Karl Pearson

By the age of thirty, Pearson had become a barrister (although he never practiced law), had written verse and plays and been appointed as a mathematics professor in University College in London. He was well-known as a lecturer on many topics ranging from German Literature to Karl Marx (he was an avowed socialist). But his major contributions started at age 33 when he became interested in Galton's work on the statistical measurements of biological organisms. He started a collaboration with the zoologist Walter Weldon and they co-founded the journal Biometrika.

Between 1893 and 1912 Pearson wrote a series of papers that laid the foundation for many modern statistical concepts. He provided the mathematical basis for regression, introduced by Galton, and invented linear regression, the general linear model, an early version of the chi-squared test. He introduced the family of exponential distributions which are fundamental to the study of probability.

When Galton died in 1911 he left the residue of his estate to establish a chair in Eugenics at University College in London which Pearson held until his retirement in 1933. Pearson founded the first department of applied statistics at a University at University College in London.

While Pearson was a socialist and declined honors such as a knighthood because of that, he held views that would be universally regarded as racist today. He urged that the "better stocks" be encouraged to breed in a "war against inferior races." Despite these baseless political views, Pearson changed scientific through as much through the clarity of his lectures and books on statistical methods as through his particular contributions to the field.

.In 1915 a Pearson read an early paper by Ronald Fisher and wrote a glowing review. After an initial friendship, Pearson wrote a paper critical of Fisher's liklihood principle. Fisher took great offense that a critical paper would be written without first warning him, and there began a tremendous feud between the two. Ultimately Pearson used his position to block the publication of Fisher's work and unfairly criticized him for publishing allegedly false works. For his part, Fisher's papers were often difficult and he continued to criticize Pearson long after the latter had passed away. Ironically, Fisher succeeded Pearson in the Galton Chair at University College.

Pearson's son Egon was also a statistician of note. Pearson made fundamental contributions to biometry, epidemiology and championed the use of statistical analysis in wide-ranging disciplines. He was a member of the Royal Society. The Department of Statistics at University College keeps a biography of Pearson.


Born: 27 March 1857 in London, England
Died: 27 April 1936 in Coldharbour, Surrey, England