UCL Eugenics Inquiry

This article was partly transcribed from a discussion between Professor Tom Fearn, Dr Nathan Green and Dr Samuel Livingstone on the department’s podcast series `Random Talks’. Listen to the full discussion and other episodes here.

In 2018, an inquiry into UCL’s historical role in the teaching and study of the history of eugenics was commissioned. Former Head of Statistical Science, Professor Tom Fearn sat on the panel. The inquiry returned several recommendations in February 2020, which have begun to acknowledge and address the university’s historical links with the eugenics movement.

Subjective science

First emerging as a named discipline in the 19th century, eugenics is the study of how to arrange reproduction among a human population in such a way that characteristics or traits that are deemed to be desirable are spread, whereas those that are not deemed desirable are reduced. The goal, put simply, was to create a superior race through selective breeding. Eugenics gained much traction towards the end of the 19th century among many leading thinkers, and continued to grow in popularity during the early 20th century.

One fundamental issue with the idea was that the notion of ‘desirability’ is inherently subjective, and it is therefore easy for those with a particular agenda or prejudices to label certain subsets of a population as ‘not desirable’. Such prejudices were clearly displayed in the Second World War, during which eugenics ideas were enthusiastically adopted by the Nazis. Largely as a result of this, after 1945 the discipline was quietly phased out of mainstream scholarly thought.

Unfortunately, the history of statistics as a discipline is closely linked to the study of eugenics. The term ‘eugenics’ was coined by Francis Galton, who had close links to UCL. Galton, alongside Karl Pearson, sought to put his flawed ideas on a firm scientific basis, a pursuit which resulted in several methodological advances which, although developed to support unethical research, still form a key part of statistical practice to this day.

The history of the Department of Statistical Science at UCL is intrinsically linked to Galton’s legacy. While Galton never held a formal academic post here, upon his death in 1911 he left his fortune to UCL. This was to fund the Galton professorship of eugenics – a role that was filled by Karl Pearson and led directly to the founding of the Department of Applied Statistics.

New perspective

The inquiry returned its recommendations in 2020 and UCL has begun to act. In January 2021, UCL formally apologised for its role in the development, propagation, and legitimisation of eugenics. This apology has been accompanied by action in removing the names of Galton and Pearson from buildings, lecture rooms and prizes, as well as supporting further research into improving equality and diversity.

These changes are already being implemented in the Department of Statistical Science. The previously named Galton Lecture Theatre is now simply room 115, and a notice is on display outside the room explaining why this has happened. Additionally, all new students in the department now receive a short talk on the history of the department, including its role in the history of eugenics.

As Professor Fearn is keen to point out, even though this research was conducted at the start of the 20th century, the fundamentally flawed ideas still provide important lessons for modern statisticians. He says: “We need to be careful that we don’t do bad statistics… it’s really easy to see things in data that you want to see and ignore things that you don’t want to see.”

He also stresses that these are not only concerns for applied statisticians: “We need to think about where our research might lead. Even if we are doing mathematics, we can’t think that what we are doing is neut