40 pages • 1 hour read
Stephen Jay GouldThe Mismeasure Of Man
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary: “Measuring Heads: Paul Broca and the Heyday of Craniology”
In Chapter 3, Gould follows the influence of Morton’s work into the latter part of the 19th century. Although Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution challenged creationism, it also provided additional support for racist arguments of “mental and moral worth” (105). Both monogenists and polygenists found new ways to support theories of racially-inherited intellectual difference, and were now equipped with “standardized procedures and a developing body of statistical knowledge” to support their ideas (106).
Gould first introduces Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton (1822-1911), a leader in popularizing the use of modern statistics, and who believed in measurement’s power to elucidate the “relative worth of peoples” (108). Gould then presents the case of Robert Bennett Bean (1874-1944), a Virginia physician who published extensive data on the corpus callosum, a flat bundle of fibers that connects the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Bean used his findings as the rationale for justifying unequal treatment of blacks, as he concluded that whites have “more brain up front in the seat of intelligence” (109). Bean’s data was challenged by his mentor, who found that not knowing the race of a brain until after measurement led to “no difference [in size] between whites and blacks” (112).
Gould uses this example to show that 1) biological determinists often limited inferiority to a single group, but conclusions for one group were extended to other groups (i.e. in the case of Bean, conclusions for blacks were extended to women), 2) prior prejudices predetermined scientific conclusions of data, 3) prior prejudices often guaranteed design flaw, and 4) findings in craniometry were published and referenced in the popular press.
Gould then introduces Paul Broca (1824-1880), a French professor of clinical surgery and a preeminent researcher who founded the Anthropological Society of Paris in 1859. Gould describes Broca as a scientist who meticulously outlined scientific procedures to measure brain size, and who, in his craniometry research, used reliable facts. However, in his analysis and interpretation of data, Broca repeatedly chose or omitted measurements in selective and prejudicial ways in order to arrive at preconceived conclusions.
Gould describes Broca’s selection of “meaningful” characteristics as a search for criterion supporting his argument that intelligence is measurable, inheritable, and rankable by race (118). Broca was able to skillfully utilize statistical adjustments accounting for body size, age, and health in cases comparing 1) German vs. French brains, 2) the smaller brains of eminent men who donated their brains to science, and 3) the larger size of many criminal brains (likely due to their means of sudden death). However, Broca avoided accounting for differences when comparing the brains of men and women, and selectively chose rationales to explain conflicting measurements of European brain size over time. Other distinctions, including measurements of frontal versus occipital regions, the cranial index, and placement of the foramen magnum, were used by Broca to justify his assertions that different races exhibited different intellectual capacities.
Over time, craniometry as a legitimate science has been discredited, as research showing that “group differences in brain size, independent of body size and other biasing factors, have never been demonstrated at all” due, in part, to the difficulty of arriving at unbiased results (140).
Chapter 3 Analysis
Gould’s critique of Robert Bean provides another interesting case study of unconscious bias. Bean’s substitution of numbers was discovered by contemporaries and condemned; however, the nature of his deception is not the only element of his story we find fault with today. Read contemporaneously, Bean’s asides are what, in hindsight, captivate audiences. In Bean’s tone, the racist and sexist beliefs of his era are exposed as a casual, shared understanding of common fact: “we all know that blacks have a keener sense of smell than whites”; “we all know that blacks have less respect for their dead than whites”; and “only the lowest classes [of] whites—prostitutes and the depraved—would be found among abandoned bodies” (109, 111). As Gould notes, in declaring what is supposedly common knowledge, Bean leaves hardly any room for a reality other than one in which prior prejudices are affirmed.
In this chapter, Gould presents Paul Broca as a man of scientific integrity, and, as he notes, “one cannot read Broca without gaining enormous respect for his care in generating data” (117). For example, prior to beginning the measurement of skulls, Broca spent months “refining the technique” and “develop[ing] an objective method for measuring cranial capacity” (117). However, what is both unique and unsurprising in light of the cultural milieu of the time is Broca’s blindness to his own scientific subjectivity. Gould writes that “conclusions came first,” and that in spite of accurate and reliable measurements, Broca used findings “selectively and then manipulated [them] unconsciously in the service of prior conclusions” (117).
It is this science in service of unconscious prejudice that is most astounding, and the most powerful argument for understanding the societal oppression Broca and his contemporaries were operating under in their search for innate, measurable, heritable intelligence. They all provided the same natural and unthinking response when reviewing collected data on the races: results are, will, and do justify 1) the superiority of whites, and 2) the inferiority of blacks. When the question shifted, as in the case of Louis Gratiolet’s goading comparison of German versus French skull size, Broca’s knowledge of statistical analysis kicked into gear and he generated the correct counterarguments and calculations. Small-brained men of eminence were equally and easily explained by accounting for their age, health, or the stature of the men themselves. No such affordance was given to women, and other measurements, when explaining group differences by race, were selectively chosen to confirm the expected, prejudicial outcome.
As Gould notes, on the question of group differences in brain size, researchers have gotten nowhere “not because there are no answers, but because the answers are so difficult to get and because the a priori convictions are so clear and controlling” (141). Although Darwin’s evolutionary theories had “swept away the creationist rug,” the convictions of the 19th century’s leading men of science were no match for an institutional world view that upheld certain racial, class, and gender differences as truth (105).
