Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age - Paperback

by Theodore M. Porter (Author)

Karl Pearson, founder of modern statistics, came to this field by way of passionate early studies of philosophy and cultural history as well as ether physics and graphical geometry. His faith in science grew out of a deeply moral quest, reflected also in his socialism and his efforts to find a new basis for relations between men and women. This biography recounts Pearson's extraordinary intellectual adventure and sheds new light on the inner life of science.

Theodore Porter's intensely personal portrait of Pearson extends from religious crisis and sexual tensions to metaphysical and even mathematical anxieties. Pearson sought to reconcile reason with enthusiasm and to achieve the impersonal perspective of science without sacrificing complex individuality. Even as he longed to experience nature directly and intimately, he identified science with renunciation and positivistic detachment. Porter finds a turning point in Pearson's career, where his humanistic interests gave way to statistical ones, in his Grammar of Science (1892), in which he attempted to establish scientific method as the moral educational basis for a refashioned culture.

In this original and engaging book, a leading historian of modern science investigates the interior experience of one man's scientific life while placing it in a rich tapestry of social, political, and intellectual movements.

Front Jacket

Karl Pearson was one of the most significant architects of modern statistics. In this remarkable book, Theodore Porter superbly captures the romance (and seldom has the use of this word been so appropriate) of Karl Pearson's early flirtation with philosophy and the tortured path that led him to statistics.--Stephen Stigler, University of Chicago

"Brilliant! Karl Pearson is fortunate to have a biographer who saves him from what he most abhorred: his fear that a life could be reduced to a mere discovery, stripped of all its personal and historical specificity. "--Ken Alder, Northwestern University, author of "The Measure of All Things

Back Jacket

"Karl Pearson was one of the most significant architects of modern statistics. In this remarkable book, Theodore Porter superbly captures the romance (and seldom has the use of this word been so appropriate) of Karl Pearson's early flirtation with philosophy and the tortured path that led him to statistics."--Stephen Stigler, University of Chicago

"Brilliant! Karl Pearson is fortunate to have a biographer who saves him from what he most abhorred: his fear that a life could be reduced to a mere discovery, stripped of all its personal and historical specificity. "--Ken Alder, Northwestern University, author of The Measure of All Things

Author Biography

Theodore Porter is Professor of History at UCLA and author of The Rise of Statistical Thinking and Trust in Numbers (both Princeton)