Karl Pearson HFRSE LLD (; originally named
Carl; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was
an English mathematician and biostatistician.
He has been credited with establishing the
discipline
of mathematical statistics. He founded the
world's first university statistics department
at University College London in 1911, and
contributed significantly to the field of
biometrics and meteorology. Pearson was also
a proponent of social Darwinism and eugenics.
Pearson was a protégé and biographer of
Sir Francis Galton.
== Biography ==
Pearson was born in Islington, London to William
Pearson QC of the Inner Temple, and his wife
Fanny (née Smith), and had two siblings,
Arthur and Amy. 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 physiologist
Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was
a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician).
Pearson also studied Roman Law, taught by
Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century
German Literature, and Socialism. He became
an accomplished historian and Germanist and
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.
Pearson was offered a Germanics post at Kings
College, Cambridge. Comparing Cambridge students
to those he knew from Germany, Karl found
German students inathletic and weak. He wrote
his mother, "I used to think athletics and
sport was overestimated at Cambridge, but
now I think it cannot be too highly valued."On
returning to England in 1880, Pearson first
went to Cambridge:
Back in Cambridge, I worked in the engineering
shops, but drew up the schedule in Mittel-
and Althochdeutsch for the Medieval Languages
Tripos.
In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson
gives a clear indication of why he studied
so many diverse subjects:
I rush from science to philosophy, and from
philosophy to our old friends the poets; and
then, over-wearied by too much idealism, I
fancy I become practical in returning to science.
Have you ever attempted to conceive all there
is in the world worth knowing—that not one
subject in the universe is unworthy of study?
The giants of literature, the mysteries of
many-dimensional space, the attempts of Boltzmann
and Crookes to penetrate Nature's very laboratory,
the Kantian theory of the universe, and the
latest discoveries in embryology, with their
wonderful tales of the development of life—what
an immensity beyond our grasp! [...] Mankind
seems on the verge of a new and glorious discovery.
What Newton did to simplify the planetary
motions must now be done to unite in one whole
the various isolated theories of mathematical
physics.
Pearson then returned to London to study law,
emulating his father. Quoting Pearson's own
account:
Coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln's
Inn, drew up bills of sale, and was called
to the Bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing
on heat at Barnes, on Martin Luther at Hampstead,
and on Lassalle and Marx on Sundays at revolutionary
clubs around Soho.
His next career move was to the Inner Temple,
where he read law until 1881 (although he
never practised). After this, he returned
to mathematics, deputising 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
of the Exact Sciences (1885) when William
Kingdon Clifford died. 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 evolutionary
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, at times to the verge
of hero worship.In 1890 Pearson married Maria
Sharpe. The couple had three children: Sigrid
Loetitia Pearson, Helga Sharpe Pearson, and
Egon Pearson, who became a statistician himself
and succeeded his father as head of the Applied
Statistics Department at University College.
Maria died in 1928 and in 1929 Karl married
Margaret Victoria Child, a co-worker at the
Biometric Laboratory. He and his family lived
at 7 Well Road in Hampstead, now marked with
a blue plaque.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 money 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 at Coldharbour, Surrey on
27 April 1936.
Pearson was a "zealous" atheist and a freethinker.
== Family ==
He married twice. First in 1890 to Maria Sharpe;
Then following Maria's death in 1928, he married
Margaret Victoria Child.
== Einstein and Pearson's work ==
When the 23-year-old Albert Einstein started
the Olympia Academy study group in 1902, with
his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine
and Conrad Habicht, his first reading suggestion
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 travelled 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)
== Politics and eugenics ==
A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism
to entire nations, Pearson saw war against
"inferior races" as a logical implication
of the theory of evolution. "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.""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."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.
In The Myth of the Jewish Race Raphael and
Jennifer Patai cite Karl Pearson's 1925 opposition
(in the first issue of the journal Annals
of Eugenics which he founded) to Jewish immigration
into Britain. Pearson alleged that these immigrants
"will develop into a parasitic race. [...] Taken
on the average, and regarding both sexes,
this alien Jewish population is somewhat inferior
physically and mentally to the native population".
== Contributions to biometrics ==
Karl Pearson was important in the founding
of the school of biometrics, which was a competing
theory to describe evolution and population
inheritance at the turn of the 20th century.
