The Failure Of Man Gould Analysis

As children, we are taught that humans are different. Humans come from different places around the world, speaking other languages, dressing uniquely and appearing distinct from each other. Naturally, if we are taught, as a species, that we do not share much physically, then it 's plausible that the same idea could be attributed to our biology. If we don’t look the same then our bodies should not be the same, right? One can come to an assumption that some bodies act better than another. In essence, a slave and a master cannot be on the same scale therefore there must be a hierarchy to explain why slaves is a slave not a master. But who is to blame for the order? Although one can argue scientist and medicine presented data or behaved in ways

Morton’s intention for his experiment was to determine if a ranking of races could be established by brain size (Gould, 83). Morton’s hypothesis was affirmed by his data but there may have been an underlying cause that permitted Morton’s data to favor his hypothesis. Gould clarifies, in his re-analyzation of Morton’s summary tables, that Morton unconsciously manipulated evidence to confirm his hypothesis (Gould, 86). For example Crania Americana, Morton described Indians as lacking mental faculties, compared Mongolian 's changing feelings to monkeys and deemed Hottentots as repulsive and nearer to lower animals (Gould, 88). In that same work, however, Morton described the Caucasian tribe as greedy thieves, who are capable of change with a proper government (Gould, 88). Morton’s bias is evident in his contrasting descriptions of the Caucasian tribe and he proceeds to do so in his summary chart of brain sizes. Gould documents that Morton’s calculations were filled with over representations or omitting of skull sizes. Morton’s mean of Indians was faulty as a result of a disproportionately high number of small brained Inca Peruvians representing 25 percent of the sample. Morton also neglected to include large brained Iroquois (Gould, 89). Morton’s unconscious finagling is as a result of the preconceived ideas about race that were present in his society. Western leaders such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Lincoln supported that whites were biologically inferior to other races (Gould, 64). Morton’s data was in line with the social convention of his time therefore without his society 's opinion of racial inferiority, Morton may have not come to a conclusion that affirmed his society’s