Shoud authors who claim that I Q is a function of brain size be cited in GD Primaries [View all]

[DemocratSinceBirth]

"Why don't they kill us?" asks Calvin Candie, the southern slave owner in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. He wants to know why the African slaves he brutalises do not rise up and take revenge. Before long, he has the skull of a recently deceased slave on the dinner table. "The science of phrenology," he announces, "is crucial to understanding the separation of our two species." He hacks away at the back of the skull with a saw, removing a section of the cranium and pointing to an allegedly enlarged area. In African slaves, Candie claims, this bump is found in the region of the brain associated with "submissiveness".

For Candie, phrenology not only explained slavery, it justified it.

Needless to say, phrenology has now been thoroughly debunked: the idea that the shape of the skull can be used to infer mental characteristics is just plain wrong. But it was extremely popular all over the world during the 19th century, finding converts among reform-minded Bengalis in Kolkata, India, and colonial settlers in Australia. As part of my research into the global history of phrenology, I came across the real-life Calvin Candie.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2013/feb/05/django-unchained-racist-science-phrenology

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