When I tell people that I write regularly for a statistics magazine, they inevitably say it sounds boring.

On the contrary, I say. The articles I do for Significance are the meatiest, most satisfying pieces I get to write. They may be ostensibly about numbers, but they’re actually about health, or politics or moviemaking. Or, in this case, eugenics.

Statistics has close links to the world of genetics. And in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, so did the shady field of eugenics. So the Venn diagram of statisticians who were also eugenicists has quite a well-populated middle section.

This article focuses on Francis Galton, the so-called founder of eugenics, who is also a major figure in the story of stats. As you’ll see in the article, Galton held some pretty dreadful racist views.

And yet his name still stands above a lecture theatre at UCL. Should it stay?

I don’t have an answer. What I do know is, history is all around us, and a lot of it – you could even say most of it – is horrid. There’s no fixing that.

But if students and staff at UCL feel upset at seeing Galton’s name above their lecture theatre every day, they should be listened to – especially those who aren’t white, straight and able-bodied. Only they know what it feels like to be from one of the groups that eugenicists disapproved of, and to walk through a door every day that bears Galton’s name.