Karl Pearson
Encyclopedia
Karl Pearson FRS was an influential English
mathematician
who has been credited for establishing the discipline
of mathematical statistics
.
In 1911 he founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London
. He was a proponent of eugenics
, and a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton
.
A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth.
Pearson's mother, Fanny Pearson née Smith, came from a family of master mariners who sailed their own ships from Hull
; his father read law at Edinburgh
and was a successful barrister and Queen's Counsel
(QC). William Pearson's father's family came from the North Riding of Yorkshire
.
"Carl Pearson" inadvertently became "Karl Pearson" when he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879, which changed the spelling. He used both variants of his name until 1884 when he finally adopted Karl — supposedly also after Karl Marx
, though some argue otherwise. Eventually he became universally known as "KP".
He was also an accomplished historian and Germanist. He spent much of the 1880s in Berlin
, Heidelberg
, Vienna
, Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg
. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther
, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club
.
In 1890 he married Maria Sharpe, who was related to the Kenrick, Reid, Rogers and Sharpe families, late 18th century and 19th century non-conformists largely associated with north London; they included:
Karl and Maria Pearson had two daughters, Sigrid Loetitia Pearson and Helga Sharpe Pearson, and one son, Egon Sharpe Pearson
. Egon Pearson became an eminent statistician himself, establishing the Neyman-Pearson lemma. He succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College.
Karl Pearson was educated privately at University College School
, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge
in 1876 to study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos.
He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer
. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the famous physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond
on Darwinism
(Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns
and Mommsen
, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He was strongly influenced by the courses he attended at this time and he became sufficiently expert on German literature that he was offered a Germanics post at Kings College, Cambridge.
On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge:
In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects:
Pearson then returned to London to study law so that he might, like his father, be called to the Bar. Quoting Pearson's own account:
His next career move was to Inner Temple
, where he read law
until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics
, deputizing for the mathematics professor
at King's College London
in 1881 and for the professor at University College London
in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of Common Sense and the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford
passed on. 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. The collaboration, in biometry and evolution
ary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin
's cousin Francis Galton
, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics
. Pearson became Galton's protégé — his "statistical heir" as some have put it — at times to the verge of hero worship
.
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 financing paying for their print runs. 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. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin
, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin
.
When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London
for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the Galton Chair of Eugenics, later the Galton Chair of Genetics—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death in 1936.
started a study group, the Olympia Academy
, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine
and Conrad Habicht, he suggested that the first book to be read was Pearson's The Grammar of Science
. This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who traveled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter
, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time.
Pearson's relativity
was based on idealism
, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind
. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism
of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd 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." (Ibid., Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." (Ibid., Ch. III, § 4)
to entire nations, Pearson saw "war" against "inferior races" as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: "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." He reasoned that, if August Weismann
's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock.
Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers." (Introduction, The Grammar of Science
).
"History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended . . ."
(Karl Pearson, National Life from the Standpoint of Science [London, 1905])
Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx
. His commitment to socialism
and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire
) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935.
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.
, epidemiology
, anthropometry, medicine
and social history
. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika
whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave
and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave
. He also founded the journal Annals of Eugenics (now Annals of Human Genetics
) in 1925. He published the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.
Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are:
}}
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
who has been credited for establishing the discipline
of mathematical statistics
Mathematical statistics
Mathematical statistics is the study of statistics from a mathematical standpoint, using probability theory as well as other branches of mathematics such as linear algebra and analysis...
.
In 1911 he founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
. He was a proponent of eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
, and a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
.
A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth.
Family
Carl Pearson, later known as Karl Pearson (1857–1936), was born to William Pearson and Fanny Smith, who had three children, Aurthur, Carl (Karl) and Amy. William Pearson also sired an illegitimate son, Frederick Mockett.Pearson's mother, Fanny Pearson née Smith, came from a family of master mariners who sailed their own ships from Hull
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull , usually referred to as Hull, is a city and unitary authority area in the ceremonial county of the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It stands on the River Hull at its junction with the Humber estuary, 25 miles inland from the North Sea. Hull has a resident population of...
