Commenter pumpkinhead describes the above photo:
That is Jarron Collins, NBA player almost 7 foot(close to Shaq’s height albeit in a more slender frame probably smaller head). Note that Oprah’s and Jarron’s heads are on roughly the same plane equidistant from the camera, which makes this a good photo for comparison. Compare head width, he has over an inch on her and I would be willing to wager that his brain is at least a couple of SD bigger than hers and I doubt he even gets close to the 2000 cc mark. Now Imagine his head on Oprah’s body, would that not be freakishly big? That is how big her head would have to look on her body for her to have a brain close to being as big as you suggest. Trust me 1740 cc is generous and after all, astonishingly big(bigger than 99.9% of white men).
Jarron’s head only looks wider because he’s standing on an angle, allowing us to see both the side and front of his head. Oprah is looking at the camera straight on.
But as a seven footer, Jarron is probably more extreme in head height than head breadth and yet when I put my ruler against the computer screen to measure the distance from their eye brow to their hair line, they both clock in at just under 1.5 cm.
So not only does Oprah have a cranium height that is comparable to a seven foot black man, but her cranium length may exceeds an average black man’s by 30% and that percentage multiplies when you consider that cranial capacity is a cubic variable.
Having said that, I’m sure there are some black men out there with bigger brains than Oprah, but back in the 1970s, when Oprah reached peak brain age and the well nourished population of the World was much smaller, there were far fewer and whatever few existed likely had much more muscle mass and height than she had at the time. In the early 1970s Oprah only weighed about 135 lbs, suggesting a fat-free body weight of only 95 lbs!
Arthur Jensen notes on page 439 of The g Factor:
Also, we must take into account the fact that, on average, about 30 percent of total adult female body weight is fat, as compared to 15 percent for males. Because body fat is much less innervated than muscle tissue, brain size is more highly correlated with fat-free body weight than total body weight. Statistically controlling for fat-free body weight (instead of total body weight) has been found to reduce the sex differences in head circumference by about 77 percent, or about three times as much as controlling for total body weight.
Adjusted for her 95 lb fat-free body size, Oprah was perhaps the biggest brained black on Earth (male or female) at least briefly during the 1970s. Several decades later she would become the World’s ONLY black billionaire (male or female) for several years.
Oprah rests her large cranial capacity on the shoulder of idol Marry Tyler Moore
Pumpkin Person 
Jarron Collin’s hairline height measures around 14 mm while Oprah’s measures 12-12.5 mm(it is glaringly obvious yet you failed to make the distinction). That is a difference of at least 1.5 mm. Considering the average human being has a head height of roughly 120 mm this gives us an image ratio of 10 to 1. In other words every 1 mm on the image corresponds to 10 mm in real life. This gives Jarron Collins at least a 15 mm advantage over Oprah in head height. Granted his head is slightly slanted but it is very easy to account for that and only a fool would not acknowledge that he has a wider head. Lets be conservative and say that it is merely 15 mm wider than hers. Inspecting other images of his head length one could try to work out how long it actually is.
Based on this image we can work out his CC based on the following information: His head is 1.65 times longer than it is tall. Assuming that Oprah’s head is 145 mm his head should be around 160 mm in height making his head length around 264 mm(If you aren’t sensing something wildly off at this point then you’re in for a rude awakening). For Oprah to have a CC on the level that you claim her head dimensions would need to be of the order of 235x165x145 = 2055 cc. Which means that Jarron Collin’s head dimensions would need to be 264x180x160 = 2553 cc. Even with a SD of 150 cc and an average of 1500cc(well above average for blacks) this puts him at 7.02 SD deviations above average making him one in a trillion.This is not only a statistical impossibility it is simply insane. So what do we do? Well we take another look at our scaling process to see where we went wrong. Who did we use for scaling? Oprah. What did we base our scaling on? A CC of ~2050 cc. Right well lets try again. Assuming Oprah has a more reasonable CC of 1740 cc(a generous figure based on careful examination of the correct images) we get 210x160x140 meaning that Jarron Collins goes to 255x175x155 = 2350 cc or 5.67 SD above average. This is a more feasible 1 in 136 million.