His series of eighteen papers, "Mathematical
Contributions to the Theory of Evolution"
established him as the founder of the biometrical
school for inheritance. In fact, Pearson devoted
much time during 1893 to 1904 to developing
statistical techniques for biometry. These
techniques, which are widely used today for
statistical analysis, include the chi-squared
test, standard deviation, and correlation
and regression coefficients. Pearson's Law
of Ancestral Heredity stated that germ plasm
consisted of heritable elements inherited
from the parents as well as from more distant
ancestors, the proportion of which varied
for different traits. Karl Pearson was a follower
of Galton, and although the two differed in
some respects, Pearson used a substantial
amount of Francis Galton's statistical concepts
in his formulation of the biometrical school
for inheritance, such as the law of regression.
The biometric school, unlike the Mendelians,
focused not on providing a mechanism for inheritance,
but rather on providing a mathematical description
for inheritance that was not causal in nature.
While Galton proposed a discontinuous theory
of evolution, in which species would have
to change via large jumps rather than small
changes that built up over time, Pearson pointed
out flaws in Galton's argument and actually
used Galton's ideas to further a continuous
theory of evolution, whereas the Mendelian's
favored a discontinuous theory of evolution.
While Galton focused primarily on the application
of statistical methods to the study of heredity,
Pearson and his colleague Weldon expanded
statistical reasoning to the fields of inheritance,
variation, correlation, and natural and sexual
selection.For Pearson, the theory of evolution
was not intended to identify a biological
mechanism that explained patterns of inheritance,
whereas the Mendelian's postulated the gene
as the mechanism for inheritance. Pearson
criticized Bateson and other biologists for
their failure to adopt biometrical techniques
in their study of evolution. Pearson criticized
biologists who did not focus on the statistical
validity of their theories, stating that "before
we can accept [any cause of a progressive
change] as a factor we must have not only
shown its plausibility but if possible have
demonstrated its quantitative ability" Biologists
had succumb to "almost metaphysical speculation
as to the causes of heredity," which had replaced
the process of experimental data collection
that actually might allow scientists to narrow
down potential theories.For Pearson, laws
of nature were useful for making accurate
predictions and for concisely describing trends
in observed data. Causation was the experience
"that a certain sequence has occurred and
recurred in the past". Thus, identifying a
particular mechanism of genetics was not a
worthy pursuit of biologists, who should instead
focus on mathematical descriptions of empirical
data. This, in part led to the fierce debate
between the biometricians and the Mendelians,
including Bateson. After Bateson rejected
one of Pearson's manuscripts that described
a new theory for the variability of an offspring,
or homotyposis, Pearson and Weldon established
Biometrika in 1902. Although the biometric
approach to inheritance eventually lost to
the Mendelian approach, the techniques Pearson
and the biometricians at the time developed
are vital to studies of biology and evolution
today.
== 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 Society
1898: awarded the Darwin Medal
1911: awarded the honorary degree of LLD from
the University of St Andrews
1911: awarded a DSc from University of London
1920: offered (and refused) the OBE
1932: awarded the Rudolf Virchow medal by
the Berliner Anthropologische Gesellschaft
1935: offered (and refused) a knighthoodHe
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. A sesquicentenary conference was held
in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the
150th anniversary of his birth.
== Contributions to statistics ==
Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide
application and development of mathematical
statistics, and encompassed the fields of
biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine,
psychology 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:
Correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient
(first conceived by Francis Galton) was defined
as a product-moment, and its relationship
with linear regression was studied.
Method of moments. Pearson introduced moments,
a concept borrowed from physics, as descriptive
statistics and for the fitting of distributions
to samples.
Pearson's system of continuous curves. 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 distance. A precursor and special case
of the Mahalanobis distance.
p-value. Defined as the probability measure
of the complement of the ball with the hypothesized
value as center point and chi distance as
radius.
Foundations of the statistical hypothesis
testing theory and the statistical decision
theory. 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 Neyman and Egon Pearson.
Pearson's chi-squared test. A hypothesis test
using normal approximation for discrete data.
Principal component analysis. The method of
fitting a linear subspace to multivariate
data by minimising the chi distances.
The first introduction of the histogram is
usually credited to Pearson.
