The Morton-Gould Controversy

Speaking of Race · Morton-Tiedemann-Gould

In this episode we talk with Paul Wolff Mitchell, of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, about the skull measurements of 19th century founding father of the American School of Anthropology, Samuel George Morton. Morton used his skull measurements to provide scientific support for polygenism (multiple origins of human races), slavery, and the ranking of races (as we discussed in earlier episodes: Monogenism and Polygenism and Morton and Gould--Polygeny Side B). Mitchell has analyzed Morton’s handwritten notes in an attempt to shed further light on the issue of Morton’s bias which was initially raised by Stephen Jay Gould in his 1978 article (Gould, 1978) and elaborated in his book, The Mismeasure of Man (Gould, 1981, 1996). Mitchell uses Morton’s contemporary, Friedrich Tiedemann, as an exemplar of someone using cranial measurements to come to the exact opposite conclusion, that the races were equal (Tiedemann, 1836).
 
Here are some resources about this controversy:
 
Publications by Mitchell:

• Mitchell, P. W. (2018). The fault in his seeds: Lost notes to the case of bias in Samuel George Morton’s cranial race science. Plos Biology, 16(10), e2007008.
• Mitchell, P. W., & Michael, J. S. (2019). Bias, Brains, and Skulls: Tracing the Legacy of Scientific Racism in the Nineteenth-Century Works of Samuel George Morton and Friedrich Tiedemann. In E. August, B. R. Furrow, K. Richter, K. K. Thomason, D. Costello, J. S. Michael, P. W. Mitchell, & U. Bettray (Eds.), Embodied Difference: Divergent Bodies in Public Discourse (pp. 77-98). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.

 
Gould’s paper and book:

• Gould, S. J. (1978). Morton's ranking of races by cranial capacity. Unconscious manipulation of data may be a scientific norm. Science, 200(4341), 503-509. doi:10.1126/science.347573
• Gould, S. J. (1981). The mismeasure of man. New York: WW Norton.
• Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man (Revised and Expanded ed.): WW Norton & Company.

Other reconsiderations of the Morton and Gould argument:

• Kaplan, J. M., Pigliucci, M., & Banta, J. A. (2015). Gould on Morton, Redux: What can the debate reveal about the limits of data? Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 52, 22-31. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.01.001
• Lewis, J. E., DeGusta, D., Meyer, M. R., Monge, J. M., Mann, A. E., & Holloway, R. L. (2011). The mismeasure of science: Stephen Jay Gould versus Samuel George Morton on skulls and bias. PLoS Biol, 9(6), e1001071.
• Michael, J. S. (1988). A New Look at Morton's Craniological Research. Current Anthropology, 29(2), 349-354. doi:10.1086/203646
• Michael, J. S. (2012, June 14, 2013). Personal Commentary on Morton & Gould Part 1.  Retrieved from http://michael1988.com/?page_id=424
• Weisberg, M. (2014). Remeasuring man. Evolution & Development, 16(3), 166-178. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/ede.12077

 
Morton’s work:

• Morton, S. G. (1844). Crania Aegyptiaca: or, Observations on Egyptian ethnography, derived from anatomy, history, and the monuments (Vol. 9): J. Pennington.
• Morton, S. G. (1849). Catalogue of Skulls of Man and the Inferior Animals, in the Collection of Samuel George Morton: Merrihew & Thompson, printers.
• Morton, S. G., & Combe, G. (1839). Crania Americana; or, a comparative view of the skulls of various aboriginal nations of North and South America: to which is prefixed an essay on the varieties of the human species: Philadelphia: J. Dobson; London: Simpkin, Marshall.

 
Tiedemann on skulls:

• Tiedemann, F. (1836). XXIII. On the Brain of the Negro, Compared with That of the European and the Orang-Outang. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London(126), 497-527.

 
Our episode about Thugee Skulls and phrenology: Phrenology, Race, and Thug Heads