Francis Galton Twins
In 1875, Sir Francis Galton presented the twin study in his article “The History of Twins, as a Criterion of the Relative Powers of Nature and Nurture”. In the article, Galton bares his claim of the importance of twins and the serendipitous life experiment that takes place throughout their lives. This serendipitous experiment he is referring to, is the effects of nature and nurture, or, propensities obtained at birth and those that were created by environment and circumstance. Twin studies performed today must give credit to Galton and his ideas and practices. Today, researchers can compare a breadth of different outcomes of twin research; identical (monozygotic) versus fraternal (dizygotic) twins, comparing adopted children to their adoptive
…show more content…
In his autobiography Memories of My Life (1908), Galton said of his cousin, “The publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally” (p. 287). Galton was particularly interested in the chapter of breeding animals to promote the best traits. This would eventually lead Galton to the area of eugenics, the selective breeding of humans for superiority. The atrocities that were performed by the Nazi’s in the 1930’s and 40’s using eugenics will not be discussed in this paper, but it is important to note that Galton believed humanity could be improved by selective …show more content…
nurture has been important part of psychology since Galton coined the term in 1874. As mentioned before, Galton did recognize that there were some environmental (nurture) forces that contributed in shaping a person. However, he believed more in the inherent (nature) forces that determined a person’s characteristics, specifically intelligence. There is strong evidence that suggests that both are be at play, and some researchers can argue one more than the other. When Galton performed his study of the prevalence of prominent men and their family trees among the general population, he concluded that the higher rate of prominence in eminent men were due to inherent or evolutionary traits, rather than environmental
In his autobiography Memories of My Life (1908), Galton said of his cousin, “The publication in 1859 of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin made a marked epoch in my own mental development, as it did in that of human thought generally” (p. 287). Galton was particularly interested in the chapter of breeding animals to promote the best traits. This would eventually lead Galton to the area of eugenics, the selective breeding of humans for superiority. The atrocities that were performed by the Nazi’s in the 1930’s and 40’s using eugenics will not be discussed in this paper, but it is important to note that Galton believed humanity could be improved by selective …show more content…
nurture has been important part of psychology since Galton coined the term in 1874. As mentioned before, Galton did recognize that there were some environmental (nurture) forces that contributed in shaping a person. However, he believed more in the inherent (nature) forces that determined a person’s characteristics, specifically intelligence. There is strong evidence that suggests that both are be at play, and some researchers can argue one more than the other. When Galton performed his study of the prevalence of prominent men and their family trees among the general population, he concluded that the higher rate of prominence in eminent men were due to inherent or evolutionary traits, rather than environmental