Alfred Russel Wallace is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin’s writings in 1858. When he died in 1913, he was the most famous field biologist in the world. In 1870, Wallace accepted a wager for £500 from by a flat-earther, John Hampden, to demonstrate in public that the earth is round. Hampden put it plainly: “No one can believe a single doctrine or dogma of modern astronomy, and accept Scriptures as divine revelation.” Alfred Russell Wallace successfully demonstrated the curvature of the Earth to answer the challenge. In an 1891 letter to Francis Galton discussing whether individually acquired external characters are inherited, Wallace recommended that “questions can be settled by experiments systematically carried on for ten or twenty years” and offered to collaborative with him. Galton, champion of the bell curve, did not follow up.
Experiments to prove the earth is round were conducted at the Old Bedford River which had a six-mile drainage canal marked at each end by a bridge. Samuel Rowbotham wrote Zetetic Astronomy: Earth Not a Globe to advance his theory that the earth was flat, not round, (3d edition 1881 has 441 pages). He had previously used the Bedford Canal to prove the non-existence of Earth’s curvature. He looked through a telescope from one end of the canal and was able to observe boats on the other end. He ignored the effect of refraction and wrongly concluded that the Earth does not have curvature. On the other hand, Wallace designed a better experiment to minimize the effect of refraction. He raised the entire experiment by 13 ft 3 in (4 m) above water along the canal. In contrast, Rowbotham did his experiment only 8 in (20 cm) above water. In addition, Wallace added a pole with two discs in the middle of the canal for observational aid. This way, if there’s a curvature, it would be easy to observe.
In the experiment, Wallace successfully proved the existence of Earth’s curvature. Although Hampden saw what everyone else saw he refused to accept the results. First, Wallace was obliged to give back the money. Hampden, despite issuing the bet in the first place, took him to court and claimed that two people, alone, were not qualified to settle whether or not the world was round or flat. Hampden then started publishing insulting letters in publications. When he moved on to death threats, which he charmingly sent to Wallace’s wife, he was put in prison. Eventually the harassment became a cycle. Hampden would publish libelous claims and send Wallace threats. Wallace would take Hampden to court and Hampden would be forced to recant, briefly imprisoned, and barred from writing anything about Wallace for a few months. This harassment was only interrupted by Hampton’s death in 1891.
Systematic collection of population statistics began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as a response to the social upheavals of the time and the consequent concern with understanding the dynamics of mass behavior. Adolph Quetelet, the father of quantitative social science, was the first to claim that the bell curve could be applied not only to random errors but also to the distributions of social phenomena. Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911), an explorer and anthropologist with an interest in mathematics and techniques of measurement, used Darwin’s theories to support his own cause and, in particular, applied it to social issues. From Darwin’s description of the selection of physical characteristics, Galton set about developing the idea of the ideal man. He became known for his precise quantitative measurements that led him to develop statistical measurement of hereditary predisposition as a way of predicting and improving the population. His work led to the ‘bell curve’ being the starting point for modeling many natural processes. Galton first coined the term “eugenics” in 1883.
