"It seems that you are censoring comments on both of your posts on race, and so I thought I would send you this email with my thoughts on the discussion. It seems to me that you are playing a semantics game over racial classification. I could talk about gene clusters and morphological characteristics that easily correlate with our traditional idea of race, but to sum it up, I sympathize with this commenter:
'In other words, they evolved differently, but we shouldn't be calling them different races anyway because liberals get butthurt... Great argument against race, no doubt. You can call them populations, I'll call them race - same thing.'
Ignoring the political rhetoric, this commenter has the right idea. By the very nature of what a category is, if we can find that there are several characteristics which correlate with our traditional understanding of race (i.e. Europeans are much more likely to have light skin, light hair, light eyes, certain tooth shape, skull shape, etc.) then even if there are occasional overlaps, those categories are useful and cannot be ignored. This is why it seems, to me, that there is not much scientific reason to deny race. You fully acknowledge that certain people evolved in certain ways to adapt to their environments, such that Europeans became different from East Asians, but you somehow say that these groups cannot be called races? That convinces me you are not scientifically motivated.
Furthermore, in one of your comments on YouTube, you stated that in order to be classified into subspecies, an animal must have an FST of 0.25 - 0.3. This is a common mistake cited by race deniers. There is no set requirement for FST to be classified into subspecies because of the errors in estimating FST, and because it is arbitrary to set any certain requirement. There are plenty of subspecies which have been identified which have an FST of lower than 0.25. There is no set rule, so despite humans having an FST of around 0.15, classifying them into subspecies is just fine.
I hope you will give me an honest response.
- S.T."
Should I give up, or should I try explaining again? (I'm kidding of course -- I only act this way because I think I know who sent the email, and that's what makes it funny).
First of all, the biggest warning sign that I can be given in these discussions is, right off the bat, being accused of censorship. The accusation isn't entirely untrue, but it isn't perfectly descriptive either. I control the comments that come into my blog because I write on controversial topics from time to time, and thus am inevitably going to receive comments that are NSFW. I don't want that, although I don't go ape over people swearing on my blog either -- I'm rather liberal when it comes to those sorts of things. I do like to keep the discussions in check, though. Anyone who freely comments on my blog can attest to this: if you have something worth saying, you can take the time to type it somewhat cordially so that I can permit it; otherwise, it's not getting published.
Aside from that, however, when a comment doesn't introduce any new arguments (and by this, I mean the answers to their arguments are given in the post or in other comment responses), then it's not worth my readers' time to publish that comment. This is just to avoid repetition.
However, in some cases, something can be repeated so many times in so many different ways. This leads me to believe that the question is in need of an extensive reply, such as the one I am about to provide. So, without further ado, let's get to the substance of S.T.'s email. S.T. states that he sympathizes with this comment from my post on Lewontin's Fallacy and Race:
"In other words, they evolved differently, but we shouldn't be calling them different races anyway because liberals get butthurt... Great argument against race, no doubt. You can call them populations, I'll call them race - same thing."
Had S.T. continued to read on, he would have seen my reply to this commenter:
"Yes, some people 'evolved' differently from others. I say this because humans are still evolving, and it seems we will be for some time to come. Again, this doesn't warrant biological classification beyond the point of subspecies. "Race" and "geographic population" are not the same thing. The significance of studying geographic populations is in observing the population's interaction with its environment."
This is a little vague due to the fact that I had to condense it to have a more comment-appropriate length. It also doesn't directly respond to the argument that if multiple characteristics or genes correlate with an identifiable group, then that group is meaningful in nature, and in this case, these groups can be classified as races; more so, my reply argues against the conflation of population with race. The former, more or less, is what S.T. and the commenter he quoted were arguing. In any case, I probably would've ignored this email had I not received several of the same nature:
"Alexis,
If you scientifically believe races do not exist in the human species, please explain how we can look at gene clusters which express for morphological differences or otherwise in populations and accurately classify them into groups?"
"I think it's dishonest to say that typically, a subspecies classification requires a 0.25-0.30 FST, or that this applies to race. Plenty of subspecies have been identified which do not have such a high FST, and in fact have a substantially lower FST than humans. I'd suggest you look at this chart:
http://occidentalascent.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/fsthe3.png?w=640&h=625
To clarify, I don't believe you're dishonest, just that you're misled, by the way. You seem very intelligent."
Thus, I have decided that it is worth responding to in whole. This will be a two-part response: (1) don't gene clusters imply that we can classify race; and (2) since other subspecies have been classified with a lower FST than 0.25, doesn't that mean it works just fine with humans?
