Galton invented eugenics from statistical methods misapplied to heredity

Evidence

Charles Darwin’s scholarly circle grew immeasurably over the 1860s, encircling the entire Western world. The Origin of Species even changed the life of Darwin’s cousin, Sir Francis Galton. The father of modern statistics, Galton created the concepts of correlation and regression toward the mean and blazed the trail for the use of questionnaires and surveys to collect data. In Hereditary Genius (1869), he used his data to popularize the myth that parents passed on hereditary traits like intelligence that environment could not alter. “The average intellectual standard of the negro race is some two grades below our own,” Galton wrote. He coined the phrase “nature versus nurture,” claiming that nature was undefeated. Galton urged governments to rid the world of all naturally unselected peoples, or at least stop them from reproducing, a social policy he called “eugenics” in 1883. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 561

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the coining of both ‘nature versus nurture’ and ‘eugenics’ as Galton’s inventions — a definitional anchor for the whole hereditarian tradition.
• XREF: Connects to Galton’s invented correlation concept being later weaponized to justify race science — echoes of modern race-IQ debates and the statistical misuse the reader tracks.