Most of the time the manipulation was pretty intentional.

Consider the question ‘Is Pluto a planet?’ for example. The first thing to note is that there is no disagreement over any observable fact of the world here. The only thing in question is how to deploy language to talk about those facts of the world. The definitions we choose should depend on utility rather than some Platonist vision of truth. In that sense even planets are social constructs that depend on how we want to deploy language. Despite that there is a real pattern of fact out there that we are trying to capture with words.

Any definition of race is going to run into many problems that greatly reduce its utility. It also carries a great deal of baggage that isn’t helpful and make it more problematic than a bad definition of planet. So I fully support dropping the idea of race as useful but phrasing it as a question about ontological absolutes really triggers my anti-Platonism gene.

So yeah, I’m really just talking about language usage here as well.

And, of course, since Gould’s time, modern genetics has finished debunking the last slim possibility that races might be real things. It turns out that they’re no more useful, biologically, than dividing people up by the length of their armpit hair or the width of their knees.

Actually, there is pretty good evidence that decouples brain volume/mass from intelligence in humans. The available data are not particularly suggestive of any kind of reliable relationship.

But, most people don’t go to that conclusion right away. They stick with the bigger brain = smarter individual until they discover that they are not a member of a population with the largest brains!

Your alternative comparison thought experiment is very good.

There is no sufficient evidence to suggest a person born with a larger brain is smarter than a person born with a smaller brain. Nor is there sufficient evidence to show that a larger brain means more neurons. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that suggests both of those assumptions are wrong (I will post a couple links in the next paragraph).

Before going into the science, first think about how absurd it would be to claim that a larger brain causes more kindness, humor, shyness, hearing, better long term memory, or tasting ability. Then imagine some plausible explanations as to why someone would like to believe that a bigger brain causes more intelligence.

I

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/592325