== Publications ==
Pearson, Karl (1880). The New Werther. C,
Kegan Paul & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1882). The Trinity: A Nineteenth
Century Passion-play. Cambridge: E. Johnson.
Pearson, Karl (1887). Die Fronica. Strassburg:
K.J. Trübner
Pearson, Karl (1887). The Moral Basis of Socialism.
William Reeves, London.
Pearson, Karl (1888). The Ethic of Freethought.
London: T. Fisher Unwin. Rep. University Press
of the Pacific, 2002.
Pearson, Karl (1892). The Grammar of Science.
London: Walter Scott. Dover Publications,
2004 ISBN 0-486-49581-7
Pearson, Karl (1892). The New University for
London: A Guide to its History and a Criticism
of its Defects. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
Pearson, K (1896). "Mathematical Contributions
to the Theory of Evolution. III. Regression,
Heredity and Panmixia". Philosophical Transactions
of the Royal Society of London. 187: 253–318.
Bibcode:1896RSPTA.187..253P. doi:10.1098/rsta.1896.0007.
Pearson, Karl (1897). The Chances of Death
and Other Studies in Evolution, 2 Vol. London:
Edward Arnold.
Pearson, Karl (1904). On the Theory of Contingency
and its Relation to Association and Normal
Correlation. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1905). On the General Theory
of Skew Correlation and Non-linear Regression.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1906). A Mathematical Theory
of Random Migration. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1907). Studies in National
Deterioration. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Pollard, A.F. Campbell (1907).
An Experimental Study of the Stresses in Masonry
Dams. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1907). A First Study of the
Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis. London:
Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Barrington, Amy (1909). A
First Study of the Inheritance of Vision and
of the Relative Influence of Heredity and
Environment on Sight. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl; Reynolds, W. D., & Stanton,
W. F. (1909). On a Practical Theory of Elliptical
and Pseudo-elliptical Arches, with Special
Reference to the Ideal Masonry Arch.
Pearson, Karl (1909). The Groundwork of Eugenics.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1909). The Scope and Importance
to the State of the Science of National Eugenics.
London: Dalau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Barrington, Amy (1910). A
Preliminary Study of Extreme Alcoholism in
Adults. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Elderton, Ethel M. (1910).
A First Study of the Influence of Parental
Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of
the Offspring. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1910). The Influence of Parental
Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of
the Offspring: A Reply to the Cambridge Economists.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Elderton, Ethel M. (1910).
A Second Study of the Influence of Parental
Alcoholism on the Physique and Ability of
the Offspring. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1911). An Attempt to Correct
some of the Misstatements Made by Sir Victor
Horsley and Mary D. Sturge, M.D. in the Criticisms
of the Galton Laboratory Memoir: A First Study
of the Influence of Parental Alcoholism, &c.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl; Nettleship, Edward, & Usher,
Charles (1911–1913). A Monograph on Albinism
in Man, 2 Vol. London: Dulau & Co., Ltd.
Pearson, Karl (1912). The Problem of Practical
Eugenics. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1912). Tuberculosis, Heredity
and Environment. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1913). On the Correlation of
Fertility with Social Value: A Cooperative
Study. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl, & Jaederholm, Gustav A. (1914).
Mendelism and the Problem of Mental Defect,
II: On the Continuity of Mental Defect. London:
Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl; Williams, M.H., & Bell, Julia
(1914). A Statistical Study of Oral Temperatures
in School Children. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1914-24-30). The Life, Letters
and Labours of Francis Galton, 3 Vol. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Pearson, Karl (1915). Some Recent Misinterpretations
of the Problem of Nurture and Nature. Cambridge
University Press.
Pearson, Karl; Young, A.W., & Elderton, Ethel
(1918). On the Torsion Resulting from Flexure
in Prisms with Cross-sections of Uni-axial
Symmetry Only. Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, Karl, & Bell, Julia (1919). A Study
of the Long Bones of the English Skeleton.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, Karl (1920). The Science of Man:
its Needs and its Prospects. Cambridge University
Press.
Pearson, Karl, & Karn, Mary Noel (1922). Study
of the Data Provided by a Baby-clinic in a
Large Manufacturing Town. Cambridge University
Press.
