Bias: Women's Brains

1. What is the general point that Gould is presenting?
That the scientist Broca is being biased in his test to see who’s brain is bigger: male or female.

2. What is the general evidence on which that conclusion is based?
He chose the “test monkeys” in favor of the male gender.

3. What is the gender of all the researchers producing those data and conclusions?
Mostly all of the researchers are males except for one female.

4. What weaknesses or problems with those data and their interpretation does Gould point out? Well, Broca gave the advantage to the males because he chose the taller and younger males while choosing the shorter and older women for the other side.


5. a) Name the one woman anthropologist mentioned who studied the subject of this essay. b) What did she find after proper correction of Broca's data? c) What were her conclusions from that finding?
a)Maria Montessori
b)She found that that the female’s brain was slightly bigger than the male’s.
c)Her conclusions were that women were “intellectually superior, but men had prevailed heretofore by dint of physical force.”


6. What conclusion does Gould reach about the central issue?
He says that he would rather label it “irrelevant and highly injurious.”

7. Make a general statement about the role of bias and assumptions in the collecting, processing, and interpretation of data in scientific studies.
If you want your studies to succeed so badly that sometimes it ruins everything because you collect data, process data, and interpret data only the way YOU want it.

8. What other kinds of bias can you think of that might influence observations and interpretations in science?
If it was a discovery that could be made and you would get money and fame, some people would be very tempted and consider it if not actually doing it.

9. Describe your initial feelings (about the subject, the author, etc.) after reading the first 4 pages.
I feel respect for the author because he states only the facts and he hasn’t taken a side or made it something personal instead of a science matter.

10. Describe your feeling after finishing the entire article.
Like said before I feel respect for the author for not taking a side and keeping it a science matter, and not taking it to a personal level, while Broca and Montessori were biased about it and actually let science do the work.