Science of racism
This is not the best-known book by Stephen Jay Gould. However, the book The Wrong Measurement of Man analyzes a very interesting topic. It mentions in the base the scientific technique or method used to justify racism. Klasikoak has published an edition in Basque, translated by Oihane Lakar of the Elhuyar Foundation.
In the title it refers to man, not man, because these investigations were done only with men. Women were not even considered. The term wrong measure indicates the pseudoscientific methods used to justify racism.
Gould takes a chronological tour. It begins with the case of Paul Broka. XIX. In the eighteenth century Broka began to measure the minds of men, equating the size of the head with intelligence. Greater head or brain, smarter was man. To do this, in addition to measuring the skull diameters, he filled the skulls of the dead with bullets and weighed them. According to Goulda, the scientists who made these measurements, unintentionally but driven by prejudice, made fraud by measuring them. In male skulls of undervalued races the bullets were not very compact (for example, in blacks). Other times more emphasis was placed on introducing the largest number of bullets (e.g., blank).
Gould also analyses the case of the authors of the test to measure the IQ coefficient. It was created by the French physiologist Alfred Binet, at the behest of the American government. They needed to identify children with special problems in schools. Binet prepared a test to measure the child's intrinsic capabilities. This test did not measure what was learned in classes. But over time they used the test to allow immigrants to enter the United States. Gould is very critical of it; on the border they took a person who has traveled for twelve hours, released it and tested it. Many did not know English, or never had a pencil in their hands. And they used the test result to argue that many immigrants were unintelligent and did not allow entry into the United States.
At the end of the book, as an annex, there are four attempts on the subject. The first is the last text written by Gould in this regard: Criticizes the use of the Gauss bell curve. In the other three he analyzes the conception of racism for three centuries, XVII. XVIII. and XIX. of centuries. They are outstanding works by a great disseminator, like the rest of the texts that compose the book.
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