Who was Sir Francis Galton?
Q: Who was Sir Francis Galton?
A: Sir Francis Galton was an English scientist who worked in the field of human biology and inheritance of mental characteristics. He was a polymath, meaning he had expertise in many fields such as anthropology, eugenics, geography, meteorology, psychometrics and statistics.
Q: What did Galton achieve during his lifetime?
A: During his lifetime, Galton produced over 340 papers and books. He created the statistical concepts of normal distribution, correlation and regression toward the mean. He also introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys to collect data on human communities. Additionally, he co-invented fingerprint classification which proved useful in forensic science.
Q: What is eugenics?
A: Eugenics is a social philosophy that advocates for improving genetic qualities by encouraging reproduction among people with desired traits or discouraging reproduction among people with undesired traits. It is sometimes referred to as "positive" or "negative" eugenics depending on whether it encourages or discourages reproduction respectively.
Q: What did Galton invent?
A: Galton invented the Galton Whistle for testing differential hearing ability and devised the first weather map which proposed a theory of anticyclones. He also established a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a European scale.
Q: What are monozygotic twins?
A: Monozygotic twins are identical twins that come from one zygote (fertilized egg) that splits into two embryos during development in utero. They have exactly the same genetic makeup since they originate from one egg cell that has been fertilized by one sperm cell containing half of each parent's DNA information.
Q: How did Galton study twins?
A: To study twins, Galton traced them through their life-history making many kinds of measurements but unfortunately he didn't appreciate the real genetic difference between monozygotic (identical) and dizygotic (non-identical) twins until twin studies were conducted in 1920s using modern methods .