; his father read law at Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
and was a successful barrister and Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(QC). William Pearson's father's family came from the North Riding of Yorkshire
North Riding of Yorkshire
The North Riding of Yorkshire was one of the three historic subdivisions of the English county of Yorkshire, alongside the East and West Ridings. From the Restoration it was used as a Lieutenancy area. The three ridings were treated as three counties for many purposes, such as having separate...
.
"Carl Pearson" inadvertently became "Karl Pearson" when he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879, which changed the spelling. He used both variants of his name until 1884 when he finally adopted Karl — supposedly also after Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, though some argue otherwise. Eventually he became universally known as "KP".
He was also an accomplished historian and Germanist. He spent much of the 1880s in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Saig bei Lenzkirch, and Brixlegg
Brixlegg
Brixlegg is a market town in the Kufstein district in Tyrol, Austria. The town lies in the Lower Inn Valley and at the entrance of the Alpbachtal...
. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club
Men and Women's Club
The Men and Women's Club was a debating society founded by Karl Pearson to discuss relations between the sexes, such as marriage, sexuality, friendship, and prostitution. It was composed of middle-class London radical thinkers. It was intellectually adventurous for its time. It treated...
.
In 1890 he married Maria Sharpe, who was related to the Kenrick, Reid, Rogers and Sharpe families, late 18th century and 19th century non-conformists largely associated with north London; they included:
- Samuel RogersSamuel RogersSamuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
, poet (1763–1855) - Sutton Sharpe (1797–1843), barrister
- Samuel SharpeSamuel Sharpe (scholar)Samuel Sharpe was an English Unitarian Egyptologist and translator of the Bible.-Life:He was the second son of Sutton Sharpe , brewer, by his second wife, Maria , and was born in King Street, Golden Square, London, on 8 March 1799, baptised at St. James's, Piccadilly...
, Egyptologist and philanthropist (1799–1881) - John Kenrick, a non-Conformist minister (1788–1877)
Karl and Maria Pearson had two daughters, Sigrid Loetitia Pearson and Helga Sharpe Pearson, and one son, Egon Sharpe Pearson
Egon Pearson
Egon Sharpe Pearson, CBE FRS was the only son of Karl Pearson, and like his father, a leading British statistician....
. Egon Pearson became an eminent statistician himself, establishing the Neyman-Pearson lemma. He succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College.
Education and early work
University College School
University College School, generally known as UCS, is an Independent school charity situated in Hampstead, north west London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views...
, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
in 1876 to study mathematics, graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos.
He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer
Kuno Fischer
Kuno Fischer, born Ernst Kuno Berthold Fischer, was a German philosopher, a historian of philosophy and a critic.-Biography:After studying philosophy at Leipzig and Halle,...
. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the famous physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond
Emil du Bois-Reymond
Emil du Bois-Reymond was a German physician and physiologist, the discoverer of nerve action potential, and the father of experimental electrophysiology.-Life:...
on Darwinism
Darwinism
Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....
(Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns
Bruns
Bruns is a surname, and may refer to:* Dmitri Bruns , Estonian architect and architecture theorist* Franklin Richard Bruns Jr. , of Maryland* George Bruns , American music composer...
and Mommsen
Mommsen
Mommsen is a surname, and may refer to one of a family of German historians, see Mommsen family:* Theodor Mommsen , great classical scholar, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature* Tycho Mommsen...
, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He was strongly influenced by the courses he attended at this time and he became sufficiently expert on German literature that he was offered a Germanics post at Kings College, Cambridge.
On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge:
In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects:
Pearson then returned to London to study law so that he might, like his father, be called to the Bar. Quoting Pearson's own account:
His next career move was to Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
, where he read law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, deputizing for the mathematics professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
in 1881 and for the professor at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of Common Sense and the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford FRS was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his honour, with interesting applications in contemporary mathematical physics...
passed on. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
at Gresham College
Gresham College
Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...
; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon
Walter Frank Raphael Weldon DSc FRS generally called Raphael Weldon, was an English evolutionary biologist and a founder of biometry...
, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions. The collaboration, in biometry and evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's cousin Francis Galton
Francis Galton
Sir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
. Pearson became Galton's protégé — his "statistical heir" as some have put it — at times to the verge of hero worship
Apotheosis
Apotheosis is the glorification of a subject to divine level. The term has meanings in theology, where it refers to a belief, and in art, where it refers to a genre.In theology, the term apotheosis refers to the idea that an individual has been raised to godlike stature...
