Samuel Morton vindicated after Stephen J Gould accusations

[Freudian_Slit]

@TriPolar

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

But Gould didn’t say Morton deliberately skewed data. Didn’t he say it was probably all done unconsciously?

[GIGObuster]

@Chen019

I am not sure what you mean here.

Affirmative action is a social issue not a genetic one.

@Chen019

Glad we agree on this

Even the makers of the paper admit that race is not really useful in this case, climate offers a better explanation rather than genetics.

So, do you agree with this?

[TriPolar]

@Freudian_Slit

But Gould didn’t say Morton deliberately skewed data. Didn’t he say it was probably all done unconsciously?

Gould seemed to be characterizing some of it as conscious. That was always considered a stretch. Also a stretch are Chen019’s allegations that Gould deliberately fabricated. The upshot could be that they both were wrong.

[Chen019]

@TriPolar

Gould seemed to be characterizing some of it as conscious. That was always considered a stretch. Also a stretch are Chen019’s allegations that Gould deliberately fabricated. The upshot could be that they both were wrong.

If you read the paper and also John Hawk’s analysis, it’s not that much of a stretch to believe Gould fudged on purpose.

[Der_Trihs]

@ITR_champion

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.

I do recall that one of the prejudicial techniques used for such “research” mentioned in the book was to compare the skull from an over six foot German man with the skull of some tiny “pygmy” woman from Africa. So just because the white skulls are actually larger doesn’t mean that prejudice wasn’t behind it or that the results tell you anything other than that big people have bigger skulls than small people.

@Freudian_Slit

But Gould didn’t say Morton deliberately skewed data. Didn’t he say it was probably all done unconsciously?

Gould certainly knew that sort of thing happened. I read a later edition of the book where Gould pointed out that he himself had made errors in the earlier editions when attempting to correct various of the bad calculations he was writing about; he just made errors in the opposite direction.