1. What is the general point that Gould is presenting?
The general point that Gould is presenting is that no race or gender is intellectually superior to another.
2. What is the general evidence on that which the conclusion is based?
The general evidence is that the smarter pupils, which could have been an equal mix of males and females, had larger brains than those that were not as gifted.
3. What is the gender of all the researchers producing those data and conclusions?
All those that concluded that men were smarter were males, and those those that said women were smarter were women. This raises the question on whether or not these people were biased.
4. What weaknesses or problems with those data and their interpretation does Gould point out?
In Broca's study, he used older more deteriorated female brains, and younger, healthier male brains.
5. a) Name the one woman anthropologist mentioned who studied the subject of this essay. b) What did she find after proper correction of Broca's data? c) What were her conclusions from that finding?
a) Maria Montessori b) Montessori measured her students' brains. c)She found that women's brains were larger than men's.
6. What conclusion does Gould reach about the central issue?
Gould concluded that no race or gender is intellectually superior to another.
7. Make a general statement about the role of bias and assumptions in the collecting, processing, and interpretation of data in scientific studies.
Having a bias as a scientist can give yourself a bad name because you could really be misleading the audience.
8. What other kinds of bias can you think of that might influence observations and interpretations in science?
I can think of gender bias, research bias, and experiment bias.
9. Describe your initial feelings (about the subject, the author, etc.) after reading the first 4 pages.
I was thinking that Gould was bias for men.
10. Describe your feeling after finishing the entire article.
My position on the issue is the same as before I read this article, that no race or gender is intellectually superior to another. My feeling about this is that I read a good article and I learned something.
