Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson (né Carl Pearson)
Born	(1857-03-27)27 March 1857 Islington, London, England
Died	27 April 1936(1936-04-27) (aged 79) Coldharbour, Surrey, England
Residence	England
Nationality	British
Fields	Lawyer, Germanist, eugenicist, mathematician and statistician (primarily the latter)
Institutions	University College, London King's College, Cambridge
Alma mater	University of Cambridge University of Heidelberg
Known for	Pearson distribution Pearson's r Pearson's chi-squared test Phi coefficient
Influences	Francis Galton
Influenced	Philip Hall John Wishart
Notable awards	Darwin Medal (1898)

Karl Pearson FRS^[1] (27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936^[2]) was an influential English mathematician who has been credited for establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics.^[3]

In 1911 he founded the world's first university statistics department at University College London. He was a proponent of eugenics, and a protégé and biographer of Sir Francis Galton.

A sesquicentenary conference was held in London on 23 March 2007, to celebrate the 150th anniversary of his birth.^[3]

Family[link]

Carl Pearson, later known as Karl Pearson (1857–1936), was born to William Pearson and Fanny Smith, who had three children, Aurthur, Carl (Karl) and Amy. William Pearson also sired an illegitimate son, Frederick Mockett.

Pearson's mother, Fanny Pearson née Smith, came from a family of master mariners who sailed their own ships from Hull; his father read law at Edinburgh and was a successful barrister and Queen's Counsel (QC). William Pearson's father's family came from the North Riding of Yorkshire.

"Carl Pearson" inadvertently became "Karl Pearson" when he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg in 1879, which changed the spelling. He used both variants of his name until 1884 when he finally adopted Karl — supposedly also after Karl Marx^{[citation needed]}, though some argue otherwise.^[4] Eventually he became universally known as "KP".

He was also an accomplished historian and Germanist. He spent much of the 1880s in Berlin, Heidelberg, Vienna^{[citation needed]}, Saig bei Lenzkirch,^[5] and Brixlegg. He wrote on Passion plays, religion, Goethe, Werther, as well as sex-related themes, and was a founder of the Men and Women's Club.^[6]

In 1890 he married Maria Sharpe, who was related to the Kenrick, Reid, Rogers and Sharpe families, late 18th century and 19th century non-conformists largely associated with north London; they included:

• Samuel Rogers, poet (1763–1855)
• Sutton Sharpe (1797–1843), barrister
• Samuel Sharpe, Egyptologist and philanthropist (1799–1881)
• John Kenrick, a non-Conformist minister (1788–1877)

Karl and Maria Pearson had two daughters, Sigrid Loetitia Pearson and Helga Sharpe Pearson, and one son, Egon Sharpe Pearson. Egon Pearson became an eminent statistician himself, establishing the Neyman-Pearson lemma. He succeeded his father as head of the Applied Statistics Department at University College.

Education and early work[link]

Karl Pearson was educated privately at University College School, after which he went to King's College, Cambridge in 1876 to study mathematics,^[7] graduating in 1879 as Third Wrangler in the Mathematical Tripos. He then travelled to Germany to study physics at the University of Heidelberg under G H Quincke and metaphysics under Kuno Fischer. He next visited the University of Berlin, where he attended the lectures of the famous physiologist Emil du Bois-Reymond on Darwinism (Emil was a brother of Paul du Bois-Reymond, the mathematician). Other subjects which he studied in Berlin included Roman Law, taught by Bruns and Mommsen, medieval and 16th century German Literature, and Socialism. He was strongly influenced by the courses he attended at this time and he became sufficiently expert on German literature that he was offered a Germanics post at Kings College, Cambridge.

On returning to England in 1880, Pearson first went to Cambridge:

Back in Cambridge, I worked in the engineering shops, but drew up the schedule in Mittel- and Althochdeutsch for the Medieval Languages Tripos.

