Differences between a persons head size and their intelligence - Assignment Example

Download file to see previous pages The researcher states that one of the primary assertions of Broca’s research is that ‘eminent’ men have significantly greater brain size than their ‘mediocre’ counterparts. The elucidation of the claim with data on Bostonian criminals from differing vocations articulated Broca’s argument that a person’s intelligence had a direct relation to the person’s brain size. Data on brain sizes with factorial categorizations on vocational backgrounds of the persons under study gave the impression that brain size and intelligence bear a relationship. The observation stirred considerable interest among researchers, who sought to establish how the human intelligence researchers had successfully pushed the possibility to the periphery in favor of intelligence tests. However, statistical tools, and in particular one-way ANOVA, which is a handy statistical tool for comparison of means and determining interrelations between data values, the data might lead to a different conclusion. Through tentative statistical analysis on the data purporting to illustrate Broca’s claim of brain correlation to intelligence, a number of importance issues come to notice. Firstly, what the researcher labels as standard deviation is in fact standard error, which are two different terms, and have differing impacts on the test of hypothesis for Broca’s argument. Secondly, it becomes apparent that there was omission of some groups from the final data, which may completely reverse the findings of the study. (Gould, 1981). Finally, the listing of the data items suggests suspicious agenda, as it might very well lead a statistical analysis to lead to the acceptance of a contrary ...Download file to see next pagesRead More