The scope and importance to the state of the science of national eugenics / by Karl Pearson.

  • Pearson, Karl, 1857-1936.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: The scope and importance to the state of the science of national eugenics / by Karl Pearson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    l6 SCOPE AND IMPORTANCE TO THE STATE theory, and demonstrate it by the right type of observa¬ tion, it is possible for the average man to observe care¬ fully and to go on observing through a long lifetime. The result is the accumulation for decades and decades of observations made with little idea of testing a definite theory of organic or inorganic nature. These observa¬ tions form a large proportion of scientific literature ; and, I fear, are not always of service when the creative scientist desires to test his theories. The time spent in hunting up data, which may after all fail to give the special small detail requisite, would often have sufficed to produce more adequate observations made ad hoc. Hence I think there will be, if there be not already, a reaction against purely observational or descriptive science. The third stage in all science is the Metrical. We proceed from observation to measurement, to accurate numerical expression of the sequences involved. It has been more than once asserted that by quantitative analysis you cannot obtain more than lies in the data from which you start. The statement is either merely platitude ; or else, if more than idle, it is false. The object of analysis is not to obtain more from data than exists therein ; but to find out what actually does exist therein ; and that is usually far from obvious to untrained inspection. The actual positions of the moon can be observed and recorded day by day. Such are the data. Shall we assert that Lunar Theory as it exists to-day— the product of nearly two and a half centuries of work by some of the finest mathematical intellects—contains no more than the data from which they started ? I think we may leave such an attitude to those who do not grasp that the highest aim of science is not the presentation