Thanks Pharmboy. My main complaint about Gould is, he played around with language like Bill Clinton did, inventing the term "Diastrophe" for use inside his "Punctuated Equilibria" model.
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Posted on 06/14/2011 5:37:13 AM PDT by Pharmboy
There is most certainly a positive correlation between brain size and intelligence.
Correlation is not causation, but good health and nutrition during growth is going to increase both.
It is thought that men score better on IQ tests because their brains are larger on average. When you compare men and women of equivalent brain sizes, women score better on IQ tests.
If you follow the right science blogs you knew the MSM would eventually get to this. Its been bubbling for a bit.
If that was Morton's premise. This seems to be saying otherwise.
There is a positive correlation, but it is weak.
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/sci_update.php?DocID=166
And there are many, many exceptions.
Morton claimed that Native Americans had inferior intelligence because of their smaller skulls.
He made numerous claims based upon the premise that intellectual capacity was measured by skull capacity.
He wasn’t ranking human populations on skull size for his own amusement - but to validate the racist attitudes and actions with the veneer of science.
But his own numbers only showed that men are larger than women and have larger skulls. And the African males of his sample had larger skulls than the English males of his sample.
Gould wrote his book to discredit any thoughts of gene-based differences in intelligence. He was a fraud, and used the phony argument about skull size to set up a straw man. So, we differ...I believe it is quite relevant.
My point is that this article is about the skulls and not a broader argument about intelligence.
LOL “...superior brains, they could have institute permanent handicapping...”
Why didn’t you simply link to “Harrison Bergeron?”
But what if the race, as a whole (statistics proving it) do not have a work ethic?
You’re seeing a statistical correlation between the race and the culture that produces a lack of work ethic. That failing is in the culture, not in the melanin.
If it were a genetic/race related trait, you would be hard pressed to find counter examples, of which there are quite a few. They’re conservative, they don’t ascribe to the non-achievement culture, and they have a good work ethic.
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But your complaint is as good as any other...just add it to the catalog.
No one with even half a brain needed Gould to point that out.
His research was quite famous in its day. It was cited by all the leading race obsessed cranks of the day.
And yet it was based entirely upon the idea that the average English person's brains size could be estimated by a sample that was 100% male - and then compare that average brain size to a sample that was 50% male and 50% female - and conclude that English people had larger skulls and were therefore correspondingly that much smarter.
Apparently Gould did need to point it out - because nobody these days really wanted to deal with the ‘crazy uncle’ of human studies - race.
Gould was right that the guys conclusions were entirely unwarranted and his numbers were total crap that “No one with even half a brain” would take seriously - except that nearly everyone did.
Gould always seemed to me to be result oriented. He had a leftist ideological template in his approach to science and conflicting data had to be made to fit that template. Screw the scientific method and letting the evidence lead you wherever it led. If you imperiously declare that all peoples are of equal intelligence, then to someone like Gould contrary evidence cannot be abided.
He was a fraud, just like most of his leftist scientist buddies.
I ignored race-obsessed cranks and only was speaking of scientists. Perhaps I should have been more explicit.
Anyone else notice how the guy in the picture looks just like the late Walter Matthau?
His entire idea was that it was A-OK to exterminate and remove the natives from America - because they were not biologically capable of civilization anyway.
Ditto for any other non-white race.
It was an extremely popular idea during the days of “the White Man's Burden”, colonialism, and all that.
Back when European powers divided up the world - it was hard to not think there must be some biological component to our complete domination.
The guys shoddy numbers via not separating out males and females were not paid attention to. Just his data and conclusions.
People just LOVED his conclusions.
Gould didn't.
Both had an agenda. But Gould did an excellent “post mortem” of his data - on how blinded he was that he would use a sample that was 100% male and compare it to one that was majority female and think he actually had something.
Less than half a brain, according to you.
Most other people in his day as well. He was quite famous.
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