Morton's Criticism - Essay Sample

Introduction

Morton was a Philadelphia patrician who owned two medical degrees. He was involved in a study in which his facts won respect for the American school of polygyny. The years of 1820s is when Morton began his collection of human skulls and is said to have collected more than one thousand skulls. In his collection, he was able to win his reputation as the person who collected or rather gathered a lot of data as well as the American science objectivist.

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After Morton's death in the year 1851, it was reported that possibly no American scientist among the scholars in the world who enjoyed reputation which was higher than Dr. Morton's one (Gould). As he received a lot of praises from his friends, some criticisms about his work are seen as written by Stephen Jay.

In Stephen's arguments, while analyzing the data which was collected by Morton, there are some doubts on how raw information was moved to summary tables. This is to say that the summaries by Morton were a patchwork of finagling and fudging with an interest of maintaining or rather controlling conviction of prior. In Stephen's criticism, no evidence found in fraud of conscious and says that if truly Dr. Morton would have been conscious fraud, his data collection could not have been done in an open manner (Gould). He tries to say that for Morton to publish his data openly it means he is not a conscious fudgier. This is because in science there is less conscious fraud.

It is also not interesting for the data collected to give little information about scientific activity nature. If there is the discovery of liars, they are excluded. Scientists claim that their occupation has controlled itself and hence there is unimpaired mythology and vindicated objectively. On the other hand finagling unconscious means there is a collective conclusion about science social context (Gould). This is to mean that if they could be self-deluded which is honesty from the other scientist on Morton's extent, then there will be prejudice which is prior anywhere including bones measuring basics as well as sums toting.

In the case of Indian inferiority, in his initial and greatest job, 1839 Crania Americana, Morton began it by describing the race of the human character. In doing this, his statement appears to be prejudicial when he described them as ungrateful, sensual, obstinate, crafty as well as unfeeling and the most of their affection can be said to be characterized by motives which are selfish to their children (Gould). They are furthermore claimed to be idealess in providing for the current moments in terms of mental faculties beginning infancy up to old age in which they provide a continued childhood.

There is also criticism that Morton thought of Mongolians and wrote of Chinese whereby they became unhappy with him saying they had been compared to a monkey race hence felt so irritated about the action in whose intention was changing from different object to another. In his statement, the women are described as repulsive in their outlook more than the men (Gould). Hence Morton in the tribe of Caucasian description, he describes them as "mere horde of rapacious banditti" he also added that perception of their moral in support by the government which was equitable could not lead to aspects which were more favorable.

Table 2.1 which contains summary chart by Morton shows Crania Americana arguments which are hard. I44 capacity skulls of Indians had been measured and a calculation of 82 mean cubic inches obtained. This shows a difference of 5 cubic inches from the Caucasian norm. This was indicated in the Figs, 2.4 and 2.5. Furthermore, there were appends of measurement which was phrenological by Morton in a table showing a deficiency of mental powers which is higher among Indians (Gould). In conclusion of his study, the mind structure portrays a difference of white men in that they both cannot harmonize social relations unless for the scales which are limited. Stephen continues to say that the 82 cubic inches which were given to Indian skull as an average measure by Morton were incorrect. This is because the Crania Americana is a treatise on the intellect of Indian quality of inferior.

He claims that Morton separated the skulls into two that is Toltecans and Barbarous. 82 was the skulls of barbarous average, and the 144 samples collected gave 80.2 mean cubic inches between the average of Caucasian and Indians and hence Stephen wonders how Morton made such an error (Gould). This could not allow Morton to retain the demonstration that the whites remained top, the middle being the Indians while the blacks were on the bottom part. Stephen states that Morton's collection of 144 skulls comprised of many groups in India which had a significant difference and therefore they should have been weighed differently to give the correct sample.

This is to say that the procedure used by Morton to measure and give the average required had some errors. It is also stated that dividing of Caucasian skull by Morton was unwarranted for he favored pelasgic group. Also, Morton failed to correct body size or sex difference while giving out his data. Men are regarded to have big heads than women but this fact does not mean men think smarter than ladies. In his data, Morton did not indicate this hence the information that he collected was incorrect.

Work Cited

Carroll, John B. "Reflections on Stephen Jay Gould's" The Mismeasure of Man"(1981): A Retrospective Review. Book Review." Intelligence 21.2 (1995): 121-34.

Lewis, Jason E., et al. "The mismeasure of science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on skulls and bias." PLoS Biology 9.6 (2011): e1001071.

Gould, Stephen Jay. The mismeasure of man. WW Norton & Company, 1996.