In his first book, The New Werther, Pearson gives a clear indication of why he studied so many diverse subjects:

I rush from science to philosophy, and from philosophy to our old friends the poets; and then, over-wearied by too much idealism, I fancy I become practical in returning to science. Have you ever attempted to conceive all there is in the world worth knowing — that not one subject in the universe is unworthy of study? The giants of literature, the mysteries of many-dimensional space, the attempts of Boltzmann and Crookes to penetrate Nature's very laboratory, the Kantian theory of the universe, and the latest discoveries in embryology, with their wonderful tales of the development of life — what an immensity beyond our grasp! … Mankind seems on the verge of a new and glorious discovery. What Newton did to simplify the planetary motions must now be done to unite in one whole the various isolated theories of mathematical physics.

Pearson then returned to London to study law so that he might, like his father, be called to the Bar. Quoting Pearson's own account:

Coming to London, I read in chambers in Lincoln's Inn, drew up bills of sale, and was called to the Bar, but varied legal studies by lecturing on heat at Barnes, on Martin Luther at Hampstead, and on Lasalle and Marx on Sundays at revolutionary clubs around Soho.

His next career move was to Inner Temple, where he read law until 1881 (although he never practised). After this, he returned to mathematics, deputizing for the mathematics professor at King's College London in 1881 and for the professor at University College London in 1883. In 1884, he was appointed to the Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College London. Pearson became the editor of Common Sense and the Exact Sciences (1885) when William Kingdon Clifford passed on. 1891 saw him also appointed to the professorship of Geometry at Gresham College; here he met Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, a zoologist who had some interesting problems requiring quantitative solutions. The collaboration, in biometry and evolutionary theory, was a fruitful one and lasted until Weldon died in 1906. Weldon introduced Pearson to Charles Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, who was interested in aspects of evolution such as heredity and eugenics. Pearson became Galton's protégé — his "statistical heir" as some have put it — at times to the verge of hero worship.

After Galton's death in 1911, Pearson embarked on producing his definitive biography—a three-volume tome of narrative, letters, genealogies, commentaries, and photographs—published in 1914, 1924, and 1930, with much of Pearson's own financing paying for their print runs. The biography, done "to satisfy myself and without regard to traditional standards, to the needs of publishers or to the tastes of the reading public", triumphed Galton's life, work, and personal heredity. He predicted that Galton, rather than Charles Darwin, would be remembered as the most prodigious grandson of Erasmus Darwin.

When Galton died, he left the residue of his estate to the University of London for a Chair in Eugenics. Pearson was the first holder of this chair—the Galton Chair of Eugenics, later the Galton Chair of Genetics^[8]—in accordance with Galton's wishes. He formed the Department of Applied Statistics (with financial support from the Drapers' Company), into which he incorporated the Biometric and Galton laboratories. He remained with the department until his retirement in 1933, and continued to work until his death in 1936.

Einstein and Pearson's work[link]

When the 23 year-old Albert Einstein started a study group, the Olympia Academy, with his two younger friends, Maurice Solovine and Conrad Habicht, he suggested that the first book to be read was Pearson's The Grammar of Science. This book covered several themes that were later to become part of the theories of Einstein and other scientists. Pearson asserted that the laws of nature are relative to the perceptive ability of the observer. Irreversibility of natural processes, he claimed, is a purely relative conception. An observer who travels at the exact velocity of light would see an eternal now, or an absence of motion. He speculated that an observer who traveled faster than light would see time reversal, similar to a cinema film being run backwards. Pearson also discussed antimatter, the fourth dimension, and wrinkles in time.

Pearson's relativity was based on idealism, in the sense of ideas or pictures in a mind. "There are many signs," he wrote, "that a sound idealism is surely replacing, as a basis for natural philosophy, the crude materialism of the older physicists." (Preface to 2nd Ed., The Grammar of Science) Further, he stated, "...science is in reality a classification and analysis of the contents of the mind...." "In truth, the field of science is much more consciousness than an external world." (Ibid., Ch. II, § 6) "Law in the scientific sense is thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no meaning apart from man." (Ibid., Ch. III, § 4)

Politics and eugenics[link]

A eugenicist who applied his social Darwinism to entire nations, Pearson saw "war" against "inferior races" as a logical implication of his scientific work on human measurement: "My view – and I think it may be called the scientific view of a nation," he wrote, "is that of an organized whole, kept up to a high pitch of internal efficiency by insuring that its numbers are substantially recruited from the better stocks, and kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races." He reasoned that, if August Weismann's theory of germ plasm is correct, the nation is wasting money when it tries to improve people who come from poor stock.

