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The Wiki Man

Email needs eugenics

Francis Galton was wrong about how people breed – but right, I suspect, about information

12 September 2015

9:00 AM

12 September 2015

9:00 AM

You won’t read much about Sir Francis Galton nowadays because, while it’s inarguable that the man was a giant in scores of scientific fields (many of which he invented), it is hard to deny that he was a teensy-weensy bit racist. That he wrote a letter to the Times in 1873 entitled ‘Africa for the Chinese’ is probably as much as you need to know.

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