to perpetuate some of the worst of the pseudo-scientific superstitions, notably that of the greater variability of the male human being' and that it was the object of his essay 'to lay the axe to the root of this pseudo-scientific superstition.' In fact, as he is careful to tell us at frequent intervals, before he himself entered the field (a field, be it remembered, occupied by some of the world's greatest biologists) all was 'dogma,' 'superstition,' 'nearly all partisan,' at the best 'quite unproven,' I am inclined to think that these terms, which spring so easily to Mr. Pearson's pen, are automatic reminiscences of the ancient controversies he has waged with theologians and metaphysicians. They are certainly a little out of place on the present occasion.
In selecting the material for his demonstration, Professor Pearson tells us he sought to eliminate all those 'organs or characteristics which are themselves characteristic of sex,' such being, in his opinion, gout and color-blindness; he also threw aside all variations which can be regarded as 'pathological,' on the hypothetical ground that such 'pathological' variations may have a totally different sexual distribution from 'normal' variations. He decided that size is the best criterion of variability. As to how a 'variation' may be defined Professor Pearson makes no critical inquiry, though such inquiry would very seriously have modified his final conclusions.[1]
"What we have to do," he states, "is to take healthy normal populations of men and women, and in these populations measure the size of organs which do not appear to be secondary sexual characters, or from which the sexual character can be eliminated by dealing solely with ratios." Various kinds of size are therefore selected for treatment, such as that of the skull, chiefly as regards its capacity and length-breadth index, stature, span, chest-girth, weight of body and of various internal organs, etc., all these, it is observed, being various aspects of the one factor of size. It is shown by careful treatment of the available data the so-called coefficient of variation being accepted as a possible or indeed probable measure of significant variation—that, as far as there is any difference at all, women are, on the whole, slightly more variable than men. Having reached this result the author leaps bravely to the conclusion, that 'accordingly, the principle that man is more variable than woman must be put on one side as a pseudo-scientific superstition.'
- ↑ It is true, indeed, that Mr. Pearson remarks that the question 'What are the most suitable organs or characteristics for measuring the relative variability of man and woman?' 'really involves a definition of variability.' But he adds that 'the definition given may be so vague as to beg off-hand the solution of the problem we propose to discuss.' That suspicion, as we shall see, is not altogether unjustified.
