Vous voulez voir cette page en français ? Cliquez ici.

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Francis Galton: Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry
 
 
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book

Francis Galton: Pioneer of Heredity and Biometry [Hardcover]

Michael Bulmer (Author)

Available from these sellers.


Product Details

  • Hardcover: 376 pages
  • Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press (November 2003)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0801874033
  • ISBN-13: 978-0801874031
  • Product Dimensions: 2.2 x 1.8 x 0.3 cm
  • Shipping Weight: 649 g
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,117,856 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Review

Chapters on Galton's early scientific career... are followed by meatier chapters on statistical theory of heredity, the law of ancestral heredity, discontinuity in evolution, and biometry. For historians of science the book provides a clear roadmap to what Galton did, or said he did, and what he thought, or what he believed he thought. -- Hamilton Cravens Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences Michael Bulmer's book is only partially about Galton the man. It begins with a biographical chapter but most of the book describes and evaluates Galton's quantitative work... Bulmer guides us skillfully through a great deal of the beginnings of our science. We are where we are because of the labors of people like Francis Galton. Science is not the same thing as progress but Galton's story is relevant to understanding something about the way in which science is related to progress. -- R.J. Berry Human Genetics 2004

Product Description

If not for the work of his half cousin Francis Galton, Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory might have met a somewhat different fate. In particular, with no direct evidence of natural selection and no convincing theory of heredity to explain it, Darwin needed a mathematical explanation of variability and heredity. Galton's work in biometry-the application of statistical methods to the biological sciences-laid the foundations for precisely that. This book offers readers a compelling portrait of Galton as the "father of biometry," tracing the development of his ideas and his accomplishments, and placing them in their scientific context. Though Michael Bulmer introduces readers to the curious facts of Galton's life-as an explorer, as a polymath and member of the Victorian intellectual aristocracy, and as a proponent of eugenics-his chief concern is with Galton's pioneering studies of heredity, in the course of which he invented the statistical tools of regression and correlation. Bulmer describes Galton's early ambitions and experiments-his investigations of problems of evolutionary importance (such as the evolution of gregariousness and the function of sex), and his movement from the development of a physiological theory to a purely statistical theory of heredity, based on the properties of the normal distribution. This work, culminating in the law of ancestral heredity, also put Galton at the heart of the bitter conflict between the "ancestrians" and the "Mendelians" after the rediscovery of Mendelism in 1900. A graceful writer and an expert biometrician, Bulmer details the eventual triumph of biometrical methods in the history of quantitative genetics based on Mendelian principles, which underpins our understanding of evolution today.
See all Product Description
Inside This Book (Learn More)
First Sentence
The life of Francis Galton (1822-1911) spanned the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), and he was in many ways a typical Victorian. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
5 star:    (0)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
Share your experience with this product with others
Create your own review

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject























i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?