> Agreed, but I think the parallel with phrenology should be undestood more along the lines of "providing a justification for unfair decisions". I think we can

> Agreed, but I think the parallel with phrenology should be undestood more along the lines of "providing a justification for unfair decisions". I think we cannot discount the degree to which ideology played a part BOTH in the promotion AND rejection of phrenology. And when the racist ideologies eventually became taboo, anti racist ideology won. If we consider the actual science, it was probably highly tainted by a desire to show that certain human lineages were superior to others. But there DOES appear to be a correlation between brain volume and IQ. When controlling for "race", this correlation is typically reported at 0.3-0.4, meaning brain volume accounts for 9-16% of the variance. However, if we reject "race" as a social construct, and include people of all "races" in our analysis, the correlation goes up to about 0.6, or 36% of the variance [1]. [1] https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2023/03/modern-neuroscience-confirms-race-differences-in-brain-size-and-functioning/ https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2023/03/modern-neuroscience-con...