Weismann claimed that acquired characteristics could not be inherited. Therefore, training benefits only the trained generation. Their children will not exhibit the learned improvements and, in turn, will need to be improved. "No degenerate and feeble stock will ever be converted into healthy and sound stock by the accumulated effects of education, good laws, and sanitary surroundings. Such means may render the individual members of a stock passable if not strong members of society, but the same process will have to be gone through again and again with their offspring, and this in ever-widening circles, if the stock, owing to the conditions in which society has placed it, is able to increase its numbers." (Introduction, The Grammar of Science).

"History shows me one way, and one way only, in which a high state of civilization has been produced, namely, the struggle of race with race, and the survival of the physically and mentally fitter race. If you want to know whether the lower races of man can evolve a higher type, I fear the only course is to leave them to fight it out among themselves, and even then the struggle for existence between individual and individual, between tribe and tribe, may not be supported by that physical selection due to a particular climate on which probably so much of the Aryan's success depended . . ." (Karl Pearson, National Life from the Standpoint of Science [London, 1905])

Pearson was known in his lifetime as a prominent "freethinker" and socialist. He gave lectures on such issues as "the woman's question" (this was the era of the suffragist movement in the UK) and upon Karl Marx. His commitment to socialism and its ideals led him to refuse the offer of being created an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1920 and also to refuse a knighthood in 1935.

Awards from professional bodies[link]

Pearson achieved widespread recognition across a range of disciplines and his membership of, and awards from, various professional bodies reflects this:

• 1896: elected FRS: Fellow of the Royal Society^[2]
• 1898: awarded the Darwin Medal
• 1911: awarded the honorary degree of LLD from the University of St Andrews
• 1911: awarded a DSc from University of London
• 1920: offered (and refused) the OBE
• 1932: awarded the Rudolf Virchow medal by the Berliner Anthropologische Gesellschaft
• 1935: offered (and refused) a knighthood

He was also elected an Honorary Fellow of King's College Cambridge, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, University College London and the Royal Society of Medicine, and a Member of the Actuaries' Club.

Contributions to statistics[link]

Pearson's work was all-embracing in the wide application and development of mathematical statistics, and encompassed the fields of biology, epidemiology, anthropometry, medicine and social history. In 1901, with Weldon and Galton, he founded the journal Biometrika whose object was the development of statistical theory. He edited this journal until his death. Among those who assisted Pearson in his research were a number of female mathematicians who included Beatrice Mabel Cave-Browne-Cave and Frances Cave-Browne-Cave. He also founded the journal Annals of Eugenics (now Annals of Human Genetics) in 1925. He published the Drapers' Company Research Memoirs largely to provide a record of the output of the Department of Applied Statistics not published elsewhere.

Pearson's thinking underpins many of the 'classical' statistical methods which are in common use today. Examples of his contributions are:

• Correlation coefficient. The correlation coefficient (first conceived by Francis Galton) was defined as a product-moment, and its relationship with linear regression was studied.^[9]
• Method of moments. Pearson introduced moments, a concept borrowed from physics, as descriptive statistics and for the fitting of distributions to samples.
• Pearson's system of continuous curves. A system of continuous univariate probability distributions that came to form the basis of the now conventional continuous probability distributions. Since the system is complete up to the fourth moment, it is a powerful complement to the Pearsonian method of moments.
• Chi distance. A precursor and special case of the Mahalanobis distance.^[10]
• P-value. Defined as the probability measure of the complement of the ball with the hypothesized value as center point and chi distance as radius.^[10]
• Foundations of the statistical hypothesis testing theory and the statistical decision theory.^[10] In the seminal "On the criterion..." paper,^[10] Pearson proposed testing the validity of hypothesized values by evaluating the chi distance between the hypothesized and the empirically observed values via the p-value, which was proposed in the same paper. The use of preset evidence criteria, so called alpha type-I error probabilities, was later proposed by Jerzy Neyman and Egon Pearson.^[11]
• Pearson's chi-squared test. A hypothesis test using normal approximation for discrete data.
• Principal component analysis. The method of fitting a linear subspace to multivariate data by minimizing the chi distances.^[12][13]

Resume of academic career[link]

