From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Facts and Values
Date: 27 Aug 92 19:03:34 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <Aug.27.14.08.51.1992.11944@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>Dale Bass writes:
>     Actually the measurement of head sizes may be currently being
>     surpressed because of an overriding concern that unpalatable
>     results may be found.  There has been discussion of such in
>     recent Nature letters and articles (see the rather interesting
>     attitude of John Mattox, Nature's editor in 358:187 (1992),
>     in which he states that 'unpalatable' results should have
>     to pass more stringent tests.  Responses are 358:532 (1992)).
>
>     Though I hasten to add that the interpretation of such results
>     is certainly questionable, I find it interesting that Mattox would
>     assert a higher standard for 'unpalatable' results than for
>     ridiculous results (c.f. the Benveniste affair).
>
>Of course, it all depends on what you mean by unpalatable, right?
>I take your point, but there has been such a long history of
>eminent scientists lending legitimacy to racist theories and
>eugenics, that one must be triply careful.  The measurement of
>head sizes is of course one of the most highly charged of these
>so-called "experiments," given its long history and association with
>the great [not for this] anatomist Broca (ref S.J. Gould's _The
>Mismeasure of Man_.)  U.S. Army data have a long history in this
>business, too ... makes you wonder, why do people always use Army
>data?

     Not surprisingly, because the Army is one of the few places
     that takes and keeps such large amounts of otherwise useless data.

>Here's a more rational argument.  If some astronomer thinks he's
>discovered a planet around a pulsar, or some experimenters think they
>have a massive neutrino, and they publish but later have to retract
>due to systematic error, no harm is done to anyone or anything except
>maybe some egos.
>
>On the other hand, if a scientist publishes a paper that describes,
>say, racial or sexual variation in intelligence, in a respectable 
>journal, and then it turns out, for whatever reason, that their
>conclusions are not supported, that paper is still out there in a
>hundred thousand libraries _even if its own author retracts_.

     I'm not sure that the author was attempting to draw racial
     variations in intellegence directly.  After all, women have 
     demonstrably smaller skulls, but do not have demonstrably
     lower intellegence.  That probably was his ultimate goal, but
     I think that the hullabaloo was simply over the racial correlation
     to head sizes in Army data.  If they receive doubtful correlations
     with intellegence, then Mattox can become huffy about the 
     subject matter.

     After all, average heights of humans in say, Belgium, are less than
     in the US.  I certainly would not imply that that makes us anything
     but a bit taller in the US.

>Zealots and cynics can exploit the paper, and implicitly rely on the
>good name of the journal, without mentioning the retraction - and
>anyone who goes to look it up won't see the retraction, either, 
>unless they go to the index.  A lie can circle the globe before the
>truth takes a single step.

     You mean like results that seem to show that even when you
     dilute a solution so that there should not be even a molecule
     left in the mix, there is still some effect from the nonexistent
     ingredient?  Homeopathic 'physicians' truly love being able to 
     quote a Nature article.

     I have absolutely no personal interest in seeing the aforementioned 
     author's work published, simply because I am not interested in 
     such things.  It just seems very hypocritical to me for Mattox
     to have published a study that probably has much larger negative 
     social effect (and was wrong to boot) while going 'tsk, tsk'
     when the negative issue may have been race-related.

     I suspect that those of us who believe in human equality can 
     stand a study that purports to show human racial variation in 
     skull size without too much heartache.  After all, I've just recently
     seen a study that purported to show fairly large racial differences
     in non-erect penis sizes (now where did I put that thing...).
     I'd love to see Mattox do a column about *that*.

                                  dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926