Measuring Heads Summary and Analysis

During the latter nineteenth century, science became fascinated with number and science began to generate reliable numbers in many different areas. Several names are notable from this period. One such name is Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin. Galton wrote Hereditary Genius in 1869 and this was his major work. He had a display at the International Exposition of 1884 where he measured people's skulls and gave them his results on his measure of their intelligence.

Another investigator into craniometry was Robert Bennett Bean, a Virginia physician. Bean compared the brains of blacks and whites to prove his view of the inferiority of blacks. Bean gathered data on the corpus callosum and claims that higher mental functions were performed by the front of the brain and motor functions were done by the back of the brain. Due to this, Bean...