Galton's Problem
«Galton's Problem» is named after the famous English meteorologist, biologist, psychologist, anthropologist - and, among other things, a cousin of Charles Darwin - Francis Galton who was the first to notice the presence of this problem, pointing to the impact of socio-cultural diffusion on the results of quantitative cross-cultural and cross-national studies. Those anthropologists who expressed their concern about Galton's Problem worried above all that socio-cultural diffusion can cause correlations between such variables that do not have real functional relationship between them, resulting in false theories finding apparent empirical confirmation. Our study shows that both extreme positions on the issue of «Galton's Problem» - i.e., that the problem discredits all the quantitative cross-cultural studies, or that the problem is not worth taking seriously - do not appear to be valid. In our view, Galton's Problem must be treated with all seriousness. But on the other hand, it can be considered not only as a problem but rather as an asset or opportunity of quantitative cross-cultural research. In other words, one need to seriously treat any sufficiently strong and statistically significant correlation detected in the course of quantitative cross-cultural study, regardless of whether or not it is a result of Galton's effect (i.e., network autocorrelation). If it is not, then we are dealing with a global cross-cultural regularity; but if it is, we deal with a result of the functioning of some historical communication network and its influence on the course of human history. And, in our opinion, it is not less interesting. In this sense, we can speak not only about «Galton's Problem», but also about «Galton's Asset», or «Galton's Opportunity» - the opportunity to study historical communication networks and their impact on global development.