This is a joint blog post by two W.W. Norton & Co. authors (and pals): Beth Morling and Jess Hartnett.  We first “met” through our blogs and social media years ago (Beth's blog on teaching RM, which you are reading now, and Jess's blog on teaching stats, notawfulandboring, here). Our friendship love language is DMing each other with ideas for the other’s blog posts. Recently, we thought of each other when we came across a story out of New Orleans. It illustrates how it is never too late for science to self-correct; in this case, to atone for human rights violations.

New Orleans mayor LaToya Cantrell speaks at the memorial service honoring the people whose remains were returned. Photo Courtesy Jacob Cochran/Dillard University

In the 1880s, the skulls of 19 African Americans, all of whom had died in a New Orleans hospital, were sent to a researcher in Germany. Recently, they were returned to New Orleans, LA. This story was covered by New Orleans NPR affiliate WWNO:

“Last weekend, Dillard University held a memorial service and jazz funeral to honor 19 Black New Orleanians whose skulls were wrongfully taken from Charity Hospital and sent to Germany in the 1880s.

The ceremony shed light on the legacy of racist pseudoscience. Dr. Henry Schmidt, a New Orleans physician, is believed to have given the skulls to a German researcher studying phrenology, a discredited pseudoscience that falsely claimed skull shape could determine racial characteristics.”

Presumably, Schmidt’s study was being conducted in a tradition of race “science.” During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many psychologists attempted to argue that brain mass, skull shapes, and cognitive ability are superior in Whites (for psychological reviews see Thomas et al, 2023;  Winston, 2020). 

Here is a link to the NPR article, as well as a link to Dillard University’s information about the repatriation of the remains.

Beth and Jess came up with three ideas for using this example in statistics and research methods classes. 

1. Use the story to teach ethics (Chapters 4 and 14 in Beth’s book).
   This use of Black Americans’ skulls in research would be a strong introduction to research ethics. A good place to start would be to help students review and apply the Three Core Principles (in the U.S, these are known as the Belmont Principles). Specifically, after reading the synopsis, students could tackle the following questions:
   
   a) The principle of Respect for Persons refers to the intrinsic worth and dignity of all people. 
   i) Come up with two questions you could ask about the study to decide the extent to which the 1870 Leipzig study (which collected skulls from around the world, not just New Orleans) might have met or violated this principle.
   ii) The principle of Respect for Persons specifically obligates researchers to obtain informed consent from research participants. Based on your reading of this story, do we have enough information to know if the Black Americans whose skulls were part of this study gave their consent? What would you want to know?
   
   b) The principle of Concern for Welfare, or Beneficence, directs researchers to maximize benefits to people and protect them from harm. It addresses people’s quality of life, including health, privacy, and community membership. This principle also asks people to consider the social importance of the research question.  The Canadian ethics code specifically includes the protection of human “biological materials” here. What aspects of the Leipzig study, if any, met this principle? Which did not?
   
   c) The principle of Justice is concerned with societal fairness, including whether one social group bears a disproportionate burden of research participation. What aspects of the Leipzig study, if any, met this principle? Which did not? (Hint: You might consider signs that the researchers took advantage of low-income Black Americans specifically.)

   d) The Three Core Principles are a valuable framework for analyzing whether a study was conducted ethically. But they might not address one of the most egregious issues. Specifically, the Principles don’t seem to capture the racist intent of the original research question. Or do they? Where in the Three Core Principles might we address whether a study is being conducted in good faith?
   (In Beth’s book (Chapter 14) you can read about additional examples of racist research questions.) 

2. Use the story to teach the scientific method (Chapters 1 and 2 in Beth’s book, Chapter 5 in Jess's book).
   Consider this quote from an interview with Dillard University history professor Dr. Eva Baham: “I often reference Thomas Jefferson, who also looked at skulls to determine personality, to determine intellect. There was no hypothesis. There was a conclusion first. And then the research was done to prove themselves right.”
   
   f) Reflect on the quote from Dr. Baham and reread about Merton’s scientific norms in Chapter 1 (Morling, Table 1.1). Which scientific norms is Baham's quote addressing?
   
   g) Look up a couple of definitions of the term pseudoscience. Is Dr. Baham suggesting that the Leipzig study was pseudoscience? Make some connections between the two. 

   h) In this quote, Baham seems to be accusing Thomas Jefferson of confirmation bias (Morling, Chapter 2). Why?

   i) How does this quote apply to the logic behind Null Hypothesis Significance Testing (NHST, covered in Chapter 5 of Jess’s book)? How does Thomas Jefferson’s logic (described by Baham) run counter to NHST’s emphasis on providing evidence to reject the null hypothesis? Specifically, does it seem like Jefferson was concerned with rejecting the null, or proving the alternative?   (Bonus: How does the NHST process help prevent confirmation bias?)

3. Use the story to address self-correction–at multiple levels. How does science correct itself? (Chapter 14 in Beth's book, Chapter 6 in Jess's book)
   When we think about self-correction in science, we typically think of changes in the standards surrounding research methodology and statistics. Self-correction has led to new practices such as research pre-registration, transparent data sharing, and reporting effect sizes alongside p-values (Hartnett, Chapter 6).

   The story of Dillard University is a unique approach to self-correcting science because it extends it to ethics. Certainly, the scientific community has long repudiated the phrenology/eugenics research for which the skulls were used. But Dillard University took correction a step further by respectfully handling the remains used in this “research”. Read the NPR piece and visit the Dillard website to learn more about all of the work that went into the repatriation. How did Dillard try to restore dignity to the people whose remains were used without their consent?  

Are you planning to try one of these teaching ideas in your class? Let us know how it goes!