-Patrick Prawel-Sexton
"Facial goniometer
Native American skull as measured by a facial geniometer" (APS, 2013)
As I looked through the resources of this module, my eyes were
immediately drawn to the excerpt “Science and scientific images also sometimes
contributed to stereotypes of Natives. In the 1800s and early 1900s, many
scientists tried to prove that whites were a superior “race” by measuring,
recording, and comparing the physical features of people from different ethnic
groups.” (APS, 2013) After reading into
this a bit more and looking at some images, this idea of trying to prove a race
inferior based on “science” has been attempted before. I am very interested in the history and
evolution of human beings and I watch a lot of videos regarding our family tree
and what types of humans existed before or with us but were subsequently weeded
out with time.
What I find funny is that although there are literally
dozens of ancient human skulls that have been discovered, the size of the brain
cavity and facial features does not really reveal as much as one would think
when it comes to intelligence. Neanderthals
had way larger brain cavities than Homo-sapiens, and guess who’s still here, little
head sapiens. Interesting tidbit, one in
four humans of today has Neanderthal DNA in them.
However, hindsight is twenty twenty, and individuals of that
period were misinformed and caused numerous hardships for the native people of
the Americas. One such individual who was
responsible for this misinformation was Samuel Morton M.D. who single handedly
lead an entire era of racial bias and hatred against native individuals. He purposefully, tampered with his findings
in order to perpetuate his agenda and thankfully was discovered by another
prominent member of his field and disproved Morton’s allegations. “…responding to accusations made by Stephen
Jay Gould (1941-2002), prominent evolutionary biologist and science historian,
who charged, first in a 1978 Science paper and later in The Mismeasure of Man
(1981), that Morton had selectively reported data, manipulated sample
compositions, made analytical errors, and mismeasured skulls in order to
support his prejudicial views on intelligence differences between human groups.”
(phys.org, 2011)
I still think the data one receives form measuring skulls is
too minute and not fully understood enough to measure a single species
intelligence, the mind is more than the space it takes up. However, I am pleased to now know that this
information is no longer perpetuating stereotypes and in fact the prejudiced
researcher is now defaced as a result of his hatred.
Justice?!?
Works Cited:
Samuel Morton collection of skulls at center of controversy.
(2011, June 16). Retrieved February 09, 2016, from
http://phys.org/news/2011-06-samuel-morton-skulls-center-controversy.html
The American
Philosophical Society. (2013). Native American Images Project. Retrieved
February 09, 2016, from https://amphilsoc.org/exhibit/natamimages/stereotypes
Hi Patrick. Very interesting read and blog entry. It’s amazing the depths people will go to try to prove their hidden agenda. How can someone who is a doctor and supposed to be intelligent and ethical, stoop so low as to manipulate data for their own hidden agenda. To do so in order to justify their own racism and prejudice, especially for someone in the intelligence field is horrible. Society relies on people of those professions to provide reliable results based on actual facts. Unfortunately, I feel as though fake studies like the ones of Dr. Samuel Morton happened often in order for people to feel more “at ease” about being racist or having prejudice towards a certain group of people.
ReplyDeleteI like when artists recreate a face from a skull, but any other usefulness in intelligence seems silly. I didn't know it was 1:4 had neanderthal DNA, I thought it was smaller. When looking it up found 2 articles that looked pretty interesting. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/feb/11/neanderthal-dna-may-account-for-nicotine-addiction-and-depression
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