Mismeasure of Man: an Illustration
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When reading, Mismeasure of Man, some may think that this is "old history" with no application to the present-- We have realized the errors of our past and have moved on to more realistic appraisals of the idea of "intelligence" and its limitations. What do you think? Have we really moved beyond the ideas of reification of intelligence and ranking races and ethnic groups by intellectual abilities? |
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You may remember (from an introductory sociology class) that one researcher, William Sheldon proposed a relationship between body type, ectomorph (thin), mesomorph (medium build), endomorph (heavy-set), and criminal behavior. The amazing thing is that related research was conducted into the 1960s attempting to find a correlation between body shape and intelligence-- Here's an article that appeared in the Richmond Times Dispatch on January 28th, 1994: PHOTOS OF NUDES DESTROYED (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS) NEW HAVEN, Under the watchful; eye of a Yale representative, Smithsonian officials emptied more than 100 pounds of photos and negatives into a shredder at a museum office in Suitland, Md. Yale lawyers wanted the photos destroyed to protect the privacy of graduates, many of whom have become leaders in culture and politics. Posing for the photos was required of students
years ago at many Ivy League colleges and other prestigious schools,
including The photos were taken in the early 1900s as part of physical education classes. Later, from the 1940s to the 1960s, researcher W.H. Sheldon took photographs to study the relationship between body shape and intelligence. |
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