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Authors: Stephen Johnston
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according to the researcher had brain sizes in the
middle"
"The response was immediate and intense. The media vilified him, and community figures demanded he be fired from the university. Protesters picketed with
signs and burned him in effigy."
"Now, remember that I am not arguing with specific beliefs that you or anyone else may have. I am looking at the process by which you and others arrive at
those beliefs. I have no idea if the design of his experiment was flawed or the data falsified or corrupted in some way, or if he was just an out-and-out
racist, lying about the results for his own motives. I also don't know if he was correct or not. I never checked the data, and nobody else seemed to
either."
"Nobody that I saw in the media bothered to look at the study that was done and assess it. Was it a well-designed study? Was subject selection skewed in
some way, or was it a totally valid study? As far as I know, nobody that appeared in the media coverage related to this news ever asked or checked."
"There was an intense emotional response which labeled him a racist, but nobody checked the validity of the results. No checking of facts, only an
automatic assumption he is wrong and a racist. One thing I did find interesting was that if it was just lies from a racist, it seemed strange that he was
Caucasian and his results did not have his race as having the largest brain size."
"Many of you are now labeling me as being a racist based on my even raising the possibility that he may have been correct. Again, I stress; I am not
arguing for any particular belief, merely looking at the process. The process for most people in this example seems to have been an absolute denial without
assessing any further. This sounds at least a bit like our previously discussed process of the brain assigning a mental construct and then resisting any
other conflicting data."
"The main difference is that the resistance includes a strong emotional response. Raising the mere possibility that it should be questioned is resisted
violently. The researcher made comments that could be due to him being racist and the mental construct is assigned, and that is the end of it."
"This is the flip side of racism or prejudice. Sometimes it is referred to as a form of political correctness. It is two sides of the same coin. Either
way, it is assigning labels and making decisions that are not based on fact but on pre-held assumptions."
"Let me give another example that may help clarify my point that this is a barrier to reality. I give my apologies in advance to anybody from the South.
How many of you have ever seen or heard of a stereotype of the lazy Southern redneck? They are often portrayed in cartoons, comics, and movies, as having
scrawny necks, sallow skin, protruding bellies, being mentally slow and having a general laziness or shiftlessness. This is an example of a prejudicial
stereotype. It got its beginning during the period of the civil war and immediately after. Interestingly, the description of mentally slow and having a
general laziness or shiftlessness was often applied to Blacks as well, most of whom lived in the Southern states during that time period."
"It would be easy and understandable to assign these descriptions the mental constructs of prejudice and racism. However, you would be only partially
correct. If you applied those labels and refused to consider all the information you would miss the fact that it was true. There were thousands of
individuals in the South that had the characteristics I mentioned, including the mental slowness.
"Once the label of racism is applied to the description, you deny any truth to the observations and miss the fact that it was due to a medical condition
that was extremely prevalent in the Southern States at that time. Infection of the human population by a parasite called hookworm was endemic. Many
thousands of people in the South were infected.”
“The parasite inhabits the soil
middle"
"The response was immediate and intense. The media vilified him, and community figures demanded he be fired from the university. Protesters picketed with
signs and burned him in effigy."
"Now, remember that I am not arguing with specific beliefs that you or anyone else may have. I am looking at the process by which you and others arrive at
those beliefs. I have no idea if the design of his experiment was flawed or the data falsified or corrupted in some way, or if he was just an out-and-out
racist, lying about the results for his own motives. I also don't know if he was correct or not. I never checked the data, and nobody else seemed to
either."
"Nobody that I saw in the media bothered to look at the study that was done and assess it. Was it a well-designed study? Was subject selection skewed in
some way, or was it a totally valid study? As far as I know, nobody that appeared in the media coverage related to this news ever asked or checked."
"There was an intense emotional response which labeled him a racist, but nobody checked the validity of the results. No checking of facts, only an
automatic assumption he is wrong and a racist. One thing I did find interesting was that if it was just lies from a racist, it seemed strange that he was
Caucasian and his results did not have his race as having the largest brain size."
"Many of you are now labeling me as being a racist based on my even raising the possibility that he may have been correct. Again, I stress; I am not
arguing for any particular belief, merely looking at the process. The process for most people in this example seems to have been an absolute denial without
assessing any further. This sounds at least a bit like our previously discussed process of the brain assigning a mental construct and then resisting any
other conflicting data."
"The main difference is that the resistance includes a strong emotional response. Raising the mere possibility that it should be questioned is resisted
violently. The researcher made comments that could be due to him being racist and the mental construct is assigned, and that is the end of it."
"This is the flip side of racism or prejudice. Sometimes it is referred to as a form of political correctness. It is two sides of the same coin. Either
way, it is assigning labels and making decisions that are not based on fact but on pre-held assumptions."
"Let me give another example that may help clarify my point that this is a barrier to reality. I give my apologies in advance to anybody from the South.
How many of you have ever seen or heard of a stereotype of the lazy Southern redneck? They are often portrayed in cartoons, comics, and movies, as having
scrawny necks, sallow skin, protruding bellies, being mentally slow and having a general laziness or shiftlessness. This is an example of a prejudicial
stereotype. It got its beginning during the period of the civil war and immediately after. Interestingly, the description of mentally slow and having a
general laziness or shiftlessness was often applied to Blacks as well, most of whom lived in the Southern states during that time period."
"It would be easy and understandable to assign these descriptions the mental constructs of prejudice and racism. However, you would be only partially
correct. If you applied those labels and refused to consider all the information you would miss the fact that it was true. There were thousands of
individuals in the South that had the characteristics I mentioned, including the mental slowness.
"Once the label of racism is applied to the description, you deny any truth to the observations and miss the fact that it was due to a medical condition
that was extremely prevalent in the Southern States at that time. Infection of the human population by a parasite called hookworm was endemic. Many
thousands of people in the South were infected.”
“The parasite inhabits the soil
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