.
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 financing paying for their print runs. 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. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...
.
When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the Galton Chair of Eugenics, later the Galton Chair of Genetics—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death in 1936.
Einstein and Pearson's work
When the 23 year-old Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
started a study group, the Olympia Academy
Olympia Academy
The Olympia Academy was a group of friends in Bern, Switzerland, who met – usually at Albert Einstein's flat – in order to discuss philosophy and physics....
, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine
Maurice Solovine
Maurice Solovine was a Romanian philosopher and mathematician.As a young student of philosophy in Bern Solovine applied to study physics with Albert Einstein in response to an advert...
and Conrad Habicht, he suggested that the first book to be read was Pearson's The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science is a book by Karl Pearson first published in hardback in 1892. In 1900, the second edition, published by Adam & Charles Black, appeared. The third, revised, edition was also published by Adam & Charles Black in 1911. It was recommended by Einstein to his friends of the...
. This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who traveled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter
Antimatter
In particle physics, antimatter is the extension of the concept of the antiparticle to matter, where antimatter is composed of antiparticles in the same way that normal matter is composed of particles...
, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time.
Pearson's relativity
Principle of relativity
In physics, the principle of relativity is the requirement that the equations describing the laws of physics have the same form in all admissible frames of reference....
was based on idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd Ed., The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science is a book by Karl Pearson first published in hardback in 1892. In 1900, the second edition, published by Adam & Charles Black, appeared. The third, revised, edition was also published by Adam & Charles Black in 1911. It was recommended by Einstein to his friends of the...
) 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
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
than an external world." (Ibid., Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." (Ibid., Ch. III, § 4)
Politics and eugenics
A eugenicist who applied his social DarwinismSocial Darwinism
Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...
to entire nations, Pearson saw "war" against "inferior races" as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: "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." He reasoned that, if August Weismann
August Weismann
Friedrich Leopold August Weismann was a German evolutionary biologist. Ernst Mayr ranked him the second most notable evolutionary theorist of the 19th century, after Charles Darwin...
's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock.
Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers." (Introduction, The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science
The Grammar of Science is a book by Karl Pearson first published in hardback in 1892. In 1900, the second edition, published by Adam & Charles Black, appeared. The third, revised, edition was also published by Adam & Charles Black in 1911. It was recommended by Einstein to his friends of the...
).
"History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended . . ."
(Karl Pearson, National Life from the Standpoint of Science [London, 1905])
Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. His commitment to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire
British honours system
The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories...
) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935.
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 SocietyRoyal SocietyThe Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
- 1898: awarded the Darwin MedalDarwin MedalThe Darwin Medal is awarded by the Royal Society every alternate year for "work of acknowledged distinction in the broad area of biology in which Charles Darwin worked, notably in evolution, population biology, organismal biology and biological diversity". First awarded in 1890, it was created in...
- 1911: awarded the honorary degree of LLD from the University of St AndrewsUniversity of St AndrewsThe University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
- 1911: awarded a DSc from University of London
- 1920: offered (and refused) the OBEOrder of the British EmpireThe Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
- 1932: awarded the Rudolf Virchow medal by the Berliner Anthropologische Gesellschaft
- 1935: offered (and refused) a knightKnightA knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
hood
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.
Contributions to statistics
Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biologyBiology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, anthropometry, medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
and social history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika
Biometrika
- External links :* . The Internet Archive. 2011....
whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave
Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave
Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave was an English mathematician who undertook pioneering work in the mathematics of aeronautics.- Birth and education :...
and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave
Frances Cave-Browne-Cave
Frances Evelyn Cave-Browne-Cave , English mathematician.Frances Cave-Browne-Cave was the daughter of Sir Thomas Cave-Browne-Cave and Blanche Matilda Mary Ann Milton. She was the sister of Henry Cave-Browne-Cave, the Royal Air Force officer...
. He also founded the journal Annals of Eugenics (now Annals of Human Genetics
Annals of Human Genetics
The Annals of Human Genetics, formerly known as the Annals of Eugenics is a scientific journal concerning human genetics. The Annals of Eugenics was established in 1925 by Karl Pearson, who earlier in 1901 had established Biometrika...