• Third Wrangler in Mathematics Tripos, Cambridge University, 1879
• Studied medieval and sixteenth-century German literature, Berlin and Heidelberg Universities, 1879–1880
• Read law, called to the Bar by Inner Temple, 1881
• Delivered lectures on mathematics, philosophy and German literature at societies and clubs devoted to adult education
• Deputised for the Professor of Mathematics, King's College London, 1881, and for the Professor of Mathematics at University College London, 1883
• Formed the Men and Women's Club, with some others, to discuss equality between the sexes
• Appointed to Goldsmid Chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, University College London, 1884
• Appointed Professor of Geometry, Gresham College, 1891
• Collaborated with Walter Frank Raphael Weldon, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, in biometry and evolutionary theory, 1891–1906
• Elected Fellow of the Royal Society, 1896
• Founded journal Biometrika with Weldon and Francis Galton founder of the School of Eugenics at University College London, 1901
• Appointed first Galton Professor of Eugenics, University College London, 1911
• Formed Department of Applied Statistics incorporating the Biometric Laboratory and Galton Laboratory, University College London
• Founded journal Annals of Eugenics, 1925
• Died April 27, 1936

Publications[link]

• The New Werther (1880)
• The Trinity, A Nineteenth Century Passion Play (1882)
• The Trinity: a nineteenth century passion-play (E. Johnson, Cambridge, 1882)
• A history of the theory of elasticity and of the strength of materials from Galilei to the present time (University Press, Cambridge, 1886-1893; editor)
• The Ethic of Freethought (1886)
• Die Fronica (1887)
• The moral basis of socialism (W. Reeves, London, 1887)
• The positive creed of freethought: with some remarks on the relation of freethought to socialism (W. Reeves, London, 1888)
• Enthusiasm of the market place and of the study (1885)
• The common sense of the exact sciences (Kegan Paul & Co, London, 1885; editor)
• Matter and soul (1886)
• The ethic of Freethought: a selection of essays and lectures (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1888)
• The Grammar of Science (1892), Dover Publications, 2004 edition, ISBN 0-486-49581-7
• The grammar of science (1892)
• The new university for London: a guide to its history and a criticism of its defects (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1892)
• On the dissection of asymmetrical frequency curves (1894)
• Skew variation in homogeneous material (1895)
• Reaction! A criticism of Mr Balfour's attack on rationalism (1895)
• Regression, heredity and panmixia (1896)
• The chances of death and other studies in evolution (E. Arnold, London, 1897) Online version at [1] and vol.2 only at archive.org at [2]
• On the criterion that a given system of deviations from the probable in the case of a correlated system of variables is such that it can be reasonably supposed to hove arisen from random sampling (1900)
• National life from the stand-point of science An address delivered at Newcastle (A. & C. Black, London, 1901)
• Mathematical contributions to the theory of evolution (1904)
• A mathematical theory of random migration (1906)
• Studies in national deterioration (1907)
• A first study of the inheritance of vision and of the relative influence of heredity and environment on sight (London, 1909)
• On a practical theory of elliptical and pseudo-elliptical arches, with special reference to the ideal masonry arch (with W. D. Reynolds and W. F. Stanton; 1909)
• A second study of the statistics of pulmonary tuberculosis: marital infection (London, 1908; editor)
• The groundwork of eugenics (1909)
• The problem of practical eugenics(1909)
• The treasury of human inheritance (Dulau & Co., London, 1909; editor)
• Nature and nurture, the problem of the future: A presidential address (1910)
• A preliminary study of extreme alcoholism in adults (with A. Barrington, London; 1910)
• Supplement to the memoir (by Ethel Elderton) entitled: The influence of parental alcoholism on the physique and ability of the offspring: A reply to the Cambridge economists (1910)
• A second study of the influence of parental alcoholism on the physique and ability of the offspring (1910)
• A monograph on albinism in man (with Edward Nettleship and Charles Usher; 1911)
• The academic aspect of the science of eugenics: A lecture delivered to undergraduates (1911)
• Eugenics and public health: An address to public health officers (1912)
• Tuberculosis, heredity and environment (1912)
• Darwinism, medical progress and eugenics: The Cavendish lecture, an address to the medical profession (1912)
• Social problems, their treatment, past, present, and future A lecture (1912)
• On the correlation of fertility with social value: a cooperative study (1913)
• On the handicapping of the first-born (1914)
• Tables for statisticians and biometricians (London, 1914; editor)
• Mendelism and the problem of mental defect (1914)
• Tables for Statisticians and Biometricians (1914)
• A statistical study of oral temperatures in school children, with special reference to parental, environmental, and class differences with M. H. Williams and Julia Bell (1914)
• The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1914)
• The life, letters and labours of Francis Galton (three volumes: 1914, 1924, 1930; available in full at Galton website)
• On the torsion resulting from flexure in prisms with cross-sections of uni-axial symmetry only (with A. W. Young and Ethel Elderton; 1918)
• A study of the long bones of the English skeleton (London, 1919)
• Tracts for computers(London, 1919; editor)
• On the construction of tables and on interpolation (London, 1920)
• The science of man: its needs and its prospects (London, 1920)
• Side lights on the evolution of man (London, 1921)
• On the sesamoids of the knee-joint (Cambridge, 1922)
• Tables of the incomplete G-function: computed by the staff of the Department of Applied Statistics, University College (London, 1922; editor)
• Study of the data provided by a baby-clinic in a large manufacturing town (Cambridge, 1922)
• Francis Galton, 1822-1922, a centenary appreciation (London, 1922)
• Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, an appreciation(London, 1923)
• On the relationship of health to the psychial and physical characters in school children (Cambridge, 1923)
• Home conditions and eyesight: some recent misinterpretations of the problem of nurture and nature'
• On the skull and portraits of George Buchanan (Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, London, 1926)
• The right of the unborn child (Cambridge University Press, London, 1927)
• The skull and portraits of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, and their bearing on the tragedy of Mary, Queen of Scots (1928)
• Tables of the incomplete beta-function (The Proprietors of Biometrika, London, 1934; editor)
• Tables of Incomplete Beta Function (1934)

