Fighting for the Good Cause: Reflections on Francis Galton's Legacy to American Hereditarian Psychology Transactions, American Philosophical Society (vol. 91, part 2)

Sir Francis Galton was an influential mentor for the educational psychologists who supplied crucial doctrine to American eugenics from 1903 to 1930. Yet the nature of his influence has never been specified. The psychologists' own claim as to the Galton's contribution — that he provided sufficient justification for their absolutist hereditarianism — was clearly disingenuous. Rather, he appears to have functioned as a model for these figures, who were informed by their perceptions of Galton's...