Summary:
Writer and performer Brian Lipson talks about his interest in the contentious 19th century scientist, Francis Galton.

Transcript:
Robyn Williams: Sir Francis Galton - psychologist, gentleman and a figure who unwittingly unleashed some of the most ghastly pseudoscience of the 20th Century with appalling consequences.

Galton has come alive again in Melbourne this month through the thespian magic of Brian Lipson who’s had terrific reviews in the Age newspaper. And here he is, first with that relationship with the renowned Charles Darwin, his relative Francis Galton.

Brian Lipson: He was, he was a first cousin and he worked with Darwin quite a lot. He did a rather ill-fated experiment on rabbits, I don’t know if you know about that.

Robyn Williams: No I don’t.

Brian Lipson: Darwin had this theory about gemules, gemules being present in the blood, because he couldn’t find a satisfactory explanation for how evolution information was passed on through the generations. And he had this idea that in the blood there was some little thing. So Galton thought it would be a good idea to experiment on rabbits and he did, and for two years solidly he did blood transfusions between different breeds of rabbits, Lop Eared and Grey rabbits. Until such a point as he felt that a lop eared rabbit was now full of grey rabbit blood, at which point he would allow those lop eared rabbits to mate and then the offspring hopefully would be a grey rabbit and not a lop eared rabbit, but it just never worked and never even began to work. And there was this awful kind of embarrassment, because Galton of course, was obliged to publish his results and Darwin then, after having encouraged Galton for two years to do this, then disowned the whole thing and said, “ I never said that the information was in the blood”, whereas he actually had said it. And poor old Galton was left and in his usual very polite and civilised way said what a great honour it had been to do this slight service to the great cause of evolution and the great man Darwin and even the fact that it had failed was in some way of help to this cause.

So they both had great respect for each other actually, and this was a bit of a blight on their relationship, but most of the time they spent extolling each other’s greatness.

Robyn Williams: Well now, take us to the theatre which is, in fact, the Royal Society in that wonderfully isolated piece of Melbourne by the park. You’re on stage, what do you do?

Brian Lipson: Well, the set is a tiny little box, it’s just four foot square and five feet high - it’s not tall enough to stand up in - and what it is it is a shrunken version of Galton’s study. The whole situation is awkward, partly because of the restricted space but also because he, of necessity, is being impersonated by me, an actor. And unfortunately, an actor who has almost no scientific knowledge. So this gets more and more frustrating for Galton and I suppose develops into a kind of mental wrestling match between him and me. I’m not quite sure who wins, I think I do.

Robyn Williams: Introduce the first example.

Brian Lipson: O.K. Well this is very early on in the piece and it’s Galton I suppose trying to come to terms with this ghastly dichotomy he’s in. He has realised that he is in some way alive but he is in the body of an actor.

Francis Galton: I suspect that those of you assembled here would not relish the prospect of attending for any length of time to the rather unremarkable gentleman now before you should he fail to sustain his imitation of myself, since he would then undoubtedly be reduced to immobility and silence. What then to do?

However much respect I may be forced to accord the dramatic device, I am still a man of science or I am nothing, and science is clarification and classification or it is nothing. It would simply be intolerable for me to continue in the ill-defined ambiguous situation in which I find myself unless somehow it may continuously be brought to your attention that it is not I, but an actor mouthing these words.

His vocal inflection and phrasing, though obviously professionally articulated and projected, are not my own and sometimes due no doubt to his lack of scientific literacy, he renders my perfectly clear thought into obscurity. I venture to say that, without the constant reminder that he is an entirely separate entity from myself you will be unable to determine the true meaning behind his superficially accomplished and entertaining delivery.

Now, how to achieve that without involving the direct intervention of his person which would immediately destroy all known theatrical rules and ruin any possibility of a satisfying dramatic evening. Of course it would have helped matters if he had not felt the need to adorn himself in this ridiculous approximation of Victorian daywear, I make no mention of the synthetic pate and whiskers, but had simply presented himself to you in garments similar to your own. But it is obviously too late to rectify that mistake and time is pressing in more ways than one.