The first part is a little ignorant. If I were to compare the elk population in Alberta to the elk population in Ontario and conducted an Analysis of Molecular Variance (AMOVA) and found their FST to be 0.01, that means that only 1% of the variation which exists can be explained by between-population differences. Now, within this 1%, there may be a cluster of a few genes which almost always correlate to the elk population we took our sample from. Let's say it's a set of 25 genes. Around 95% of the time, allele A of these genes is exclusive to the Albertan Elk, and allele B is exclusive to the Ontarian Elk. The logic of what is being suggested is that because this difference exists, even though there is only a 1% difference between these two populations, we can classify them into subspecies, or race, or deme, or whatever classification below the level of species you prefer.
 |
| Since elk in Washington tend to be fatter, they're obviously a new subspecies. |
The second part is a bit trickier. There are probably subspecies that have been identified which have an FST of lower than 0.25. The general rule, as I've been taught, is that 25% between-population differentiation warrants separate classification. There are always going to be exceptions to these rules, because science itself needs to be somewhat flexible in order to account for things we don't fully understand. In these cases, we would look at the Albertan Elk and Ontarian Elk and see if there are other differences. Are they geographically separated, or do they regularly move between the borders of Alberta and Ontario? Do they have distinct ecology -- does one only eat a certain type of plant, or display a different social structure?
The different "races" of humans are not so distinct. We can all adapt to living in a different society than where we grew up in without too much difficulty. We are all capable of eating the same foods, for the most part (I'm aware that, for example, lactose intolerance occurs at higher rates in some populations). We show little genetic distinction from one another (more recent estimates suggest that our differences are in the range of 3% to 7% as opposed to the 15% I usually cite). Based on our current understanding of human variation, race is not the best classification we can use.
More over, the chart that was cited in the third email I received was an interesting one. It has been cited before on my blog -- specifically, it was cited by the person that the first emailer referred to. I know which website it came from, but specifically I don't know who created it. I guess it's safe to assume that the author of that website probably made it, but I wonder if it came from a journal article instead. Either way, there are many things that I find funny/interesting about the chart, and I think I'll be discussing those things in a separate post in the near future. For now, my general explanations are what I have to offer.
What other emails have I received regarding the debate over race?
"Alexis,
In your review of Stephen Jay Gould's 'The Book of Life,' you suggested that he was some kind of phenomenal scientist that was revolutionary to his field. This is where you're wrong, and I'm guessing this is where you received much of your education on human racial differences. Libertarian Realist did a good video on this in response to c0nc0rdance, who I see you're subscribed to on Youtube. Funny, huh?
Stephen Jay Gould was charged with intellectual dishonesty for his book 'The Mismeasure of Man' due to his anti-racism, much like you. He accused Samuel Morton of intellectual dishonesty and bias in his calculation of cranial capacities; however, when Lewis et al. remeasured the sample from the original study, they found that Morton was completely accurate, and if anyone was biased, it was Gould.
You can find Janet Monge's interview on the matter here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oE_mVLH8fU"
Recently, HannibaltheVictor13 on YouTube made a video response to this, and if you don't like how I say things, maybe you'll like him. You can find his video here.
Otherwise, I'll continue to respond.
Stephen Jay Gould's original thought of Morton was, yes, that Morton was a racist and that he may have shown his bias in his calculations. The direct criticism, however, was that Morton had not controlled for sex or stature of the skeletons that he observed, and that he omitted certain skulls to fit his preconceptions of racial categories, and all of this skewed the results. In their study, Lewis et al. made the same mistake Morton did and failed to control for sex or for stature. In fact, Lewis et al. failed to remeasure the entire collection -- they remeasured about half of it.
 |
| S.J.G. -- a man who is a great evolutionary biologist. |
But either way, the flaw with this criticism of Stephen Jay Gould (one which Libertarian Realist took part in) is that it's fallacious. Stephen Jay Gould, even if he had incorrectly criticized Morton, was a great scientist, and his work was phenomenal. One fault in his addressing of human variation, specifically race, would not destroy all of the other contributions he's made to science.
This concludes this mailbag post. The next one will be about more personal questions I've received regarding my life, not my work.
Thank you all for reading.
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I always stuck to the argument you made about it being fallacious to consider all of Gould's work useless based on this one incident, but I hadn't ever looked into whether or not Lewis et al. had actually proven his bias. Nice find.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait for your more personal emails. :)
I can't understand how some individuals are so quick to demonize a great mind, (Who, incidentally I became familiar with through my Biology textbook) yet flock to...others...
