Excerpts from The g Factor: Francis Galton was a Very Interesting Person
Two of a number of stories about Sir Francis Galton, the founder of differential psychology
An excerpt from The G Factor: The Science of Mental Ability (1998) by Arthur Jensen:
Biographies of Galton also reveal his charming eccentricities. His profuse intellectual energy spilled over into lesser achievements or activities that often seem trivial. He was almost obsessed with counting and measuring things (his motto: “When you can, count!” ), and he devised mechanical counters and other devices to help in counting and tabulating. He loved data. On his first visit to a city, for example, he would walk around with a small, hand-held mechanical counter and tally the number o f people passing by, tabulating their characteristics— tall, medium, short; blond, brunette, redhead— separately for males and females, the latter also rated for attractiveness. To be able to manage all these data while walking about, he had his tailor make a special vest with many little pockets, each one for a particular tabulated characteristic. He could temporarily store the data from his counters by putting into designated pockets the appropriate number o f dried peas. Back in his hotel room, he counted the peas in each pocket and entered the numerical results in his notebook for later statistical calculations.
The idea of rating people and quantifying physical attractiveness is very interesting to me. Among friends, this is a very popular topic of conversation between men and possibly women (I wouldn’t know). We know some general trends: confident strong men and youthful women are generally considered more attractive. And yet there is a great deal of variation. Some men really like tattoos, or blondes or short girls. Some guys like feminine men or older men. What drives this variation? Does it correlate with other personality differences? Does it change across time? How much of it is genetic and how much cultural?
He devised an objective measure of the degree to which a lecturer bored the audience, and tried it out at meetings o f the Royal Society. It consisted of counting the involuntary noises— coughs, feet shuffling, and the like— that issued from the audience, and, with a specially rigged protractor, he measured the angle that listeners’ heads were tilted from a vertical position during the lecture. A score derived from the data obtained with this procedure showed that even the most eloquently written lecture, if read verbatim, was more boring than an extempore lecture, however rambling and inelegant.
I’ve always noticed that podcasts are almost always more interesting than a book. There is something about discussions, dialogue and even monologuing that is more engaging than just wrote reading of a speech, especially in academic topics. I imagine that a passionate political exposition à la Ayn Rand could be more engaging than someone just talking. In the academic field, rambling and interesting asides keep attention. I enjoy podcasts about difficult topics and hearing people discuss it more than reading an audiobook. It’s harder to focus.
Galton reminds me of myself in some ways. I am very intellectually curious and I enjoy measuring things, including myself.
> "He loved data. On his first visit to a city, for example, he would walk around with a small, hand-held mechanical counter and tally the number o f people passing by, tabulating their characteristics— tall, medium, short; blond, brunette, redhead"
That is so amusing. I love hearing about people who are obsessed enough to so utterly break with convention. The special vest with little pockets for dried peas is hilarious.
> "He devised an objective measure of the degree to which a lecturer bored the audience, and tried it out at meetings o f the Royal Society. It consisted of counting the involuntary noises— coughs, feet shuffling, and the like— that issued from the audience, and, with a specially rigged protractor, he measured the angle that listeners’ heads were tilted from a vertical position during the lecture."
This^ is amazing!! Thank you for spotlighting it. How many people would not have the fantasy of being able to determine that, by an objective measure, the lecturer bored their audience?
Anyway, was reading the LW "Generalizing From One Example" post, so... fun to run into this.
> "We know some general trends: confident strong men and youthful women are generally considered more attractive."
Oh! I do have something to share that might be useful. I took a class called "Building Strong Marriages" at the place where my husband was studying theology. (Sadly, the class existed because people's marriages were fraying apart when one or both spouse went there for graduate studies! but oh well - the class existed.) It discussed a lot of things from psychology, sociology and counseling. The prof claimed that the one constant across cultures for what people find as attractiveness in women was ratio of hips-to-waist. (good thing this is a small blog; I would be mortified to share it on DSL or in ACX comments or something.)
I also wonder what drives variation in what we find attractive.
I read that in general, people tend to find people more like themselves more attractive, and marry those closer to them genetically than the average; yet I — tall, pale, Northern European to 99.9% according to 23andme — have, over the years, become more and more attracted to Latin girls, to the extent that now if she don't have black hair and tan skin, I'm really not interested. Why? I have no damn idea. It just happened.
I generally think genetics is the key behind almost all variation, far more so than is popular to think now, but the (apparently) 80% of my ancestry that comes from Bavaria wouldn't have found much opportunity to obsess over dark-haired dark-eyed girls, I think...