Your humble poster met Gould for a beer back in the 1980s and debated him about intelligence; after hearing what I had to say, (which included my summary statement, "Stephen, you mean to tell me that as a biologist you believe that genes have a negligible effect on the highest of all neural functions, human intelligence?)the Harvard genius could only say to me : "You're too genetically driven."
I wish he were alive to see his "science" trashed.
RIP indeed, professor.
Kudos to the Times and Nick Wade for publishing this...it must have hurt. Ping...
So, racists use evolution as justification...
Not that we haven’t known this already.
I’m surprised the new theories don’t suggest that white middle aged heterosexual males are less than human. I mean, we’re just the despised net tax payers, and not allowed equal rights to all the protected categories.
I am unaware of any proven direct correlation between physical brain size and IQ, at least in individuals.
Might be different in large groups such as ethnies or “races.”
“Gould asserted that Morton, believing that brain size was a measure of intelligence, had subconsciously manipulated the brain volumes of European, Asian and African skulls”
Perhaps you didn’t realize that Gould could read Morton’s mind as well as his paper.
“Gould asserted that Morton, believing that brain size was a measure of intelligence, had subconsciously manipulated the brain volumes of European, Asian and African skulls”
Perhaps you didn’t realize that Gould could read Morton’s mind as well as his paper.
Gould was a wonderful writer. Unfortunately he was a lousy scientist who put his political agenda before facts. I feel the same way about him as you do.
I think this discussion should be limited to the skell of the skull and not generalizations about intelligence.
As far as I can tell, Morton did believe in the intellectual superiority of whites. Whites versus Asians, for instance. Nuff said.
Looks like what Gould got wrong was his claim that Morton used cranial volume to support the contention of white intellectual superiority.
Using the guys own numbers, when you separated out the sexes, African males were at the top, and African females at the bottom in skull size (which was used as a proxy for intelligence).
No, Gould didn't remeasure the skulls volumetric capacity - he just pointed out that if you separate out the sexes the guys entire argument evaporates - or suggests that African men are naturally the top in intelligence because they have (had) larger skulls.
For example - the “English” sample was 100% male. Naturally when compared to samples that included a high proportion of females (the African sample) they had larger skulls. But if you compared only the English male sample with the African male sample - the Africans had larger skulls - and by the guys own premise - were therefore more intelligent.
If you follow the right science blogs you knew the MSM would eventually get to this. Its been bubbling for a bit.
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.