MORTONS RANKING OF RACES BY CRANIAL CAPACITY
MORTONS RANKING OF RACES BY CRANIAL CAPACITY
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DOI：
10.1126/science.347573
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发表时间：
1978-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
GOULD, SJ
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
GOULD, SJ
塞缪尔·乔治·莫顿，自封为客观经验主义者，收集了世界上最大的前达尔文时代的人类头骨。他测量了他们的能力，并得出了预期的结果，当时几乎没有高加索人怀疑他们的先天优势：白人高于印第安人，黑人在底层。莫顿公布了他所有的原始数据，这里显示，他的汇总表是基于显然是无意识的骗局拼凑而成的。当他的数据得到适当的重新解释时，所有种族的能力都大致相同。无意识或模糊地感觉到的欺骗很可能在科学中流行，因为科学家是植根于文化背景的人类，而不是指向外部真理的机器人。
Samuel George Morton, self-styled objective empiricist, amassed the world''s largest pre-Darwinian collection of human skulls. He measured their capacity and produced the results anticipated in an age when few Caucasians doubted their innate superiority: whites above Indians, blacks at the bottom. Morton published all his raw data, and it is shown here that his summary tables are based on a patchwork of apparently unconscious finagling. When his data are properly reinterpreted, all races have approximately equal capacities. Unconscious or dimly perceived finagling is probably endemic in science, since scientists are human beings rooted in cultural contexts, not automatons directed toward external truth.