Re: Australia and brains...
Harry Erwin (herwin@gmu.edu)
Sat, 07 Oct 1995 17:24:39 -0400
In article <rodhagen-0510950947520001@dialup-a31.mel.netspace.net.au>,
rodhagen@netspace.net.au (Rod Hagen) wrote:
> -----trimmed
>
> People involved in this thread would be well advised to proceed with some
> caution. Australian Aboriginal cranial capacities show a similar range of
> sizes / body weight ratios to those of all other "modern" human beings.
> Quoting outlying figures is dangerous in most disciplines, but
> particularly so when issues of racial difference are involved.
>
Amen. There is a great deal of overlap between the range of cranial
capacities seen in modern populations and those seen in archaic H. sapiens
and H. erectus. We should be very careful to avoid drawing conclusions
based on outliers, especially when they are known not to be significant in
terms of behavior, culture, or real-world intelligence.
--
Harry Erwin
Internet: herwin@gmu.edu
Home Page: http://osf1.gmu.edu/~herwin (try again if necessary)
PhD student in comp neurosci: "Glitches happen" & "Meaning is emotional"
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