We are in grave danger of flouting that other most important of Aristotle’s theses, that drama most necessary consist of a beginning, middle and end. We have already spent two minutes and thirty nine seconds of what is undoubtedly a dramatic presentation of some kind, without having achieved even the first of these essential requirements. We hare perilously close to losing all theatrical credibility whatsoever. Now, it is in order to overcome these very difficulties that I’ve been engaged in the curious activities which no doubt you will have observed and which will, in a few moments, so to speak explain themselves to you.

Meanwhile I will refrain from further comment.

Robyn Williams: Right. A wonderful exercise in solecism taken to the nth degree. I have always thought of Galton - of course, it maybe an unfair thing to concentrate upon - as being the person who isolated all those psychometrics, the racial categories, the analyses of type and I’ve seen some of your pictures of the Jewish type and calculations of Jewishness and the Negroid - it’s chilling stuff.

Brian Lipson: Yeah, and I’m pretty sure that those photographs, the composite photographs that he made of the Jewish type were used by the Nazis directly. So despite the fact that Galton was one of the most charming and brilliant people who’s ever lived and he had the highest ever recorded IQ, he’s also responsible for some of the worst atrocities of our times.

Robyn Williams: Not directly though.

Brian Lipson: Well, fairly directly. I mean eugenics is an idea which is still very powerful and is still practiced in a lot of places. I mean in China they have a eugenic program and it is called a Eugenic Program; there was a very, kind of, controversial case quite recently. In Sweden, right through the 70s they sterilised people in lunatic asylums and so on. And there was a big case in America which I’m sure you’ve heard about quite recently. And in a way we still do practice eugenics. It is what is behind most abortions I have to say, but because of the Second World War it is very much a taboo subject and we tend to talk about it in terms of the individual problem about you know, at what point one should terminate a pregnancy or something of that sort rather than as a general philosophy. But I think it is still there, perhaps by default but it’s still there.

Robyn Williams: Would you introduce the second extract?

Brian Lipson: Well yeah, this is a little example of the more whacky side of his personality. He was involved in almost every branch of science, he was a genuine polymath, he was also an explorer and did all kinds of things and he invented the Galton’s whistle, which you know does very high frequencies. Here’s a little bit about that.

Francis Galton: You see, concealed in the shaft of this walking stick is what has now become known as a Galton’s whistle, currently calibrated at 12,339 cycles per second, a frequency inaudible to humans but particularly attractive to dogs. The walking stick acts as a useful disguise. It permits me to conduct the experiments on London’s fauna, including those resident at Regent’s Park Zoo, without incurring the suspicion of the human population, although some curiosity is inevitably aroused by the unusual uproar my perambulations prevoke in the canine community.

The frequencies above 14,000 cpc’s are unreliable and weak. So I have developed this hydrogen powered version of the whistle currently capable of reaching frequencies of up to 143,000 cpc’s with which I’m currently conducting a series of experiments on the hearing of insects. Hydrogen being 13 times lighter than air will give rise to many more vibrations per second, the rate of vibrations being inversely proportionate to the square root of specific gravity, but it is extremely difficult to assess the reaction of insects. Sometimes I’m not quite sure if this apparatus is actually working.

The simplest way to test it is this. (Breathing in/speaking in high-pitched voice). In the early days of my medical training at Birmingham General Hospital I spent most of my time in the dispensary and occupied myself by sampling (deeper voice) alphabetically, the entire pharmacopea. (normal voice) I dutifully ingested a small portion of all drugs then known. Unfortunately I could not progress beyond the letter C - Croton oil; it is a devastatingly effective purgative and emetic.

Robyn Williams: What happened to Galton eventually?

Brian Lipson: Oh, he lived a very long and successful life and he was President of the Royal Society in England and was knighted before his death. Yes, he was very eminent and it’s only since his death that he’s been rather shoved under the carpet.

Robyn Williams: From which he’s now been extracted. The play is called ‘A Large Attendance in the Antechamber’. It’s on again next weekend at the Royal Society of Victoria, December 2nd and 3rd and it’ll also travel to the Sydney Festival from January 15th onwards next year. Brian Lipson was my guest and the reincarnation of Sir Francis Galton.