Being big-headed: Francis Galton and head measurements

Intelligence is a topic that has always fascinated psychologists and scientists in general.

Regardless of the definition of intelligence you have in mind, we can probably all agree that intelligence is something positive: we all want to have a good level of intelligence. We admire people who are intelligent, and we are genuinely interested in understanding how to improve our intelligence.

Sir Francis Galton

One of the first scientists that tried to understand something about intelligence was Sir Francis Galton (1853-1897). Sir Francis Galton was a half-cousin of Charles Darwin and was one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century.

_{A portrait of Sir Francis Galton: National Portrait Gallery, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons}

Like many of the scientists of his time, Galton was interested in an incredibly large spectrum of topics. He provided insights on statistics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology; he was a tropical explorer and a geographer, an inventor and a meteorologist. Among other things, Galton was also interested in intelligence.

Intelligent guesses on intelligence

The main interest of Galton on intelligence (as well as in many other fields) was to provide a measure of intelligence, something that could be represented with numbers. Like many of his contemporaries, Francis Galton believed in a positive relationship between head size and intelligence (Fancher, 1983). In addition to this idea, Galton thought that sensation played a major role in intelligence: having good vision and good hearing could somehow explain intelligence. Last but not the least, Galton believed in the inheritability of intelligence.

It’s all in the family

Presumably, the interest and the idea of Galton about intelligence began with an observation, the most typical “start” of any scientific investigation. He observed that intelligence runs in families: in English society of that time, eminent people (eminence is the word Galton used to address intelligence) always came from the same families. For example, these families could have more than one person at the top of the society, whereas some others had none. This “inheritability” was not limited to intelligence, as Galton believed that many other abilities were also inherited by people, an example of which is the ability of our senses.

Measuring intelligence

Galton had a good chance of setting into practice some of his ideas, thanks to the International Health Exhibition that was held in London in 1884. There, Galton could set up his “Anthropometric Laboratory”. As the name suggests, the laboratory was a place where many measures were taken.

_{An advertisement on the Anthropometric Laboratory: See page for author, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

For example, Galton was taking body measurements such as the length of arms and legs, as well as the head size—although this particular measurement was soon dropped for practical reasons: it was inaccurate and additionally, it would require much time for women to disassemble and reassemble their hair and bonnets. In the laboratory, people’s visual and auditory sensitivity were also assessed together with other characteristics.

In only fourteen minutes, Galton would return to the visitors who took part in the research with measurements in 17 different categories, creating a rather comprehensive statistical database.

The invention of eugenics

_{The book “On the Origin of Species”: See page for author, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons}

Although eugenics may shed a dark light on Galton’s name, his contribution to various fields of knowledge was enormous.

As far as intelligence is concerned, he helped push forward debates in the field by looking for factors that could predict (intelligence is indeed, also inherited) and ways to measure intelligence.

References

• Fancher, R. E. (1983). Biographical origins of Francis Galton’s psychology. Isis, 74(2), 227-233.