Projects | Page 14 of 21 | Professor Joe Cain

Anthropometric Laboratories in the UK and Ireland

The 1884 International Health Exhibition provided for Francis Galton the opportunity to set up an Anthropometric Laboratory for the first time. Taking place in South Kensington between Exhibition Road and Queen’s Gate, next to the […]

Ronald Aylmer Fisher was a eugenicist. This image from 1943 courtesy National Portrait Gallery

What’s Wrong With Fisher? He Was A Eugenicist

UCL Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment has taken the decision to de-name the R A Fisher Centre for Computational Biology owing to Fisher’s life-long commitment to eugenics research and campaigning. It is now the UCL Centre for […]

George Baxter print showing Crystal Palace 1854 Sydenham view from the north

Guide to Crystal Palace and Park from 1871 | EGP

The Crystal Palace Company published a Guide to Crystal Palace and Park nearly every year in the first few decades after opening their attraction in Sydenham in 1854. These guides described main attractions – especially […]

Frontispiece. Heinrich Driesmans 1903 Francis Galton (privately printed). Translated by M. E. Coleridge.

Francis Galton (A Rare Biography by Heinrich Driesmans)

Francis Galton has been the subject of several major biographies (Cowan 1984; Gillham 2001; Waller 2001), and much historical study. Karl Pearson asserted his own primacy as Galton’s disciple with his Life, Letters, and Labours […]

Historical analysis shows Karl Pearson was a racist nativist supremacist for Anglo-Saxon stock

Eugenics, Karl Pearson and the Legacy of Anglo-Saxon Nativism (text of talk)

This is the text of a presentation I delivered in September 2019 titled, “Eugenics, Karl Pearson and the Legacy of Anglo-Saxon Nativism”. It was for the conference “Universities and their contested pasts”. At the time, the UCL […]

Laughlin, Harry H. 1923. The Second International Exhibition of Eugenics Held September 22 to October 22, 1921, in Connection with the Second International Congress of Eugenics in the American Museum of Natural History, New York (Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins Company), page 15.

Famous Eugenics Tree Image Source Located

The “eugenics tree” is one of the most reprinted images associated with the history and legacy of eugenics. The source is Laughlin (1923: 15, figure 3). It was created for the Second International Congress of […]

UCL Should Rename Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology

Because I’ve been vocal in arguing for de-naming UCL facilities once (but no longer) associated with racist, nativist, eugenicists Francis Galton and Karl Pearson, I was asked if UCL should de-name its Petrie Museum of […]

T.T. Martin Headquarters, Anti-Evolution League at 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925: Innes Lecture 2020

For the Innes Lecture 2020, I discussed the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. Owing to COVID-related public health restrictions, we moved this lecture online. Details on access now are available through the John Innes Centre. The […]

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925. William Jennings Bryan addressing the jury

Scopes Monkey Trial 1925 – Complete Trial Transcripts

Shortly after the conclusion of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial – officially, the case of State of Tennessee versus John Thomas Scopes, the National Book Company (Cincinnati, Ohio) published transcripts of the trial. Under the […]

Insect on Leaf - how might those names translate into the Linnean system of taxonomy?

Changing Offensive Names In Taxonomy Will Be A Hard Ask

The surge of energy for BlackLivesMatter this summer (2020) is driving change in areas far beyond those directly connected with police violence and responsive protests. This surge has given huge momentum to efforts seeking removal […]