So in closing I have to say that you need to take another look at your figures. You have yet to use definitive proof that her head is indeed 25.25 in HC while your methodology is I’m sorry to say quite sloppy. It seems these are claims she has made with little to no corroboration and zero proof. You mentioned Spielberg anecdotally but no direct quote from him. But that is neither here nor there, I’m sorry to burst your bubble and the last thing I want to do is challenge your otherwise extremely interesting and reasonably robust work however your claims fly in the face of reason and the facts. Here are a couple more images that might persuade you otherwise.
Note a more reasonably placed ponytail as opposed to other times where she hair sprays it into position at least an inch past the back of her head.
Another image where she looks like your average large headed woman.
Jarron Collin’s hairline height measures around 14 mm while Oprah’s measures 12-12.5 mm(it is glaringly obvious yet you failed to make the distinction).
Oprah was closer to 13 mm imho.
Assuming Oprah has a more reasonable CC of 1740 cc(a generous figure based on careful examination of the correct images) we get 210x160x140 meaning that Jarron Collins goes to 255x175x155 = 2350 cc or 5.67 SD above average. This is a more feasible 1 in 136 million.
The main problem is you are dramatically underestimating Oprah’s head length & overestimating Jarron’s. Oprah has what’s known as an optical illusion head. Looks normal facing you, but is freakishly large in profile & this is especially common in blacks who have longer heads than whites despite smaller cranial capacity. In the photo with Ellen I showed last week, her head length was 123% as long despite equal distance from the camera and Oprah’s hair being pulled back super tight while Ellen’s hair was puffy. If we conservatively assume the brilliant Ellen has an average white female head length of 186 mm, that puts Oprah at 186(1.23)= 229 ml. So I’d say Oprah’s more like 229x160x140 which gives 1883 cc using Rushton’s formula (which is probably about 100 cc too conservative, though it’s conservative for everyone so we can still apply his stats).
I think that’s more likely than a decades long conspiracy between Oprah, the late Gene Siskel and the wig people on The Color Purple to exaggerate her head size where her hat size perfectly matches the diameter of her circumference. Also, 2 wigs being sewn together (which you can see for yourself if you watch the film) implies a cranial capacity about twice the size of at least a small headed woman (assuming they sewed two small wigs). The smallest cranium in Rushton’s army sample of 6000+ was a black woman with a 900 cc cranium, so that puts Oprah at over 1800 cc on Rushton’s scale.
You also put way too much faith in the Gaussian curve to tell you the precise probability of head sizes. Even in non-pathological cases, it’s just a statistical abstraction that is never perfectly observed in nature. I’m sure Yao Ming is way taller than the bell curve predicts any Chinese man should be. It’s a good rough and ready guide but the further you go to the extremes, the more it tends to be skewed in even healthy people.
Also, Oprah’s cranium looks double the size of this woman’s, despite no obvious hair or camera angle advantage. Even if the woman Oprah’s holding is only 900 cc on Rushton’s scale (homo erectus level), that puts Oprah at 1800+ cc
“Oprah has what’s known as an optical illusion head.”
Well I would suggest you take a look at the image below and ask yourself if you see any optical illusions. Do a simple geometric comparison, assume a head height(from the auricle to top of head) and work out her head length see if it even gets close to 23 cm.
I have outlined my reasoning, if you disagree with any of my calculations please point me to something along my line of reasoning that is off or incorrect.
As for her picture with Ellen, like I said you are not using the right sort of images. If you are going to compare people in the same image, you need to make sure that they are standing right next to each other on the same plane. Just look at what a couple of inches can do to Jarron Collin’s brother in that image with Oprah. His head looks significantly smaller than Jarron’s yet he is just as tall and in other images virtually identical to him.
I will say though that your criticism of my faith in Gaussian distribution is fair. It is not an exact science, I know, but that is not the only thing I am going by. We have documented records of where the absolute limits are with such things. What you are suggesting exceeds those limits by quite a bit.
As for the final image you posted I’m not sure if that is a woman or a little girl. Remarkable small head forget twice as big it looks more like 3 times as big. Something off about that image seems photo shopped or something. Couldn’t find it online.
It’s not a little girl, it’s the award winning British actress and song writer cynthia erivo (she would have been about 29 in that photo). I can assure you the picture isn’t photoshopped since I took it myself by pausing the TV and taking a photo of the screen. I blogged about it here where I include another photo I had taken.
https://pumpkinperson.com/2016/06/14/brain-size-ethnic-genetic-interests-at-70th-annual-tony-awards/
Here’s a picture of them that I didn’t take:
Oprah is 3% East Asian. Is that significant given her high IQ and large head.