) in 1925. He published the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.
Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are:
- Correlation coefficientPearson product-moment correlation coefficientIn statistics, the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient is a measure of the correlation between two variables X and Y, giving a value between +1 and −1 inclusive...
. The correlation coefficient (first conceived by Francis GaltonFrancis GaltonSir Francis Galton /ˈfrɑːnsɪs ˈgɔːltn̩/ FRS , cousin of Douglas Strutt Galton, half-cousin of Charles Darwin, was an English Victorian polymath: anthropologist, eugenicist, tropical explorer, geographer, inventor, meteorologist, proto-geneticist, psychometrician, and statistician...
) was defined as a product-moment, and its relationship with linear regressionLinear regressionIn statistics, linear regression is an approach to modeling the relationship between a scalar variable y and one or more explanatory variables denoted X. The case of one explanatory variable is called simple regression...
was studied. - Method of moments. Pearson introduced momentsMoment (mathematics)In mathematics, a moment is, loosely speaking, a quantitative measure of the shape of a set of points. The "second moment", for example, is widely used and measures the "width" of a set of points in one dimension or in higher dimensions measures the shape of a cloud of points as it could be fit by...
, a concept borrowed from physicsPhysicsPhysics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, as descriptive statistics and for the fitting of distributions to samples. - Pearson's system of continuous curvesPearson distributionThe Pearson distribution is a family of continuous probability distributions. It was first published by Karl Pearson in 1895 and subsequently extended by him in 1901 and 1916 in a series of articles on biostatistics.- History :...
. A system of continuous univariate probability distributions that came to form the basis of the now conventional continuous probability distributions. Since the system is complete up to the fourth moment, it is a powerful complement to the Pearsonian method of moments. - Chi distanceMahalanobis distanceIn statistics, Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. It is based on correlations between variables by which different patterns can be identified and analyzed. It gauges similarity of an unknown sample set to a known one. It differs from Euclidean...
. A precursor and special case of the Mahalanobis distanceMahalanobis distanceIn statistics, Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. It is based on correlations between variables by which different patterns can be identified and analyzed. It gauges similarity of an unknown sample set to a known one. It differs from Euclidean...
. - P-valueP-valueIn statistical significance testing, the p-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistic at least as extreme as the one that was actually observed, assuming that the null hypothesis is true. One often "rejects the null hypothesis" when the p-value is less than the significance level α ,...
. Defined as the probability measure of the complement of the ballBall (mathematics)In mathematics, a ball is the space inside a sphere. It may be a closed ball or an open ball ....
with the hypothesized value as center point and chi distance as radius. - Foundations of the statistical hypothesis testing theoryStatistical hypothesis testingA statistical hypothesis test is a method of making decisions using data, whether from a controlled experiment or an observational study . In statistics, a result is called statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance alone, according to a pre-determined threshold...
and the statistical decision theoryDecision theoryDecision theory in economics, psychology, philosophy, mathematics, and statistics is concerned with identifying the values, uncertainties and other issues relevant in a given decision, its rationality, and the resulting optimal decision...
. In the seminal "On the criterion..." paper, Pearson proposed testing the validity of hypothesized values by evaluating the chi distance between the hypothesized and the empirically observed values via the p-value, which was proposed in the same paper. The use of preset evidence criteria, so called alpha type-I error probabilities, was later proposed by Jerzy NeymanJerzy NeymanJerzy Neyman , born Jerzy Spława-Neyman, was a Polish American mathematician and statistician who spent most of his professional career at the University of California, Berkeley.-Life and career:...
and Egon PearsonEgon PearsonEgon Sharpe Pearson, CBE FRS was the only son of Karl Pearson, and like his father, a leading British statistician....
. - Pearson's chi-squared testPearson's chi-squared testPearson's chi-squared test is the best-known of several chi-squared tests – statistical procedures whose results are evaluated by reference to the chi-squared distribution. Its properties were first investigated by Karl Pearson in 1900...