See also[link]

• Eugenics
• The Grammar of Science
• Pearson's chi-squared test
• Pearson's r
• Pearson distribution
• Kikuchi Dairoku, a close friend and contemporary of Karl Pearson at University College School and Cambridge University
• List of Gresham Professors of Geometry
• Phi coefficient
• Scientific racism

References[link]

Most of the biographical information above is taken from the Karl Pearson page at the Department of Statistical Sciences at University College London, which has been placed in the public domain. The main source for that page was A list of the papers and correspondence of Karl Pearson (1857–1936) held in the Manuscripts Room, University College London Library, compiled by M. Merrington, B. Blundell, S. Burrough, J. Golden and J. Hogarth and published by the Publications Office, University College London, 1983.

Additional information from entry for Karl Pearson in the Sackler Digital Archive of the Royal Society

Further reading[link]

• Eisenhart, Churchill (1974): Dictionary of Scientific Biography, pp. 447–473. New York, 1974.
• Pearson, E. S. (1938): Karl Pearson: An appreciation of some aspects of his life and work. Cambridge University Press.
• Porter, T. M. (2004): Karl Pearson: The Scientific Life in a Statistical Age, Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-12635-7.

External links[link]

• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Karl Pearson", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Pearson.html .
• Karl Pearson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• John Aldrich's Karl Pearson: a Reader's Guide at the University of Southampton (contains many useful links to further sources of information).
• Encyclopædia Britannica Karl Pearson
• Gavan Tredoux's Francis Galton website, galton.org, contains Pearson's biography of Francis Galton, and several other papers — in addition to nearly all of Galton's own published works.
• Karl Pearson and the Origins of Modern Statistics at The Rutherford Journal.
• Texts on Wikisource:
  • Nock, Albert Jay, “A New Science and Its Findings”, The American Magazine (The Phillips Publishing Co.) LXXIII (5): 577 (March, 1912)
  • “Biometrika” from The Doctor's Dilemma by George Bernard Shaw
  • "Pearson, Karl". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921. 

