2.34: Mathematics - Statistics
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- Susan Rahman, Prateek Sunder, and Dahmitra Jackson
- CC ECHO
The subfield of statistics within mathematics has been used widely among virtually all academic fields.Statistics is the science concerned with developing and studying methods for collecting, analyzing, interpreting and presenting empirical data (What is Statistics?, 2021). Data is a critical piece of academic research but it’s use and misuse to perpetuate inequality have deep historical roots. Some of the early work in the field of Statistics was done by Sir Francis Galton and it is important to understand the historical role, structural racism played in it’s development. Sir Francis Galton was a prominent researcher in several fields, including Psychology, Biology, Anthropology, Sociology, and Statistics. Some of his most relevant contributions were the correlation statistic, regression, psychometrics, and behavior genetics. However, Galton, the younger cousin of Charles Darwin, was also the father of a more insidious subject: Eugenics. Eugenics is described as a racist and misogynistic pseudoscience, and served as justification for oppression and injustices of anyone deemed undesirable or less desirable. Specifically, Eugenics called for the oppression of any person who was not a wealthy and able bodied white man, and for demographics seen as especially undesirable, Eugenics argued for their forced sterilization. Galton and his followers, including Karl Pearson, argued that the British Race was deteriorating due to unfavorable genes being inherited and passed down. Whereas Charles Darwin developed his theories on evolution, Darwin did not believe that those theories justified superiority of specific races. Rather, Darwin asserted that any human alive today is successfully adapted, and by extension, just as perfect as the other people around them (Hanley, 2020).
In Galton’s efforts to sow inequality, he created the Anthropomorphic Laboratory, which worked to prove how humans were subject to natural selection, just as plants and animals.Eugenic arguments were consistently disproven. Case in point, a 1904 Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration argued that syphilis and insanity are the only two inheritable genetic degenerative conditions, and that other conditions were a result of poor nutrition, sanitation, and other environmental consequences. Despite clear inaccuracies in the pseudoscience, eugenicists inspired by Galton persisted in their argument that poor genetics were undermining the British population. The 1907 Eugenics society was incorporated in 1907,and they played instrumental roles in legislation such as the 1905 Aliens Act and the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act, which strengthened anti immigration policies and were in favor of institutionalizing people seen as “mentally defective” (Gunderman, 2021).
Unlike the United States and many European nations, England did not participate in mass forced sterilization. However, eugenicists such as Marie Stopes argued that working class families were too large and that there was a need for contraception (birth control) to stop the working class from reproducing faster than the “more desirable” middle class. Eugenicist assumed that the working class and less fortunate were in their social position due to genetics; working classes were seen as lazy and unchaste on a genetic level. Eugenicists argued that this was a gene which could and would spread if the working class were allowed to have children,and the spreading of those traits would lead to racial decline and collapse.
It is important to recognize scientific accomplishments, while also acknowledging the scientist’s problematic behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs. In contemporary society, scientists are too often lauded and praised limitlessly; their flaws and problematic ideas are ignored or even hidden. This white washing of history perpetuates the system of inequality, and by failing to learn about horrors such as Eugenics, society may one day be doomed to relive it. In current society, although the majority of society’s members admit that prejudices are unfair and immoral, assumptions about natural racial and gender based differences still persist (Gunderman, 2021). Galton may have been responsible for scientific contributions and statistical discoveries such as correlation and regression, but he was also responsible for atrocities against humanities through his pursuit of Eugenics.