Didn't we already try the theories of "differing brain size means <insert_gender,race,etc_here>" in the past? Any time I hear "fMRI" I feel a hidden tinge of Ph

Didn't we already try the theories of "differing brain size means <insert_gender,race,etc_here>" in the past? Any time I hear "fMRI" I feel a hidden tinge of Phrenology trying to pull itself back from the grave of pseudoscience. In this article I started to wonder here: As might be expected, more educated families produced children with greater brain surface area and a more voluminous hippocampus. But income had its own distinct effect: living in the lowest bracket left children with up to six per cent less brain surface area than children from high-income families. "As might be expected"? Meaning we naturally expect a difference in any form of the brain to give merit and reason to any argument toward difference. I fully support the idea that scarcity and other social environment issues create toxic effect on human development. However, I'm first curious if the statistical variance of research referenced in the article merits the tone of the article, and secondly where if at all does the size of this or that part of the brain provide less muddied proofs. I think basing important arguments on risky science (bordering pseudo-science in some applications) is counter-productive. Actually, unless a large statistical variance is shown, the argument of surface amount or size of hippocampus is absolute hogwash. You might as well say women are paid % less per $ then men because the size of their brain is % less. Related: "Seduction without cause: uncovering explanatory neurophilia" [1] "The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations" [2] "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon: An argument for multiple comparisons correction" [3] 1. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661308001563 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661308... 2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778755/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2778755/ 3. http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf http://prefrontal.org/files/posters/Bennett-Salmon-2009.pdf