Christopher (2001). “Karl Pearson and the Human Form Divine,” in Victorian Relativity:
Radical Thought and Scientific Discovery, Chicago University Press, pp. 145–179.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1900). The Grammar of Science. London: Adam & Charles Black, pp. vii, 52, 87.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1901). National Life from the Standpoint of Science.
London: Adam & Charles Black, pp. 43–44.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1892). Introduction to The Grammar of Science. London: Water Scott, p. 32.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1901). National Life from the Standpoint of Science. London: Adam & Charles Black, pp. 19–20.
o ^
Pearson, Karl (1888). “The Woman’s Question,” in The Ethic of Freethought. London: T. Fisher Unwin, pp. 370–394.
o ^ Patai, Raphael, & Jennifer Patai (1989). The Myth of the Jewish Race. Wayne State University Press, p. 146. ISBN 978-0814319482
o ^
Pearson, Karl; Moul, Margaret (1925). “The Problem of Alien Immigration into Great Britain, Illustrated by an Examination of Russian and Polish Jewish Children”. Annals of Eugenics. I (2): 125–126. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.1925.tb02037.x.
o ^ Pearson,
Karl (1933). “VALE!”. Annals of Eugenics. 5 (4): 416. doi:10.1111/j.1469-1809.1933.tb02102.x.
o ^ “UCL renames three facilities that honoured prominent eugenicists”. The Guardian. 19 June 2020. Retrieved 20 June 2020.
o ^ Farrall, Lyndsay A. (August
1975). “Controversy and Conflict in Science: A Case Study The English Biometric School and Mendel’s Laws”. Social Studies of Science. 5 (3): 269–301. doi:10.1177/030631277500500302. PMID 11610080. S2CID 8488406.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1897). “Mathematical
Contributions to the Theory of Evolution. On the Law of Ancestral Heredity”. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. 62 (379–387): 386–412. Bibcode:1897RSPS…62..386P. doi:10.1098/rspl.1897.0128. JSTOR 115747.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Pence, Charles
H. (2015). “The early history of chance in evolution”. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 50: 48–58. Bibcode:2015SHPSA..50…48P. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.682.4758. doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2014.09.006. PMID 26466463. S2CID 29105382.
o ^ Morrison,
Margaret (1 March 2002). “Modelling Populations: Pearson and Fisher on Mendelism and Biometry”. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 53: 39–68. doi:10.1093/bjps/53.1.39. S2CID 145804261.
o ^ Jump up to:a b Pearson, Karl (1892). The
grammar of science. The contemporary science series. London : New York: Walter Scott; Charles Scribner’s Sons.
o ^ Pearson, Karl (1 January 1896). “Mathematical Contributions to the Theory of Evolution. III. Regression, Heredity, and Panmixia”.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences. 187: 253–318. Bibcode:1896RSPTA.187..253P. doi:10.1098/rsta.1896.0007. ISSN 1364-503X.
o ^ Gillham, Nicholas (9 August 2013). “The Battle
Between the Biometricians and the Mendelians: How Sir Francis Galton Caused his Disciples to Reach Conflicting Conclusions About the Hereditary Mechanism”. Science & Education. 24 (1–2): 61–75. Bibcode:2015Sc&Ed..24…61G. doi:10.1007/s11191-013-9642-1.
S2CID 144727928.
o ^ “PEARSON, Karl”. Who’s Who. Vol. 59. 1907. p. 1373.
o ^ Mackenzie, Donald (1981). Statistics in Britain, 1865–1930: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge, Edinburgh University Press.
o ^ Hald, Anders (1998). A
History of Mathematical Statistics from 1750 to 1930. Wiley, p. 651.
o ^ Analyse Mathematique. Sur Les Probabilités des Erreurs de Situation d’un Point Mem. Acad. Roy. Sei. Inst. France, Sci. Math, et Phys., t. 9, p. 255–332. 1846
o ^ Wright,
S., 1921. Correlation and causation. Journal of agricultural research, 20(7), pp. 557–585
o ^ Stigler, S. M. (1989). “Francis Galton’s Account of the Invention of Correlation”. Statistical Science. 4 (2): 73–79. doi:10.1214/ss/1177012580.
o ^
Jump up to:a b c d Pearson, K. (1900). “On the Criterion that a given System of Deviations from the Probable in the Case of a Correlated System of Variables is such that it can be reasonably supposed to have arisen from Random Sampling”. Philosophical
Magazine. Series 5. Vol. 50, no. 302. pp. 157–175. doi:10.1080/14786440009463897.
o ^ Neyman, J.; Pearson, E. S. (1928). “On the use and interpretation of certain test criteria for purposes of statistical inference”. Biometrika. 20 (1/2): 175–240.
doi:10.2307/2331945. JSTOR 2331945.
o ^ Pearson, K. (1901). “On Lines and Planes of Closest Fit to Systems of Points is Space”. Philosophical Magazine. Series 6. Vol. 2, no. 11. pp. 559–572. doi:10.1080/14786440109462720.
o ^ Jolliffe, I. T. (2002).
Principal Component Analysis, 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.
o ^ Pearson, K. (1895). “Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Evolution. II. Skew Variation in Homogeneous Material”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical,
Physical and Engineering Sciences. 186: 343–414. Bibcode:1895RSPTA.186..343P. doi:10.1098/rsta.1895.0010.
Most of the biographical information above is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the Department of Statistical Sciences at University College
London, which has been placed in the public domain. The main source for that page was A list of the papers and correspondence of Karl Pearson (1857–1936) held in the Manuscripts Room, University College London Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B.
Blundell, S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and published by the Publications Office, University College London, 1983.
Additional information from entry for Karl Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of the Royal Society
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhayata/808239968/’]