A Story of Skulls and Bias
Facing a problem, a questioning or uncertainty, men always found great teaching in history. Hence, this interesting and controversial episode in the history of Science this article wishes to narrate. The first character of today’s tale is called Samuel George Morton. This natural scientist, issued from a 18th century Pennsylvanian colony of quakers, wrote between 1839 and 1849 his three volumes of Crania Americana. As this title suggests, its work focused on measuring size of skulls from people of America. It earned him a grim reputation, as it remained in memories as an attempt to prove that Caucasian having larger skulls, they were intellectually superior to other humans. A first shade of truth manipulation could be noted here, as a slight further investigation on Crania Americana reveals the objective of Morton was in reality to prove there were several different human species, and not just one. Just as wrong as the previous assumption, but carrying a different type of message. ...
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