Samuel Morton vindicated after Stephen J Gould accusations

Chen019 · June 9, 2011, 2:06am

This poor guy, thought for the last 30 years to be an example of a biased scientist producing biased results. However, now a team of scientists have found his work was done with integrity:

Samuel George Morton, in the hands of Stephen Jay Gould, has served for 30 years as a textbook example of scientific misconduct [12]. The Morton case was used by Gould as the main support for his contention that “unconscious or dimly perceived finagling is probably endemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural contexts, not automatons directed toward external truth” [1]. This view has since achieved substantial popularity in “science studies” [2]–[4]. But our results falsify Gould’s hypothesis that Morton manipulated his data to conform with his a priori views. The data on cranial capacity gathered by Morton are generally reliable, and he reported them fully. Overall, we find that Morton’s initial reputation as the objectivist of his era was well-deserved.

That Morton’s data are reliable despite his clear bias weakens the argument of Gould and others that biased results are endemic in science. Gould was certainly correct to note that scientists are human beings and, as such, are inevitably biased, a point frequently made in “science studies.” But the power of the scientific approach is that a properly designed and executed methodology can largely shield the outcome from the influence of the investigator’s bias. Science does not rely on investigators being unbiased “automatons.” Instead, it relies on methods that limit the ability of the investigator’s admittedly inevitable biases to skew the results. Morton’s methods were sound, and our analysis shows that they prevented Morton’s biases from significantly impacting his results. The Morton case, rather than illustrating the ubiquity of bias, instead shows the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts.

Elendil_s_Heir · June 9, 2011, 3:12pm

My good news for the day - thanks!

VinylTurnip · June 9, 2011, 3:43pm

“Thus proving, once and for all, that caucasians are the superior race and everyone else is stupid.” <closes book and cleans spectacles>

Knorf · June 9, 2011, 3:51pm

I’m not sure a single paper counts as “vindication.”

TriPolar · June 9, 2011, 4:00pm

This didn’t validate any of Morton’s claims. It questions Gould’s conclusions about Morton deliberately skewing data.

orcenio · June 9, 2011, 7:04pm

I lolz

Chen019 · June 9, 2011, 9:23pm

It does more than question Gould’s conclusions. It shows Gould was either lying or incompetent.

By remeasuring almost half the original skulls studied by Morton, they show that Morton did not inflate “Caucasian” cranial volumes at the expense of non-“Caucasians”. Indeed, most of his measurements deviated only a little from those done today, and, in the few cases where large discrepancies were discovered, they were in the opposite direction of Morton’s perceived bias.

Furthermore, they show that Morton’s supposed statistical manipulation had very little effect: the difference was only 0.3 cubic inches. **Not only this, but Gould fudged his own measurements **which were supposed to proved that different populations did not differ in cranial capacity:

What is most interesting is that Gould’s analysis of Morton’s work shows clear evidence of bias in favor of his own hypothesis (“Morton was a racist, different races have not much different cranial capacities”), rather than the opposite. Nonetheless, Gould has been viewed by some as some sort of progressive enlightened intellectual, whereas Morton is vilified as a bad scientist who fudged his data because of his racist bias.

Chen019 · June 9, 2011, 11:51pm

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he has been acquited of the false charges brought by Gould. The other issue is that Gould, in suggesting there was widespread bias, actually fudged his own data in accordance with his own biases. John Hawks probably has the best take on it:

Anyway, you can see why I find this outrageous. Gould used the well-documented work of a long-dead man to make an argument that unconscious bias is widespread in science. He posed as a concerned critic, but thereby cast doubt on the validity of the scientific enterprise. He picked volume measurement and tabulation of averages as his target, making it seem as if the simplest and most objective observations – the Junior High-level science methods – were themselves subject to all-encompassing cultural biases. His paper and book are very widely read and cited by people who will never examine the primary evidence. Gould owed us a responsible reading and trustworthy reporting on that evidence. In its place, he made up fictional stories, never directly examined the evidence himself, and misreported Morton’s numbers.

ITR_champion · June 10, 2011, 12:25am

In Gould’s book The Mismeasure of Man he looks at lot of of instances of nineteenth century scientists who endeavored to prove something about human intelligence from skull measurements. They were trying to prove a lot of things: some that whites were superior to other races, others that the rich were superior to the poor, and so forth. Likewise they took many different approaches to do so. Some looked at the size of skulls, others at the size of openings in the skull or the position of various protrusions. The point of Gould’s book is that all of this was nonsense driven by the biases of the scientists involved. It may be true in this particular case that for the skulls in Morton’s collection, the white skulls had the largest capacity and the black skulls had the smallest. However, that still would not justify the inherent assumption that a larger skull means greater intelligence. That has proven to be false. So the fundamental fact that Morton’s conclusions were driven by his racism would seem to remain standing, as would similar conclusions about other scientists from the period.

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 12:52am

ITR_champion:

In Gould’s book The Mismeasure of Man he looks at lot of of instances of nineteenth century scientists who endeavored to prove something about human intelligence from skull measurements. They were trying to prove a lot of things: some that whites were superior to other races, others that the rich were superior to the poor, and so forth. Likewise they took many different approaches to do so. Some looked at the size of skulls, others at the size of openings in the skull or the position of various protrusions. The point of Gould’s book is that all of this was nonsense driven by the biases of the scientists involved. It may be true in this particular case that for the skulls in Morton’s collection, the white skulls had the largest capacity and the black skulls had the smallest. However, that still would not justify the inherent assumption that a larger skull means greater intelligence. **That has proven to be false. ** So the fundamental fact that Morton’s conclusions were driven by his racism would seem to remain standing, as would similar conclusions about other scientists from the period.

