September 24, 2007

JUST ONE MORE THING THE LITTLE HEAD PEOPLE HADN'T FIGURED OUT:

Head Size and IQ: Is There a Link? (Jennifer Viegas, Sept. 24, 2007, Discovery News)

Big-headed people could be brainier too, according to a new analysis of a 1939 study comparing head size and intelligence in a group of male prisoners.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 24, 2007 12:02 AM
Comments

In "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle", Sherlock Holmes is presented a hat and quickly deduces several things about its owner, including that he is intelligent. When Watson asks him how he could know that:

'...For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. "It is a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a brain must have something in it."...'

Posted by: Just John at September 24, 2007 3:40 PM

Everybody knows it's facial angle, not cranial capacity.

Posted by: Lou Gots at September 24, 2007 4:11 PM

The reason they are revisiting 1939 data is because they'd be joining Larry Summers as unpersons if they tried to collect any phrenological data today.

Posted by: Raoul Ortega at September 24, 2007 9:21 PM

As a man who must special-order baseball caps, I find this study entirely convincing.

Posted by: Mike Earl at September 25, 2007 10:46 AM
« IF THERE'S ONE THING WE KNOW ABOUT DEMOCRACY...: | Main | SAMPLE BEFORE BUYING: »