Pearson, Karl (1922). Francis Galton, 1822–1922:
A Centenary Appreciation. Cambridge University
Press.
Pearson, Karl (1923). On the Relationship
of Health to the Psychical and Physical Characters
in School Children. Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, Karl (1926). On the Skull and Portraits
of George Buchanan. Edinburgh, London: Oliver
& Boyd.Articles
Pearson, Karl (1883). "Maimonides and Spinoza".
Mind. 8: 338–353.
Pearson, Karl (1885). "On a Certain Atomic
Hypothesis". Transactions of the Cambridge
Philosophical Society. 14: 71–120.
Pearson, Karl (1890). "On Wöhler's Experiments
on Alternating Stress". The Messenger of Mathematics.
XX: 21–37.
Pearson, Karl (1891). "Ether Squirts". American
Journal of Mathematics. 13 (4): 309–72.
doi:10.2307/2369570. JSTOR 2369570.
Pearson, Karl (1897). "On Telegony in Man,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
Vol. LX, pp. 273–283.
Pearson, Karl (1897). "On a Form of Spurious
Correlation which May Arise when Indices are
Used in the Measurement of Organs," Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LX, pp.
489–502.
Pearson, Karl (1899). "On the Reconstruction
of the Stature of Prehistoric Races". Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London.
192: 169–243. Bibcode:1899RSPTA.192..169P.
doi:10.1098/rsta.1899.0004.
Pearson, Karl; Lee, Alice; Bramley-Moore,
Leslie (1899). "Genetic (Reproductive) Selection".
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society
of London. 192: 257–330. Bibcode:1899RSPTA.192..257P.
doi:10.1098/rsta.1899.0006.
Pearson, Karl, & Whiteley, M.A. (1899). "Data
for the Problem of Evolution in Man, I: A
First Study of the Variability and Correlation
of the Hand," Proceedings of the Royal Society
of London, Vol. LXV, pp. 126–151.
Pearson, Karl, & Beeton, Mary (1899). "Data
for the Problem of Evolution in Man, II: A
First Study on the Inheritance of Longevity
and the Selective Death-rate in Man," Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXV,
pp. 290–305.
Pearson, Karl (1900). "On the Law of Reversion,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London,
Vol. LXVI, pp. 140–164.
Pearson, Karl; Beeton, M., & Yule, G.U. (1900).
"On the Correlation Between Duration of Life
and the Number of Offspring," Proceedings
of the Royal Society of London, Vol. LXVII,
pp. 159–179.
Pearson, Karl (1900). "On the Criterion that
a Given System of Deviations from the Probable
in the Case of a Correlated System of Variables
is Such that it can be Reasonably Supposed
to Have Arisen from Random Sampling," Philosophical
Magazine, 5th Series, Vol. L, pp. 157–175.
Pearson, Karl (1901). "On Lines and Planes
of Closest Fit to Systems of Points in Space,"
Philosophical Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. II,
pp. 559–572.
Pearson, Karl (1902–1903). "The Law of Ancestral
Heredity," Biometrika, Vol. II, pp. 221–229.
Pearson, Karl (1903). "On a General Theory
of the Method of False Position", Philosophical
Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. 5, pp. 658–668.
Pearson, Karl (1907). "On the Influence of
Past Experience on Future Expectation," Philosophical
Magazine, 6th Series, Vol. XIII, pp. 365–378.
Pearson, Karl, & Gibson, Winifred (1907).
"Further Considerations on the Correlations
of Stellar Characters," Monthly Notices of
the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. LXVIII,
pp. 415–448.
Pearson, Karl (1910). "A Myth About Edward
the Confessor". The English Historical Review.
25: 517–520. doi:10.1093/ehr/xxv.xcix.517.
Pearson, Karl (1920). "The Problems of Anthropology".
The Scientific Monthly. 11 (5): 451–458.
Bibcode:1920SciMo..11..451P. JSTOR 6421.
Pearson, Karl (1930). "On a New Theory of
Progressive Evolution," Annals of Eugenics,
Vol. IV, Nos. 1–2, pp. 1–40.
Pearson, Karl (1931). "On the Inheritance
of Mental Disease," Annals of Eugenics, Vol.