. A hypothesis test using normal approximation for discrete data. - Principal component analysis. The method of fitting a linear subspaceLinear subspaceThe concept of a linear subspace is important in linear algebra and related fields of mathematics.A linear subspace is usually called simply a subspace when the context serves to distinguish it from other kinds of subspaces....
to multivariate data by minimizing the chi distancesMahalanobis distanceIn statistics, Mahalanobis distance is a distance measure introduced by P. C. Mahalanobis in 1936. It is based on correlations between variables by which different patterns can be identified and analyzed. It gauges similarity of an unknown sample set to a known one. It differs from Euclidean...
.
Resume of academic career
- Third Wrangler in Mathematics Tripos, Cambridge University, 1879
- Studied medieval and sixteenth-century German literature, Berlin and Heidelberg Universities, 1879–1880
- Read law, called to the Bar by Inner Temple, 1881
- Delivered lectures on mathematics, philosophy and German literature at societies and clubs devoted to adult education
- Deputised for the Professor of Mathematics, King's College London, 1881, and for the Professor of Mathematics at University College London, 1883
- Formed the Men and Women's Club, with some others, to discuss equality between the sexes
- Appointed to Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, University College London, 1884
- Appointed Professor of Geometry, Gresham College, 1891
- Collaborated with Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, in biometry and evolutionary theory, 1891–1906
- Elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1896
- Founded journal Biometrika with Weldon and Francis Galton founder of the School of Eugenics at University College London, 1901
- Appointed first Galton Professor of Eugenics, University College London, 1911
- Formed Department of Applied Statistics incorporating the Biometric Laboratory and Galton Laboratory, University College London
- Founded journal Annals of Eugenics, 1925
- Died April 27, 1936
Publications
See also
- EugenicsEugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
- The Grammar of ScienceThe Grammar of ScienceThe Grammar of Science is a book by Karl Pearson first published in hardback in 1892. In 1900, the second edition, published by Adam & Charles Black, appeared. The third, revised, edition was also published by Adam & Charles Black in 1911. It was recommended by Einstein to his friends of the...
- Pearson's chi-squared testPearson's chi-squared testPearson's chi-squared test is the best-known of several chi-squared tests – statistical procedures whose results are evaluated by reference to the chi-squared distribution. Its properties were first investigated by Karl Pearson in 1900...
- Pearson's r
- Pearson distributionPearson distributionThe Pearson distribution is a family of continuous probability distributions. It was first published by Karl Pearson in 1895 and subsequently extended by him in 1901 and 1916 in a series of articles on biostatistics.- History :...
- Kikuchi DairokuKikuchi DairokuBaron was a mathematician, educator, and educational administrator in Meiji period Japan.-Kikuchi's life and career:Kikuchi was born in Edo , as the second son of Mitsukuri Shuhei...
, a close friend and contemporary of Karl Pearson at University College SchoolUniversity College SchoolUniversity College School, generally known as UCS, is an Independent school charity situated in Hampstead, north west London, England. The school was founded in 1830 by University College London and inherited many of that institution's progressive and secular views...
and Cambridge UniversityUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally... - List of Gresham Professors of GeometryGresham Professor of GeometryThe Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, London, gives free educational lectures to the general public. The college was founded for this purpose in 1596 / 7, when it appointed seven professors; this has since increased to eight and in addition the college now has visiting professors.The...
- Phi coefficientPhi coefficientIn statistics, the phi coefficient is a measure of association for two binary variables introduced by Karl Pearson. This measure is similar to the Pearson correlation coefficient in its interpretation...
- Scientific racismScientific racismScientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
Further reading
- Eisenhart, Churchill (1974): Dictionary of Scientific Biography, pp. 447–473. New York, 1974.
- Pearson, E. S. (1938): Karl Pearson: An appreciation of some aspects of his life and work. Cambridge University Press.
- Porter, T. M. (2004): Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691126357.
External links
- John Aldrich's Karl Pearson: a Reader's Guide at the University of Southampton (contains many useful links to further sources of information).
- Encyclopædia Britannica Karl Pearson
- Gavan Tredoux's Francis Galton website, galton.org, contains Pearson's biography of Francis Galton, and several other papers — in addition to nearly all of Galton's own published works.
- Karl Pearson and the Origins of Modern Statistics at The Rutherford JournalThe Rutherford JournalThe Rutherford Journal is a peer-reviewed academic journal that covers the history and philosophy of science and technology.It publishes invited articles and is edited by Jack Copeland . The journal is published annually, starting from December 2005...
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