{"product_id":"a-life-of-sir-francis-galton-from-african-exploration-to-the-birth-of-eugenics-9780195143652","title":"A Life of Sir Francis Galton: From African Exploration to the Birth of Eugenics","description":"\u003cp\u003eFew scientists have made lasting contributions to as many fields as Francis Galton. He was an important African explorer  travel writer  and geographer. He was the meteorologist who discovered the anticyclone  a pioneer in using fingerprints to identify individuals  the inventor of regression and correlation analysis in statistics  and the founder of the eugenics movement. Now  Nicholas Gillham paints an engaging portrait of this Victorian polymath. The book traces Galtons ancestry (he was the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and the cousin of Charles Darwin)  upbringing  training as a medical apprentice  and experience as a Cambridge undergraduate. It recounts in colorful detail Galtons adventures as leader of his own expedition in Namibia. Darwin was always a strong influence on his cousin and a turning point in Galtons life was the publication of the Origin of Species. Thereafter  Galton devoted most of his life to human heredity  using then novel methods such as pedigree analysis and twin studies to argue that talent and character were inherited and that humans could be selectively bred to enhance these qualities. To this end  he founded the eugenics movement which rapidly gained momentum early in the last century. After Galtons death  however  eugenics took a more sinister path  as in the United States  where by 1913 sixteen states had involuntary sterilization laws  and in Germany  where the goal of racial purity was pushed to its horrific limit in the \"final solution.\" Galton himself  Gillham writes  would have been appalled by the extremes to which eugenics was carried. Here then is a vibrant biography of a remarkable scientist as well as a superb portrait of science in the Victorian era.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45665894105141,"sku":"ByrdShop_0195143655","price":61.88,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780195143652.jpg?v=1782413241","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/a-life-of-sir-francis-galton-from-african-exploration-to-the-birth-of-eugenics-9780195143652","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}