The role that racial bias plays in scientific research was a favorite topic of the late Harvard paleontologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002). If you have any additional information about Gould, Morton, or the Morton skulls, let me know. Over the next few weeks, I will post a series of blogs that I hope will spur some discussion and comments. It appears that, at most, both men suffered from common confirmation bias. In my opinion, the historic record does not support claims that Morton’s research was flawed by unconscious racial bias, nor that Gould’s work was flawed by unconscious ideological bias. These mistakes indicate poor scholarship, and not unconscious bias. I have found numerous previously unreported errors in the work of both Morton and Gould. Recently, some critics have proposed that Gould’s research was skewed by his unconscious ideological bias. I found no clear pattern of racial bias, a finding which was confirmed by Jason Lewis in 2011. In 1986, I re-evaluated Morton’s research and re-measured a sample of skulls from Morton’s collection. Gould identified errors in Morton’s work and claimed they all indicated racial bias. In The Mismeasure of Man, Stephen Jay Gould argued that the craniological research by 19 th century anatomist Samuel George Morton was skewed by Morton’s unconscious racial bias.
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