DeleteConfirmation bias I suppose?
"We show little genetic distinction from one another (more recent estimates suggest that our differences are in the range of 3% to 7% as opposed to the 15% I usually cite). Based on our current understanding of human variation, race is not the best classification we can use."
ReplyDeleteIncredibly wrong. 58% of SNPs are population-specific. More than 80% of SNPs are rare, of which only 10-30% are shared between continents. Your figures are based on common SNPs. Never mind differences of gene expression from CNVs and VNTRs.
You clearly don't understand the concepts of what you're talking about. All of this shit you keep spewing is what was passed down to you by your PC professors at UoT (I know you think that's a great accomplishment, but it's not). You haven't studied genetics, only social sciences.
On top of the fact that you didn't provide any sources for what you said, your claim is completely incoherent, probably due to a lack of any relevant context.
DeleteYou said 58% of SNPs are population-specific. If that were true, then AMOVA testing would show that there is much larger variation between populations than what is currently shown.
"More than 80% of SNPs are rare, of which only 10-30% are shared between continents." What gives you this idea? Once again, this goes against the totality of evidence which suggests otherwise.
"Your figures are based on common SNPs." Yes, because we're observing population genetics from an evolutionary perspective, not a medical one.
"Never mind differences of gene expression from CNVs and VNTRs." Okay, I get it now. You copy/pasted this from some GWAS which was testing for expression of a specific phenotype, or maybe some kind of disease. How honest. If your argument is "Tay-sachs and SCA" then get out.
"You clearly don't understand the concepts of what you're talking about." Mhm.
"All of this shit you keep spewing is what was passed down to you by your PC professors at UoT (I know you think that's a great accomplishment, but it's not)." The best indicator of a narcissist is thinking that he has superior determining ability of good universities than the continental standards. Yes, you, the commenter of my blog, are better at determining a good university than Academic Rankings or QS. Good job.
"You haven't studied genetics, only social sciences." You haven't studied enough of either.
Bye bye.
For further information:
DeleteWe can pretty much conclude that there are around 21,000 genes in the human genome, and around 10 million SNPs, while most WGS identify 3.3 million on average. In a study by Barrerio et al. in 2008, they studied 3.1 million SNPs using data from HapMap, and identified 582 genes with an SNP having an FST higher than 0.65. On this note, it's a far cry to say that 58% of SNPs are population specific, unless the number of SNPs associated with these genes far exceed the typical mean (ranging anywhere from 15 to 72, with smaller genes having fewer SNPs). This would be inconsistent with the findings, however, since the FST found for all of the SNPs in this particular study was 0.11.
Don't understand how the FST is relevant? If two populations of lizard are isolated from each other on two mountain tops, and each have SNPs that are exclusive to those particular populations, then the heterozygosity of the population as a whole would be 0.5, while the heterozygosity of each individual population would be 0, thus conferring an FST of 1. Simply put, the higher the FST. An FST of 0.11 for the entire collection of SNPs in this study would imply that there is a lower heterozygosity for the population as a whole, and a higher heterozygosity for each individual population, and thus the frequency of population-exclusive SNPs is much rarer.
If you're concerned that the study didn't reflect the entire human population, the sample was 60 Yoruba, 60 northwestern Europeans, 45 Han Chinese and 45 Japanese. It's a pretty fair representative sample, although there might be a bit of oversampling for the Japanese.
And if you're concerned that the sampling of 3.1 million SNPs didn't reflect the totality of SNPs in the human genome, HapMap has already identified 250,000-500,000 tag SNPs which give us about as much mapping data as the whole 10 million SNPs in the human genome.
http://www.nature.com/scitable/content/Natural-selection-has-driven-population-differentiation-in-15091
http://www.genome.gov/11511175
Have a nice day.
"Never mind differences of gene expression from CNVs and VNTRs."
ReplyDeleteMost AMOVA testing done on human variation in modern times examines microsatellites, but differences of gene expression? Are we talking about anthropology or racial medicine?
"58% of SNPs are population-specific. More than 80% of SNPs are rare, of which only 10-30% are shared between continents."
ReplyDelete- Where did you get these numbers from?
- 80% of polymorphisms are rare. This isn't surprising, nor is it relevant.
- It doesn't hold that if 70% to 90% of these rare SNPs are continent-specific, that only 58% of all SNPs would be population-specific.