There is actually a positive correlation between the two, small though it may be. Direct measurement on MRI using modern techniques shows about a .40 correlation.

http://www.yale.edu/scan/GT_2004_NRN.pdf

Knorf · June 10, 2011, 2:56am

Chen019, my real question is, why are so excited by this?

Anyway, one paper does not “vindicate” or “acquits” anything. I’ll be content to wait and see what sort of consensus appears in the mainstream scientific community.

Regardless, Stephen J. Gould’s legacy is exceedingly well established, and even if he was wrong about this case, that hardly invalidates any of his other, enormously important peer-reviewed contributions to science.

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 3:14am

It acquits Morton of fudging the data in accordance with his biases while revealing that is actually what Gould did. I should have used the word acquit rather than vindicate.

Gould’s legacy? Paul Krugman, admittedly no scientist, but interesting comments nonetheless:

….Like most American intellectuals, I first learned about this subject [evolutionary biology] from the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. But I eventually came to realize that working biologists regard Gould much the same way that economists regard Robert Reich: talented writer, too bad he never gets anything right. Serious evolutionary theorists such as John Maynard Smith or William Hamilton, like serious economists, think largely in terms of mathematical models. Indeed, the introduction to Maynard Smith’s classic tract Evolutionary Genetics flatly declares, “If you can’t stand algebra, stay away from evolutionary biology.” There is a core set of crucial ideas in his subject that, because they involve the interaction of several different factors, can only be clearly understood by someone willing to sit still for a bit of math. (Try to give a purely verbal description of the reactions among three mutually catalytic chemicals.)

But many intellectuals who can’t stand algebra are not willing to stay away from the subject. They are thus deeply attracted to a graceful writer like Gould, who frequently misrepresents the field (perhaps because he does not fully understand its essentially mathematical logic), but who wraps his misrepresentations in so many layers of impressive, if irrelevant, historical and literary erudition that they seem profound.

See also Robert Wright’s New Yorker article and comments from John Maynard Smith.

GIGObuster · June 10, 2011, 3:43am

The reason why the poster is so exited is that Gould also took a critical look at “The Bell Curve” book so Gould is a cause celebre for people that want to pump up “scientific” justifications to divide people by race.

Unfortunately, even the authors of the referred paper (and this is a **Chen019 **specialty, ignoring the passages that show that researchers in reality are not supporting what he and others are trying to push) while critical of Gould, they are not supportive of using the paper to support prejudiced ideas.

In reevaluating Morton and Gould, we do not dispute that racist views were unfortunately common in 19th-century science [6] or that bias has inappropriately influenced research in some cases [16]. Furthermore, studies have demonstrated that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or "racial," and that most variation in modern humans is within, rather than between, populations [11],[17]. In particular, cranial capacity variation in human populations appears to be largely a function of climate, so, for example, the full range of average capacities is seen in Native American groups, as they historically occupied the full range of latitudes [18]. It is thus with substantial reluctance that we use various racial labels, but it is impossible to discuss Morton and Gould's work without using the terms they employed.

This science blogger then points that:
http://scienceblogs.com/oscillator/2011/06/missing_the_point.php

The authors are reluctant to use the racial labels because they understand that those labels are not objective categories, that the way people were defined in Morton’s time is different than it is today, and that there is more variation between individuals of a given “race” than there is between different populations. So here is the point: how can anyone make objective measurements on categories that are inherently not objective? How does stating the average cranial volume of an African skull vs. a European skull show, as the authors state, “the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts,” when we know, through scientific studies on the variation between and within groups, that these categories are subjective and subject to change depending on the cultural context?

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 4:09am

Actually, I have never suggested dividing people by race. It is governments and policy makers who do that.

I’m surprised actually that you haven’t entered into the debate that Tri Polar started on the Great Debates part of the forum about a biological definition of race.

GIGObuster · June 10, 2011, 4:22am

Ah yes, the professor of physics that likes to pose as a geneticist or an anthropologist, as I said before, there are no easy pickings for your position.

I rather wait until I see if most geneticists and anthropologists get to be convinced of your ideas. As it is, I see no danger on a change from them regarding the race issue, and this even after looking at the paper that you are so (mistakenly) enthusiastic about it.

Knorf · June 10, 2011, 4:23am

So either you hate Stephen J. Gould for some irrational reason, or you have a boner for Samuel Morton. You’ve explained neither.

Again I ask, why are you so excited by this? Scientists refute each other all the time. There is no scientist so awesomely great that nearly great scientists haven’t written things that refute some of their ideas, correctly or incorrectly. So what’s the big deal?

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 4:25am

You’re not making much sense here. It’s pretty clear that governments and policy makers are the ones that insist on labelling people in different races.

How many is most? I forgot you’re not much of a fan of thinking for yourself.

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 4:26am

Maybe read John Hawk’s article I linked above. It’s a pretty big deal when a major scientific figure, who writes bestseller’s on these topics, is revealed to have been fudging data to fit his ideology.

GIGObuster · June 10, 2011, 4:34am

Here is a hint: that is just an effort from your side to tell others not to look at what are you trying to lead others into.

Science has the property of telling you that your beliefs are useless when confronted by evidence.

In this case I think Gould was wrong, but that does not negate that modern human variation is generally continuous, rather than discrete or “racial”.

Chen019 · June 10, 2011, 4:37am

I am not sure what you mean here.

Glad we agree on this

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Samuel Morton vindicated after Stephen J Gould accusations

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