IV, Nos. 3–4, pp. 362–380.Miscellany
Pearson, Karl (1885). The Common Sense of
the Exact Sciences. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench
& Co. (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1886–1893). A History of
the Theory of Elasticity and of the Strength
of Materials from Galilei to the Present Time,
Vol. 2, Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press
(editor).
Pearson, Karl (1889). The Elastical Researches
of Barré de Saint-Venant. Cambridge University
Press (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1888). The Positive Creed of
Freethought: with Some Remarks on the Relation
of Freethought to Socialism. Being a Lecture
Delivered at South Place Institute. London:
William Reeves.
Pearson, Karl (1901). National Life from the
Stand-point of Science: An Address Delivered
at Newcastle. London: Adam & Charles Black.
Pearson, Karl (1908). A Second Study of the
Statistics of Pulmonary Tuberculosis: Marital
Infection. London: Dulau & Co. (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1910). Nature and Nurture,
the Problem of the Future: A Presidential
Address. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1911). The Academic Aspect
of the Science of Eugenics: A Lecture Delivered
to Undergraduates. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1912). Treasury of Human Inheritance,
2 Vol. Dulau & Co., London (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1912). Eugenics and Public
Health: An Address to Public Health Officers.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1912). Darwinism, Medical Progress
and Eugenics. The Cavendish Lecture: An Address
to the Medical Profession. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1912). Social Problems, their
Treatment, Past, Present, and Future: A Lecture.
London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1914). On the Handicapping
of the First-born: Being a Lecture Delivered
at the Galton Laboratory. London: Dulau & Co.
Pearson, Karl (1914). Tables for Statisticians
and Biometricians. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1919–22). Tracts for Computers.
Cambridge University Press (editor).
Pearson, Karl (1921). Side Lights on the Evolution
of Man: Being a Lecture Delivered at the Royal
Institution. Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, Karl (1922). Tables of the Incomplete
Γ-Function. London: Pub. for the Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research by H.M.
Stationery Office.
Pearson, Karl (1923). Charles Darwin, 1809–1882:
An Appreciation. Being a Lecture Delivered
to the Teachers of the London County Council.
Cambridge University Press.
Pearson, Karl (1927). The Right of the Unborn
Child: Being a Lecture Delivered... to Teachers
from the London County Council Schools. Cambridge
University Press.
Pearson, Karl (1934). Tables of the Incomplete
Beta-function. Cambridge University Press.
2nd ed., 1968 (editor).
== See also ==
Eugenics
The Grammar of Science
Pearson's chi-squared test
Pearson's r
Pearson distribution
Kikuchi Dairoku, a close friend and contemporary
of Karl Pearson at University College School
and Cambridge University
List of Gresham Professors of Geometry
Phi coefficient
Scientific racism
Biophysics
== References ==
Most of the biographical information above
is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the
Department of Statistical Sciences at University
College London, which has been placed in the
public domain. The main source for that page
was A list of the papers and correspondence
of Karl Pearson (1857–1936) held in the
Manuscripts Room, University College London
Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B. Blundell,
S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and
published by the Publications Office, University
College London, 1983.
Additional information from entry for Karl
Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of
the Royal Society
== Further reading ==
Eisenhart, Churchill (1974). Dictionary of
Scientific Biography, 10, New York: Charles
Scribner's Sons, pp. 447–473.
Norton, Bernard J (1978). "Karl Pearson and
Statistics: The Social Origins of Scientific
Innovation" (PDF). Social Studies of Science.
8 (1): 3–34. doi:10.1177/030631277800800101.
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 978-0-691-12635-7.
== External links ==
Works by Karl Pearson, at JSTOR
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Karl
Pearson", MacTutor History of Mathematics
archive, University of St Andrews.
Karl Pearson at the Mathematics Genealogy
Project
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 Journal.
Texts on Wikisource:
Nock, Albert Jay, "A New Science and Its Findings",
The American Magazine (The Phillips Publishing
Co.) LXXIII (5): 577 (March 1912)
"Biometrika" from The Doctor's Dilemma by
George Bernard Shaw
"Pearson, Karl". Collier's New Encyclopedia.
1921.
"Studies in the history of probability and
statistics, L: Karl Pearson and the Rule of
Three", Stigler 2012
From Masaryk to Karl Pearson, Philosophy as
Scientia Scientiarum