- On that note, population specific how? What are the parameters?
"Your figures are based on common SNPs."
Because common SNPs are the most relevant to population genetics. In defining evolutionarily significant units of organisms, we only look at the genetic differentiation at markers which are selectively neutral. Rare SNPs which are population-specific are most likely not neutral.
"Never mind differences of gene expression from CNVs and VNTRs."
But we already use allele frequencies in population genetics?
Of course, all of this was rhetorical, because I know where the commenter got his "argument" from, and it's quite a stupid objection.
Chances are, in situations where the comment is so brief and inexplicable that you can't discern where the argument actually lies, the person is just using jargon to throw you off. Arguments need established premises, facts and conclusions. Throwing out these numbers leave a lapse in understanding the argument.
Thanks for playing, stranger.
On a side note: "Please prove you're not a robot."
Fuck you Blogger.
Lewis et al. responded to the criticism about not controlling for sex or stature:
ReplyDelete"Box 3. Did Morton use sex to skew his results? Gould faulted Morton for failing to divide his samples by sex when calculating cranial capacity averages, given that differences in mean stature between males and females typically produce attendant differences in mean cranial sizes [1]. Certainly, more accurate population averages would be obtained if each sample were composed of equal numbers of males and females. But the question at hand is whether Morton manipulated his data to fit his preconceptions. In this regard, it is essentially impossible for Morton to have exploited sexual differences in cranial capacity to alter population averages. The only way Morton could have done so is by including more females for the populations he considered “inferior” and more males for “superior” populations. However, Morton did not collect the skulls himself [1],[6], and there is no evidence that he excluded any skulls from measurement based on sex. Indeed, Morton was largely blind to the sex of the skulls in his collection because of the low accuracy of determining sex from the skull, a low accuracy noted as well by Gould [1]. Furthermore, given that Morton's procedure for estimating sex from skulls almost certainly depended heavily on size (as noted by Gould, and as even modern methods do), it is entirely unsurprising to find a notable difference in size between “males” and “females.” Gould faults Morton for failing to notice this difference that “stared him in the face,” but had Morton commented on it he could rightly have been criticized for circularity—assigning sex based on size guarantees that “males” will appear larger than “females.”"
The great thing about S.J. Gould is that we've already seen someone like him in the field of science before: Andrew Wakefield. He was flaunted as a revolutionary scientist for discovering the link between the MRR vaccine and autism, but it turned out that he had fudged his results, and had bias. Gould is no different, and Lewis et al. should be championed for their bravery in tackling this pseudo-scientific ideologue.
Also, I'd advise you read the Lewis et al. study for yourself. It seems you may have just parroted some of the points Hannibal made in his video and pretended like you already planned to address it. If you're going to posture yourself as a man of science, then you should read the opposing arguments, or you'll end up like S.J.G.
Delete"Lewis et al. responded to the criticism about not controlling for sex or stature"
DeleteI'd hardly call it a sufficient response. It's more of an attempt at justification, which fails in its premise. Let's continue with their comments, though.
"Did Morton use sex to skew his results?"
I don't know, and neither did Gould. He never suggested that Morton intentionally failed to control for sex/stature when collecting his data, but merely that his neglect might have supported his unconscious biases, keyword being "unconscious."
"Gould faulted Morton for failing to divide his samples by sex when calculating cranial capacity averages, given that differences in mean stature between males and females typically produce attendant differences in mean cranial sizes. Certainly, more accurate population averages would be obtained if each sample were composed of equal numbers of males and females."
This is correct.
"But the question at hand is whether Morton manipulated his data to fit his preconceptions."
While this is somewhat true, continuously and indiscriminately using the word 'manipulated' to describe Gould's contentions is dishonest, or at least neglectful. Manipulation implies intent, while Gould maintained that he saw no evidence of intentional finagling of the data. And by this notion-
"In this regard, it is essentially impossible for Morton to have exploited sexual differences in cranial capacity to alter population averages. The only way Morton could have done so is by including more females for the populations he considered “inferior” and more males for “superior” populations."
-Lewis et al. entirely missed the point of Gould's contentions. Gould didn't suggest that Morton intentionally did anything to skew the data, but neglected to conduct proper procedures in order to account for confounding variables. It's incredible to me that Lewis et al. could somehow suggest that the data wouldn't be skewed or incorrect if Morton hadn't controlled for sex and stature. They're controlled regularly for a reason.
