In this compelling book, Genetics in the Madhouse, author Theodore Porter draws on untapped archival evidence from across Europe and North America to bring to light the hidden history behind modern genetics.
“Porter’s masterful book casts the fresh light of sanity over a previously uncharted sea of data on madness,” Stephen M. Stigler, author of The Seven Pillars of Statistical Wisdom, said in remarks published in the Princeton University Press website.
“Porter brings analytical order to an intriguingly chaotic subject, illuminating the challenges of ‘big data’ from a past era when the plasticity of categorization resulted in data being deduced from conclusions, a problem with uncanny similarities to those we face today,” added Stigler.
Porter is Distinguished Professor of History and holds the Peter Reill Chair at the University of California, Los Angeles. His books include Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life, and The Rise of Statistical Thinking, 1820–1900 (all Princeton).
Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother’s Laugh: The Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity, commented: “The book is a fascinating exploration of the long-running conviction that madness, criminality, and other mental traits can be passed down from parent to child.”
