Editing Genius (section)

===Galton===
[[Image:Cervantes Jáuregui.jpg|thumb|upright| [[Miguel de Cervantes]], novelist who is acknowledged as a [[literature|literary]] genius]]
The assessment of intelligence was initiated by [[Francis Galton]] (1822–1911) and [[James McKeen Cattell]]. They had advocated the analysis of reaction time and sensory acuity as measures of "neurophysiological efficiency" and the analysis of sensory acuity as a measure of intelligence.<ref>{{cite book |last=Fancher |first=Raymond E |title=Alfred Binet, General Psychologist |pages=67–84 |series=Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology |volume=III |editor-first=Gregory A |editor-last=Kimble |editor2-first=Michael |editor2-last=Wertheimer |location=Hillsdale, NJ |year=1998 |publisher=Lawrence Erlbaum Associates |isbn=978-1-55798-479-1}}</ref>

Galton is regarded as the founder of [[psychometrics|psychometry]]. He studied the work of his older half-cousin [[Charles Darwin]] about biological evolution. Hypothesizing that eminence is inherited from ancestors, Galton did a study of families of eminent people in Britain, publishing it in 1869 as ''[[Hereditary Genius]]''.<ref name=":0">{{harvnb|Galton|1869}}</ref> Galton's ideas were elaborated from the work of two early 19th-century pioneers in [[statistics]]: [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]] and [[Adolphe Quetelet]]. Gauss discovered the [[normal distribution]] (bell-shaped curve): given a large number of measurements of the same variable under the same conditions, they vary at [[Randomness|random]] from a most frequent value, the "average", to two least frequent values at maximum differences greater and lower than the most frequent value. Quetelet discovered that the bell-shaped curve applied to social statistics gathered by the French government in the course of its normal processes on large numbers of people passing through the courts and the military. His initial work in criminology led him to observe "the greater the number of individuals observed the more do peculiarities become effaced...". This ideal from which the peculiarities were effaced became "the average man".<ref>{{cite book|page= [https://archive.org/details/againstgodsremar00pete_0/page/160 160]|title=Against the gods|first=Peter L.|last=Bernstein|publisher=Wiley|year=1998|isbn=0-471-12104-5|url=https://archive.org/details/againstgodsremar00pete_0/page/160 }}</ref>

Galton was inspired by Quetelet to define the average man as "an entire normal scheme"; that is, if one combines the normal curves of every measurable human characteristic, one will, in theory, perceive a syndrome straddled by "the average man" and flanked by persons that are different. In contrast to Quetelet, Galton's average man was not statistical but was theoretical only. There was no measure of general averageness, only a large number of very specific averages. Setting out to discover a general measure of the average, Galton looked at educational statistics and found bell-curves in test results of all sorts; initially in mathematics grades for the final honors examination and in entrance examination scores for [[Royal Military Academy Sandhurst|Sandhurst]].

Galton's method in ''Hereditary Genius'' was to count and assess the eminent relatives of eminent men. He found that the number of eminent relatives was greater with a closer degree of kinship. This work is considered the first example of [[historiometry]], an analytical study of historical human progress. The work is controversial and has been criticized for several reasons. Galton then departed from Gauss in a way that became crucial to the history of the 20th century AD. The bell-shaped curve was not random, he concluded. The differences between the average and the upper end were due to a non-random factor, "natural ability", which he defined as "those qualities of intellect and disposition, which urge and qualify men to perform acts that lead to reputation…a nature which, when left to itself, will, urged by an inherent stimulus, climb the path that leads to eminence."<ref>Bernstein (1998), page 163.</ref> The apparent randomness of the scores was due to the randomness of this natural ability in the population as a whole, in theory.

Criticisms include that Galton's study fails to account for the impact of social status and the associated availability of resources in the form of economic inheritance, meaning that inherited "eminence" or "genius" can be gained through the enriched environment provided by wealthy families. Galton went on to develop the field of [[eugenics]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gillham |first1=Nicholas W. |title=Sir Francis Galton and the birth of eugenics |journal=Annual Review of Genetics |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=83–101 |date=2001 |pmid=11700278 |doi=10.1146/annurev.genet.35.102401.090055}}</ref> Galton attempted to control for economic inheritance by comparing the adopted nephews of popes, who would have the advantage of wealth without being as closely related to popes as sons are to their fathers, to the biological children of eminent individuals.<ref name=":0" />