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Richard Holdcroft

Extreme Measures The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton

by Martin Brookes

Bloomsbury $230

Sir Francis Galton is not the best known of the great Victorian polymaths,  but he's one of the most fascinating and controversial. The scale and diversity of his accomplishments, and the sheer volume of research he generated, are overwhelming to  21st-century micro-specialists.

After a brief first chapter or two weighed down with details of family lineage, Martin Brookes avoids the pitfall of dry historical biography to bring vividly to life a captivating genius whose brain worked so hard and fast that he often complained his head was overheating.

Some of the achievements for which Galton is not   particularly renowned  are: pioneering exploration of large, wild tracts of what is today Namibia;  the invention of the  barometric weather map; and the development of  forensic fingerprinting. He discovered the fundamental statistical tools of linear regression and correlation, founded the scientific discipline  of differential psychology, and brought major advances to anthropology.

Along the way, he found time to introduce survival training to the British military, take responsibility for getting geography introduced into the western school curriculum, and  devised a complex scientific formula for  brewing the perfect cup of tea. 'So varied is  Mr Galton's matter that the reviewer pants after him in vain,' wrote a flustered 19th-century journalist of one of his many books, Inquiries into Human Faculty.

But if Galton's name is remembered today, it's most often in connection with a subject that has become even more topical, controversial  and divisive than  when he first coined the term: eugenics. The possibility of breeding a superior class of human remained his  obsession from his early days at Cambridge until his death at  88. As much as he is credited with starting the 'nature versus nurture' debate (another Galton term), he's demonised for opening the Pandora's  Box from which seeped forced sterilisation, involuntary segregation and the phantom of  the genetic ubermensch.

It would only have been a matter of time before modern science would force us to focus attention on the issue. Nonetheless, as much as his cousin and confidante Charles Darwin takes credit for the concept of natural selection, Galton is often blamed for all the evils that accompany  artificial human selection.

Whatever our sensibilities, however, our understanding of issues can never be complete until we consider their origins. Quite apart from its entertainment value, that alone is enough to make this engaging account of Galton's life a thoroughly worthwhile read.



Extreme Measures The Dark Visions and Bright Ideas of Francis Galton