Studies in Biology, Economy and Society – serie

Part of the "Studies in Biology, Economy and Society" series, this book looks at Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), a grandson of Erasmus Darwin. In his twenties he won fame as an explorer, writing "The Art of Travel", and was on the council of the Geographical Society for many years. He worked at the prediction of weather, and described his discovery of the anticyclone to the Royal Society in 1862 and in "Meteorographica" (1863). He first became an anthropologist in 1862 when he joined the Ethnological Society, which emerged to become the Anthropological Institute in 1871 - Galton was president from 1885 to 1889. He initiated anthropometry and the measurement of human variation, and the use of photography for the analysis of differences, or individual characteristics, in a group. He recognized the uniqueness of "Finger Prints" (1893), and, in 1875, first used the records of pairs of identical twins in his research into the laws of heredity. It was on the publication of the "Origin of the Species" by his cousin Charles that he realized the importance of inheritance and the transmission of characters of body and brain from parent to child.His "Hereditary Genius" came out in 1869, "Inquiries into Human Faculty" in 1883, and "Natural Inheritance" in 1889. Besides his pre-Mendelian contributions to human genetics, Galton devised the correlation co-efficient, the higher mathematics of which was to be developed by Karl Pearson, and was thus concerned with the advancement of statistics. In 1883, he coined the word eugenics by which he meant "good in birth" and "noble in heredity", and, in 1904, he founded the Galton Laboratory (now Department of Genetics and Biometry) at University College, London. He was the first president of the Eugenics Education Society in 1907, which became the Eugenics Society in 1926 and the Galton Institute in 1989. At the end of the book is a list of the presidents of the Eugenics Education Society 1908-1926, Eugenics Society 1926-1989, Galton Institute 1989-.

Reproductive biologists, evolutionary biologists, demographers and social scientists all have a common interest in the business of human reproduction. Their perspectives, however, are very different and have traditionally prevented them from having much to do with each other. The conference on which this book is based brought together contributors from each of these disciplines in an attempt to explore the common ground that they share and so generate a better understanding of the factors that influence human fertility.

The collected papers in this volume cover the effects of environmental stress under a biological and energetic model. Examples are taken from fossil and living animal populations, and from outlier human populations and traditional societies. These examples indicate that stress increases energy demands and so reduces reproductive fitness. A wide range of stressful situations also are analyzed under the less stringent conditions experienced by modern human populations, when cultural factors assume importance. These emphasize the interaction between genetic, physiological, psychological and social factors in everyday life and in clinical settings.

This collection of papers is in honour of Julian Huxley, President from 1959 until 1962 of the Eugenics Society, which exists to support research into genetic and social factors of human reproduction with a view to improving problems associated with heredity, human qualities and population.

The book focuses on the role of both biological and behavioural factors in the fertility, and specific patterns of health and disease, of minority populations living in developed and less developed countries. The importance of marriages contracted between close relatives is stressed, as over 900 million people inhabit countries where 20 to 50 per cent of marriages are inbred. Past, present and future trends in population mixing are evaluated, with special consideration of their effects on the health of minorities.