Joe Barton
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 6th district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 3, 1985
Preceded by	Phil Gramm
Chairman Emeritus of the House Energy and Commerce Committee
Incumbent
Assumed office January 5, 2011
Preceded by	John D. Dingell, Jr.
Personal details
Born	(1949-09-15) September 15, 1949 (age 62) Waco, Texas
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Terri Barton
Residence	Ennis, Texas
Alma mater	Texas A&M University, Purdue University
Occupation	Politician
Religion	Methodist

Joe Linus Barton (born September 15, 1949) is a Republican politician, representing Texas's 6th congressional district (map) in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1985, and a member of the Tea Party Caucus. The district includes Arlington, part of Fort Worth and several rural areas south of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

Early life, education, and early career[link]

Barton was born in Waco, Texas, the son of Bess Wynell (née Buice) and Larry Linus Barton.^[1] He graduated from Waco High School. He attended Texas A&M University in College Station on a Gifford-Hill Opportunity Award scholarship^[2] and received a B.S. in industrial engineering in 1972. An M.Sc. in industrial administration from Purdue University followed in 1973. Following college Barton entered private industry until 1981 when he became a White House Fellow and served under United States Secretary of Energy James B. Edwards. Later, he began consulting for Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Co. before being elected to the United States Congress in 1984.^[3]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

1984

Barton made his first run for elected office in 1984, when he entered the Republican primary for Texas's 6th congressional district after six-term incumbent Phil Gramm left his seat to run for the United States Senate that year. He finished first in the five-candidate field (42%)^[4] and very narrowly defeated Max Hoyt in the runoff (50%).^[5] He then defeated Democratic nominee and former State Representative Dan Kubiak 57%-43%.^[6] Barton was one of six freshmen Republican U.S. congressmen elected from Texas in 1984 known as the Texas Six Pack.

1986

In 1986, Barton won re-election against Democrat Pete Geren, who would later be elected to Congress from a neighboring district. Barton defeated Geren 56%-44%.^[7]

1988-2010

Barton has never won re-election with less than 60% of the vote.^[8] His worst general election performance was in 2006, when he defeated Democrat David Harris 60%-37%, a 23 point margin.^[9] The 2008 election was his second worst performance, defeating Democrat Ludwig Otto by a 26 point margin, 62%-36%.^[10]

He was only challenged in the primary twice in this time period: 1992 and 1994. In 1992, he defeated Mike McGinn 79%-21%.^[11] In 1994, he defeated Jerry Goode 89%-11%.^[12]

2012

Because of the increasing controversy surrounding his record in office, election battles have been increasingly contentious. In 2011, a Super PAC (Political Action Committee) was formed by Texas conservative groups to remove him and several other long-time incumbents from office.^[13] The Democratic National Committee has used Barton's comments in political ads, shown nationally against all Republican candidates.^[14] Several websites have been created and dedicated to simply removing Joe Barton from office. DefeatJoeBarton.com/ was created by Democrat challengers. All content was later removed, although the site is still owned.^[15] Another site, DefeatBarton.com is still running.^[16] There are also numerous Twitter accounts both deriding Barton for his scandals and urging his election defeat.

He has drawn three primary challengers. These include Joe Chow (Mayor of Addison), Itamar Gelbman (security consultant), and Frank Kuchar (businessman and former preacher). Chow is Texas' first Asian-American mayor. He called Barton “the most corrupt congressman in the state of Texas.”^[17] At the end of March, he had $1.3 million in cash on hand, compared with $28,800 for Chow, $178,000 for Gelbman, and $463 for Kuchar.^[18]

Tenure[link]

Autism

Barton tried to block the bipartisan Combating Autism Act of 2006. He said that the money steered toward environmental causes of autism were not the reason he blocked passage of the bill.^[19]

The controversy stemmed from the conflict between two bills in the House and Senate. Barton introduced the National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006, ^[20] while Senator Rick Santorum introduced the Autism bill. Santorum said in a CNN interview that the Senate bill was intended to be "fit into" Barton's bill in the House bill. He stated that "I was in constant conversation with him [Barton] and many House members all last week in an attempt to help the NIH bill come through the Senate, as well as well as try to move the Combating Autism bill through the Senate." Santorum stated that the Senate bill would investigate possible environmental causes, while the House bill would prevent that.^[21]

Barton let the bill die in committee, which upset many people who were vocal about saying Barton had sacrificed the interests of autistic children in the interests of the oil and gas companies that donate heavily to his campaign.^[22][23]

