crazyfingers

<a href="http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/149/oped/Gould_s_battle_against_racism+.shtml" target="_blank">Gould's battle against racism</a>

seebs

This was not my favorite part of the man's career; while I agree with his goals, I think that _The Mismeasure of Man_ was an *AWFUL* book; he clearly knew in advance what result he would accept, and applied filters to his interpretation of data in a way that would have done credit to creation science. It's sad; he was a brilliant man, and if he'd been able to face the hard part of the issue, he might have been one of the few people who could have approached the issue in a helpful way.

Essentially, the entire point of _Mismeasure_ was to support anti-racist beliefs; while the intent was noble, I think the end result was a disaster.

RufusAtticus

Yes, Gould did have problems sometimes separating his politics from his science.

Duvenoy

True enough. But do we all not have our pet predjudices? And do these not occasionally show up in our endevors? I know mine do, often intentionally. Just get me started on rattlesnake roundups or venomoids........

I do not think that "The Mismeasure of Man" at all detracts from Gould's stature. The man must be judged upon his whole life rather than a mere portion of it. His life was magnifiect.

d

seebs

I think it detracts from his stature significantly, having done a substantial amount of damage to a very interesting field of research.

As a result, I am hesitant to consider Gould anything above one of the great scientific minds of the century.