Karl Pearson

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The Mathematician, carried along on his flood of symbols, dealing apparently with purely formal truths, may still reach results of endless importance for our description of the physical universe.
~ Quoted in N Rose Mathematical Maxims and Minims (Raleigh N C 1988).

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


Karl Pearson graduated from Cambridge University in 1879, then spent most of his career at University College, London. He was the first Galton professor of eugenics, holding the chair from 1911 to 1933.

His book The Grammar of Science (1892), was remarkable in that it anticipated some of the ideas of relativity theory. It was wide ranging and attempted to extend the influence of science into all aspects. Pearson then became interested in developing mathematical methods for studying the processes of heredity and evolution.

He applied statistics to biological problems of heredity and evolution. From 1893-1912 he wrote 18 papers entitled Mathematical Contribution to the Theory of Evolution which contain his most valuable work. These papers contain contributions to regression analysis, the correlation coefficient and includes the chi-square test of statistical significance (1900). His chi-square test was produced in an attempt to remove the normal distribution from its central position.

Pearson coined the term 'standard deviation' in 1893. His work was influenced by the work of Edgeworth and in turn influenced the work of Yule.

Pearson had a long dispute with Fisher. Pearson used large sample which he measured and tried to deduce correlations. Fisher, on the other hand, followed Gosset in trying to use small samples and, rather than deduce correlations, to find causes. The dispute was bad enough to have Fisher turn down the post of Chief Statistician at the Galton Laboratory in 1919 since it would have meant working under Pearson....