Light bulbs

In March 2011, Barton sponsored the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act, which would repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, signed by Republican President George W. Bush. The 2007 law would set energy efficiency standards for light bulbs, effectively eliminating most or all incandescent light bulbs. Barton said "People don't want Congress dictating what light fixtures they can use."^[24]

Keystone pipeline

In November 2011, Barton criticized President Barack Obama for delaying his decision on the Keystone pipeline. He said "We asked him to make a decision, not to wait another two years. That's bullshit.” ^[25]

BP oil spill

On June 17, 2010, Barton accused the White House of a "$20 billion shakedown" of oil giant BP after the company reached an agreement with Obama to establish an escrow account to pay the claims of people harmed by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.^[26] He made the accusation at the outset of a House hearing where BP's chief executive officer, Tony Hayward, appeared for the first time before Congress. Facing Hayward at the witness table, Barton said, "I apologize. I do not want to live in a country where any time a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong, is subject to some sort of political pressure that is, again, in my words — amounts to a shakedown, so I apologize." ^[27] Prior to the establishment of the agreement, the Obama administration had been public in their criticism of BP for the oil spill; Barton and other critics accused the White House of attempting to deflect criticism on how they handled the situation, which made it more difficult for BP to raise short-term funds in the capital market for their operations.^[27]

Barton's remarks were widely criticized by White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, Vice President Joe Biden,^[28] GOP congressional leadership^[29] and fellow Republicans, some of whom called on Barton to relinquish his leadership role in the House Energy Subcomittee.^[30][31]

Barton later said that his earlier remarks had been "misconstrued" and that he believed BP was responsible for the accident. Later that day, he issued a statement apologizing for using the term "shakedown" and fully retracted his apology to BP.^[32]

^[33]

Unethical behavior

The organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) put Congressman Barton on its CREW's Most Corrupt Report 2011. ^[34][35]

The article states that on Barton's 2008 financial disclosure statement, he inaccurately reported on the source of a natural gas interest that he bought into. The share was purchased through a long time donor and supporter who later died. This was discovered by the Dallas Morning News in 2010.^[36]

According to the Dallas Morning News article, Barton made over $100,000 on the investment. The article and CREW Report both point out how Barton buying this undervalued asset from an "advisor" on energy issues could be a conflict of interest to the Congressman's position as the Chair of the House's Energy Subcommittee. It quotes James Thurber, a professor of government at American University, as saying "If you are elected as a public servant to try to do what is right for the public generally and then you use that position to help bring in material wealth, I think it's unethical."^[36]

Despite this discovery, Barton chose to neither respond to, nor correct his misreporting.

CREW also reported that Barton paid his wife Terri $57,759 in salary and bonuses, from his campaign funds in the 2006 election cycle.^[37] A spokesman said that Terri served as the campaign's outreach director and planned fund raising and special events.^[38] Barton's daughter Kristin was paid $12,622 in salary and bonuses and his mother, Nell Barton, was paid $7,000 for a car.^[38]

Congressional Action

• Former Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee,^[39][38] primary House author of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and chairman of the House-Senate energy conference committee.^{[citation needed]}
• Both initiated and eliminated "safe harbor" provision for MTBE (in Energy Policy Act of 2005).^[40][33]
• Co-founded the Congressional Privacy Caucus, cosponsor of the anti-spyware SPY ACT, initiated National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006.
• Opposed the extension of the Voting Rights Act in 2006
• A list of all bills that Barton has introduced is available at Sponsored Bills and amendments at Amendments.
• Barton has been the lead representative in forcing the switch from analog to digital TV and auctioning off the public airwaves to private companies.