"However, Morton did not collect the skulls himself, and there is no evidence that he excluded any skulls from measurement based on sex."
Again, missing the point.
"Indeed, Morton was largely blind to the sex of the skulls in his collection because of the low accuracy of determining sex from the skull, a low accuracy noted as well by Gould. Furthermore, given that Morton's procedure for estimating sex from skulls almost certainly depended heavily on size (as noted by Gould, and as even modern methods do), it is entirely unsurprising to find a notable difference in size between “males” and “females.”"
Gould did note that it's difficult to determine sex simply from the skull, and that the reasonable method would be to determine it based on size, but that wasn't all he said. He noted that sex could be determined rather unambiguously because many of the skulls in Morton's collection had come with mummified remains, and that after controlling for the sex of the Egyptian skulls, the measurements for the cranial capacity of the Caucasian/Negroid skulls were 86.5 and 87.5 for males, 77.2 and 75.5 for females, respectively. He further noted that the results would be even different if the samples were equalized in sex, since 24 of Morton's 46 Caucasian skulls were male, while (if you base it on stature) only 2 of the 6 Negroid skulls were male.
"Gould faults Morton for failing to notice this difference that “stared him in the face,” but had Morton commented on it he could rightly have been criticized for circularity—assigning sex based on size guarantees that “males” will appear larger than “females.”"
DeleteBut if he controlled and equalized the samples for sex based on a consistent methodology, the results would not be skewed. For example, assume he had a sample of 10 Negroid Skulls and 30 Caucasian skulls, for argument's sake. After using stature as a determinate for sex, and equalizing the two samples, let's say he then had 3 male and 3 female Negroid skulls, 10 male and 10 female Caucasian skulls. If, then, he averaged the results, they would not be skewed, because he used a consistent methodology when controlling for sex in the two samples.
Beyond that, though, what Lewis et al. seems to be suggesting is that because Morton could have been faulted for controlling for sex, he shouldn't have done it anyway. Really? Is that the route they want to go? The honest admission would be that Morton's collections could not be considered as representative of the sampled populations due to either a flawed methodology, or lack of ability to correct for his mistakes due to ambiguous sexes of the skulls (i.e. incomplete information). Once again, though, this would bring a bad light to the collection at the museum, because it would suggest that the data is incomplete.
"Also, I'd advise you read the Lewis et al. study for yourself."
Thankfully, I already did.
"It seems you may have just parroted some of the points Hannibal made in his video and pretended like you already planned to address it."
I'd advise you, however, to stop making assumptions about my research. You're only going to pin yourself as dishonest when people read the rebuttals in the comments.
"If you're going to posture yourself as a man of science..."
I don't. I'm a woman.
"... then you should read the opposing arguments, or you'll end up like S.J.G."
Exactly. You should probably take a look at the arguments Gould actually made. Either pick up a copy of his book at the library, buy it, or find the PDF online. It's very easy to obtain, and you'd definitely benefit from hearing the arguments straight from the source, and not this study's interpretations of them.
Oh, I missed a part:
Delete"The great thing about S.J. Gould is that we've already seen someone like him in the field of science before: Andrew Wakefield. He was flaunted as a revolutionary scientist for discovering the link between the MRR vaccine and autism, but it turned out that he had fudged his results, and had bias."
Even if Gould had been biased and he had misrepresented Morton's data, or was dishonest in that scenario, his work remains largely untouched, and has only been discredited by a single study. Wakefield, on the other hand, has been refuted by several, and of the 7 articles he had published, 2 were retracted and 1 was withdrawn. Aside from that, he has one vaccine-caused-autism-apologetic book written by he and Jenny McCarthy. His practices were illegal and unethical, and his fraud was harmful for many different reasons.
Gould, on the other hand, has hundreds of scholarly works, and not much to discredit him. He's contributed much to the field of paleontology and evolutionary biology, and that hasn't changed. His contributions far outweigh any flaws he had, and his work continues to be used to this day. Had his arguments against Morton been wrong, fraudulent, dishonest, etc., his conclusions still would have been right, because the case that brain size determines intellectual ability is either wrong, irrelevant, or both.
"Gould is no different, and Lewis et al. should be championed for their bravery in tackling this pseudo-scientific ideologue."
As we can see, Gould was very different, and Lewis et al. should review their case against him and decide whether or not they want to stick to their guns and face the consequences in the scientific community, or if they want to throw in the towel because of their assumptions, biases, and mischaracterization of Gould's arguments.