In a letter to Francis Galton sent on February 3, 1891 Wallace observed: “My dear Mr. Galton, Don’t you think the time has come for some combined and systematic effort to carry out experiments for the purpose of deciding…. fundamental but disputed points in organic evolution, [such as] whether individually acquired external characters are inherited, and thus form an important factor in the evolution of species – or whether as you & Weismann argue, and as many of us now believe, they are not so, and we are thus left to depend almost wholly on variation & natural selection…” In a follow up letter in Feb 13, 1891 Wallace says, “It is only in this way that we can arrive at a satisfactory mode of procedure, and I regret that I cannot have the advantage of discussing the question with yourself & others who are well acquainted with the subject and with the special difficulties of experimentation.” There was no follow up by Galton to this offer to collaborate.1
Defining “scientific” as biological means that social factors can be dismissed as ideological and therefore not scientific. In the early 1900s capitalist philanthropic foundations backed academics from top universities to promote “race science” and ultimately eugenics to eliminate the “socially unfit.” Karl Pearson (1857-1936) was Galton Professor of Eugenics at the University of London who developed the Chi squared test. In his various studies, Pearson fell back on mathematical statistics in his desire to find truth. Pearson used his newly developed Chi Square test to check how closely a number of empirical distributions of supposedly random errors fit the bell curve. He found that many of the distributions that had been cited in the literature as fitting the normal curve (including Galton’s work) were actually significantly different from it, and concluded that “the normal curve of error possesses no special fitness for describing errors or deviations such as arise either in observing practice or in nature”. Pearson’s conclusions were not sufficient to stop the application of the normal curve of error as a norm in assigning classroom grades or in psychological testing.2
Charles Murray, FA Hayek Chair in Cultural Studies, co-authored with Richard Herrnstein, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in America (1994) which is not a work of scientific research but rather a political book written by one of the most prominent conservative policy entrepreneurs in America as part of a larger ideological project. The actual conclusion of The Bell Curve is that America should stop trying to improve poor kids’ material living standards because doing so encourages poor, low-IQ women to have more children. It also concludes that the US should substantially curtail immigration from Latin America and Africa. His writings have revived discredited racist eugenics theories “proving” that blacks and Latinos are genetically inferior to whites, and today argues that the lower classes are inferior to the upper classes due to breeding differences. The interpretation of those data, however, is very much in dispute. So, too, are the authors’ conclusions that little or nothing can or should be done to raise the ability of the IQ-impaired, since so much of their lower intelligence is due to heredity.
While The Bell Curve presents elaborate statistical justifications for most of its assertions, however, the claim that intelligence is normally distributed is defended on common sense grounds. Herrnstein and Murray (1994: 557) simply assert that “it makes sense that most things will be arranged in bell-shaped curves. Extremes tend to be rarer than averages.” They note that the bell curve “has a close mathematical affinity to the meaning of the standard deviation,” a concept which they use extensively in the book, and remark that: “It is worth pausing a moment over this link between a relatively simple measure of spread in a distribution and the way things in everyday life vary, for it is one of nature’s more remarkable uniformities.” In reality, there is nothing remarkable about the fact that measures which contain a good deal of random variation will fit a measure designed to measure random variation. If the normal distribution were properly understood as nothing more than a distribution of random errors, it would not lend any weight to their arguments.2
Murray and Hernstein, in their book, suggest that one cannot be sure whether weight is between genetic or environmental, while the book only promotes genetic ‘evidence.’ On the other hand, the role of epigenetics has now provided high quality evidence supporting the importance of DNA in shaping people’s lives. While epigenetic changes can be passed on from parents to children, they can also be altered by stress, diet, environment and behavior. Early life stress alters how DNA is packaged, which makes cells function differently than their original mandate. These epigenetic switches are triggered by many factors such as our lifestyle, environment, diet, stress, emotional deprivation or hormones and our age, and as the development of a growing foetus in the womb is totally dependent on these signals, it can alter the function of its cells. Epigenetics has been particularly helpful in gaining new insights into the wide range of health benefits of exercise.
In the 19th century Alfred Russel Wallace challenged empirical observations of both flat-earthers and bell curve enthusiasts. In the 21st century the Flat Earth Society applies the Zetetic method in which sensory observations reign supreme – making ‘logical’ decisions based on empirical data. A sub-group called flat-earthers question science, claiming everything you have ever known is incorrect. Social media has been a magnifier for this group. The conclusions promoted by Charles Murray are problematic as the bell curve is a mathematical abstraction, not anything scientific. For Charles Murray and mainstream neoliberals like Milton Friedman empirical research on intelligence was an effective means of influencing public perception and policy on welfare, affirmative action, and immigration. The lessons learned: today everyone understands that both flat-earthers and Charles Murray enthusiasts use empirical data, essentially, relying on poor quality evidence to support their claims.
1 The Alfred Russel Wallace Page. https://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/wallace/S707AC.htm
2 Ted Goertzel. The Myth of the Bell Curve http://crab.rutgers.edu/~goertzel/normalcurve.htm