Wind energy

Barton has questioned the wisdom of deficit spending to fund an extensive national wind turbine energy generation grid. He said, "Wind is God’s way of balancing heat. Wind is the way you shift heat from areas where it’s hotter to areas where it’s cooler. That’s what wind is. Wouldn’t it be ironic if in the interest of global warming we mandated massive switches to energy, which is a finite resource, which slows the winds down, which causes the temperature to go up? Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen, Mr. Chairman, but that is definitely something on the massive scale. I mean, it does make some sense. You stop something, you can’t transfer that heat, and the heat goes up. It’s just something to think about." ^[41]

Budget

Barton voted against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 in both of its manifestations.^[42][43]

Environment

In 2005, prompted by a February 2005 Wall Street Journal article,^[44] Barton launched an investigation into two climate change studies from 1998 and 1999.^[39] In his letters to the authors of the studies he requested details on the studies and the sources of the authors grant funding.^[45] The Washington Post condemned Barton's investigation as a "witch-hunt".^[46] During Former Vice President Al Gore's testimony to the Energy and Commerce Committee in March 2007, Barton asserted to Gore that "You're not just off a little, you're totally wrong." Stating that "Global Warming science is uneven and evolving."^[47]

Committee assignments[link]

• Committee on Energy and Commerce (Chair emeritus)
  • Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing and Trade
  • Subcommittee on Communications and Technology
  • Subcommittee on Energy and Power
  • Subcommittee on Environment and Economy
  • Subcommittee on Health
  • Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations

Caucus memberships

• Congressional Caucus on Turkey and Turkish Americans
• Congressional Privacy Caucus (Founder/Co-Chair)
• International Conservation Caucus
• Republican Study Committee
• Sportsmen's Caucus
• Tea Party Caucus

1993 U.S. Senate election[link]

In 1993, Barton ran in the special election for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the resignation of Lloyd Bentsen, who became United States Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Barton finished third in the contest, behind state treasurer Kay Bailey Hutchison and Senator Bob Krueger, thus missing a runoff slot. He divided the more conservative vote in that election with House colleague Jack Fields of Houston.

Barton Family Foundation[link]

The Barton Family Foundation was established in 2005 to support charities within the congressman's district. His daughter-in-law, Amy Barton, is the Foundation's Executive Director. Major energy corporations, such as the Chicago-based nuclear energy producer, Exelon Corporation, make major gifts to the Foundation. In June 2008, at a time when Barton had introduced legislation to assist corporations with the recycling of spent nuclear fuel, the corporation donated $25,000 to the Foundation. Exelon has also donated $80,000 to Barton's campaign funds. The Foundation gave $90,000 to the local Boys and Girls Club, this is the only recorded donation made by the Foundation in its seven year history.^[48]

Personal life[link]

Joe Barton and his wife Terri own several homes in the Texas cities of Ennis and Arlington. Barton has four children, two stepchildren and five grandchildren.^[49]

Barton's office announced that, on December 15, 2005, he suffered a heart attack and was taken to George Washington University Hospital.^[50]

Barton revealed during a congressional hearing on video games that he was a video game player. He announced that he had "worked [his] way up to Civilization IV".^[51]

Barton has also been an advocate of a playoff system to determine a national champion for college football, even introducing legislation to require that any game being marketed as a national championship game be a part of a playoff.^[52] On May 1, 2010, Barton grilled Bowl Championship Series coordinator John Swofford, saying of the BCS that, "It's like communism. You can't fix it." He also suggested that the 'C' be dropped from the BCS and it be called "the 'BS' system."^[53]

References[link]

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External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joe Barton

• U.S. Congressman Joe Barton official House site
• Joe Barton U.S. Congress official campaign site
• Biography at WhoRunsGov.com at The Washington Post
• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Voting record maintained by The Washington Post
• Biography, voting record, and interest group ratings at Project Vote Smart
• Congressional profile at GovTrack
• Congressional profile at OpenCongress
• Issue positions and quotes at On the Issues
• Current Bills Sponsored at StateSurge.com
• Financial information at OpenSecrets.org
• Staff salaries, trips and personal finance at LegiStorm.com
• Campaign finance reports and data at the Federal Election Commission
• Appearances on C-SPAN programs
• Collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Campaign contributors at Newsmeat
• Profile at SourceWatch

Articles

• How the Wall Street Journal and Rep. Barton celebrated a global-warming skeptic: The untold story of how a front-page article and powerful U.S. politicians morphed former mining executive Stephen McIntyre into a scientific superstar Environmental Science & Technology, August 31, 2005
• "Big Oil Looking for a Government Handout, Courtesy of Joe Barton" World Internet News, April 2006,
• "Activists Putting Heat on Barton" Dallas Morning News, October 2006