The Failure Of Man Stephen Gould Summary

People with different backgrounds often interpret the same thing in different ways. For example, a child might consider a zoo to be an attraction while a biologist might see it as a research facility. Similarly, Charles Goodwin “Professional Vision” examines how professional scrutiny onto a subject in the domain of a profession will change the way that subject is viewed. On another note, Stephen Gould asserts in “The Mismeasure of Man” that scientific theories are a subjective interpretation of hard facts. In this paper, I argue that those with authority interpret factual information in a subjective way that aligns with their vision and satisfies their own objectives. Goodwin starts off by defining professional vision and the ways in which
However, he goes on to argue that “Numbers suggest, constrain, and refute; they do not, by themselves, specify the content of scientific theories” (106). By this he means that although data are objective, the scientists’ interpretations and conclusions are determined by the scientists themselves, who as humans are naturally subjective. Gould centers his argument on craniometry, the practice of measuring skulls, and at one point focuses on Robert Bean, a scientist who found that the brain’s genu was consistently bigger for whites than for blacks. Yet, Bean only used data that agreed with his assumption that whites were more intelligent than blacks, casually disregarding any other invaluable measurements that would prove his point wrong and any faults in his data or reasoning. This selectivity in data implies that Bean had wanted a specific result from the start, intentionally manipulating numbers to achieve his conclusion. Although experiments like these are poorly executed, the authority given to numbers and scientists still make them valid to the public’s eye. Conclusion are not objective; rather, they are created by manipulating hard data in subjective