"Incredibly wrong. 58% of SNPs are population-specific." lol no, more than 80% of SNPs are cosmopolitan.
ReplyDeleteAlexis,
ReplyDeleteYou seem like a nice person. I measured the Morton skulls in 1986 and am quite familiar with Morton's writings. Morton was not really all that great of a scholar but he was well connected and when he died his friends made him out to be more than he was. He was indeed a racist and his work had many more flaws than Gould ever found. Sadly, Gould was also not an especially original thinker, but like Morton he had many well placed friends. Gould and Morton were similar in many ways. Ultimately, they both fell prey to being celebrities, and both exaggerated the importance of their work. Lewis et al. basically got it right, though they could have been more diplomatic in making their point. Gould screwed up with is critique of Morton and with a number of other things, but that is what happens to a man who pushes himself too hard. When one writes as much and as fast as Gould did, one cannot be surprised when the quality goes down.
Also, when thinking about race, don't get hung up on percentages of this or that. All racial classes are arbitrary subsets, with no meaningful definition. Thus, you can do statistics forever and not reach any meaningful conclusions. Ask yourself, how many oceans are there? Answer:one. There is no line which separates the Atlantic and Pacific ocean. So it is with racial variation. Morton made measurements that were good enough, but it was his assumption that races existed as distinct units that was his downfall. Gould's error was that he presented Morton as a good example of unconscious bias. In reality Morton's writings show that his bias was quite overt. Gould might have found that out, but Gould only spent two weeks researching Morton. Gould should have done his homework, but because he was a celebrity, no body told him to do that. Who is to blame: Gould or all the editors and people who never questioned him? Indeed, there is a lot of blame to go around. Hope this helps.
John S. Michael.
Hi John, thank you for commenting.
DeleteI agree that it's important to not regard Gould as any kind of revolutionary, although he did contribute a great amount of research and data to his field. In the era we're living in there's plenty of research besides Gould that we can refer to; Gould was simply the one to articulate it in the best manner. He was an easy read, and he wasn't afraid to say what was on his mind, and I think that's part of the reason he became so popular in the first place. Regarding Lewis et al., I still disagree that they got it right. Gould didn't screw up a few times, and in fact he readily admitted to these faults. For example, his false measurement of the Caucasian cranial capacity (corrected in the 1996 edition of his book):
"My original report (Gould, 1978) incorrectly listed the modern Caucasian mean as 85.3. The reason for this error is embarrassing, but instructive, for it illustrates, at my expense, the cardinal principal of this book: the social embeddedness of science and the frequent grafting of expectation upon supposed objectivity. Line 7 in Table 2.3 lists the range of Semitic skulls as 84 to 98 cubic inches for Morton's sample of 3. However my original paper cited a mean of 80 - an obvious impossibility if the smallest skull measures 84. I was working from a Xerox of Morton's original chart, and his correct value of 89 is smudged to look like an 80 on my copy. Nonetheless, the range of 84 to 98 is clearly indicated right alongside, and I never saw the inconsistency - presumably because a low value of 80 fit my hopes for a depressed Caucasian mean. The 80 therefore "felt" right and I never checked it."
Gould did push himself too hard, but I don't think his analysis of Morton was a good example of this. I stand by the statements I made in my post.
I did this as a mailbag post because other readers/commenters have criticized by refutation of race as a human taxonomy in other posts on this blog. Thus my being "hung up" on the percentages was simply a response to comments and emails I had received. I've slowly moved away from this topic, however, in recent months. I just thought it was important to mention that because I agree with you, but using the argument you just displayed has not been proven satisfactory to others.
To me, since I still think Lewis et al. got it wrong concerning Gould, the only fault I can come up with is of the researchers. In my experiences, re-analyses of previously published research or literature is suspect, and usually notes that someone has an axe to grind. I'll take Gould's route and say that this was probably not overt, since nothing that Lewis et al. said was so egregious that it shows they were just desperate to prove him wrong. Instead, I think it was an underlying bias (such as, as I mentioned in the post, preserving the good name of the skull display at the University of Pennsylvania). Even in response to dissent over this very study, Janet's reactions seem to be very defensive when it comes to that display. In fact, all of the researchers seemed hostile in response to honest dissent. It was concerning for a study that got such heavy coverage in the academic world.
Your comment definitely helped, but not concerning this particular point of discussion. It gave me something to look at concerning Gould's other works, since I'm a fan. He seems about as scatterbrained as me at times, and I always wondered if that was just his style of writing or something else.
Thank you for your input!