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Frontiers in Mathematical Biology pp 212–237Cite as

The Morphometric Synthesis: A Brief Intellectual History

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Biomathematics ((LNBM,volume 100))

Abstract

For most of the twentieth century, techniques for the biometric analysis of organic form fell into one of two incompatible styles. In the first, more indigenous style, a direct extension of techniques introduced into statistics by Galton, Pearson, and their heirs, conventional multivariate techniques were applied to a diverse roster of measures of single forms. The only algebraic structures involved were those of multivariate statistics, limited mainly to covariance matrices; no aspect of the geometric organization of the measures, or their biological rationale, was reflected in the method. Analyses of this mode led at best to path diagrams, not to sketches of typical organisms expressing the developmental or functional import of the coefficients computed.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Human Growth & Development, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    Fred L. Bookstein

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  1. Fred L. Bookstein
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544-1003, USA

    Simon A. Levin

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© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Bookstein, F.L. (1994). The Morphometric Synthesis: A Brief Intellectual History. In: Levin, S.A. (eds) Frontiers in Mathematical Biology. Lecture Notes in Biomathematics, vol 100. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-50124-1_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-50124-1_13

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-50126-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-50124-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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