Typing and ranking both rely on a comparison of the individual to a group average. Thus, both Quetelet and Galton claimed, explicitly and ardently, that any particular person could only be understood by comparison to the group, and therefore, from the perspective of the new social sciences, the individual was almost entirely irrelevant. “In speaking of the individual it must be understood that we are not attempting to speak of this or that man in particular; we must turn to the general impression that remains after having considered a great number of people,” Quetelet wrote in 1835. “Removing
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This took people away from even considering the importance of individuality as a concept. And it revolutionized how we percieved many disciplines during the mid to late 1800s... But we don't live in that day and age anymore.