No 3% is trivial & it’s probably Native American that geneticists have confused with East Asian since both are mongoloid
Cool, thanks for the info, I was half joking re the photo shopping(as in too ridiculous to be true) while I certainly wasn’t implying that you had done it. She is remarkably small headed and seemingly quite successful. Saw a couple of interviews, no obvious cognitive deficiencies though the scope of her conceptualizing was unimpressive however she more than made up for it in charm and likability. Goes to show that it’s not all about brain size, the brain is remarkably adaptable, with enough positivity one can figure out how to squeeze out the most out of their brain, while all too often we forget it’s not just about quantity, quality plays an important factor too. I imagine that other than her small head she has an incredibly healthy brain.
In any case saw a couple other images of them together and both have optical illusion heads, Oprah’s skewing upwards while her’s skewing downwards, under certain angles. That image you posted did not do her justice.
This might be a better image to compare the two:
In any case, it is glaringly obvious that they are clearly in the top and bottom 0.1% of the spectrum.
Native Americans and East Asians are distinct races. See Hardimon 2017 and Spencer 2014.
distinct is relative. not understanding that has long been your achilles heel.
“Native” Americans and East Asians/Mongoloids look nothing alike.
Even Edward Dutton, in his new book on Rushton, refutes the tri-race theory. He recognizes there are 5 races.
So if, according to you, Native Americans are Mongoloids, then Pacific Islanders (including Australian Aborigines, since they share deep ancestry with Pacific Islanders) are Negroid, right?
It depends whether you’re going by evolutionary taxonomy or cladistic nomenclature. Rushton claimed there were AT LEAST 3 races, not that there were necessarily only 3.
It’s based strictly on phenotype which corresponds to differences in geographic ancestry. Using this condition, they’re a separate race.
I agree there are at least three races, though you need to assume, as Rushton did, that PIs are Negroid and Native Americans are Mongoloids. (I don’t recall if Rushton assumed so; did he?)
Rushton was unsure if pacific islanders were Mongoloid or Caucasoid (negroid was not even considered), so he calculated his cranial capacity averages both ways. Not sure how he dealt with Australian aboriginals; some scientists have considered them “archaic Caucasoids”
P1) If Native Americans were East Asian/Mongoloid, then they would look East Asian/Mongoloid.
P2) Native Americans don’t look East Asian/Mongoloid, they have a distinct phenotype which corresponds to their geographic ancestry (See Hardimon’s minimalist/populationist race concepts).
C):Therefore, Native Americans are not East Asian/Mongoloid.
“Rushton was unsure if pacific islanders were Mongoloid or Caucasoid (negroid was not even considered)”
I need to reread his stuff on this. Do you have the reference?
Pacific Islanders do cluster more with Asians than Caucasians, but they’re clearly distinct (Spencer’s and Hardimon’s arguments establish this).
“some scientists have considered them [Australian Aborigines] “archaic Caucasoids””
Why? Skull size? I think that’s a ridiculous claim. They’re clearly a separate race from East Asians, sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians.
Either way, I don’t see a logical or empirical reason to accept the claim that Native Americans are East Asian/Mongoloid.
It’s in his book in the chapter on brain size where he discusses Morton & Gould’s averaging the brain sizes of different races.
Would you accept an article on this matter? I’ll be fair to both sides, of course. Spencer 2014 discusses discusses Tishkoff et al’s K = 5 run and how “Native” Americans clustered with “Mongoloids”, writing:
Hochman points out that when Tishkoff et al. (2009) added 134 ethnic groups to the 52 found in the HGDP sample, they discovered that the K = 5 partition of human populations consists of Caucasians, Mongoloids, and three distinct clusters of black Africans!14
14. By `Mongloids’ I mean `East Asians, Amerindians, and Oceanians’. pg 1034 in Spencer, 2014.
But, Tishkoff et al dramatically oversampled Africans in their K run.
I should be done writing this tonight if you’ll publish it.
(For reference, Spencer’s argument establishes the fact that “Native” Americans are a separate race, since Americans defer to the Census Bureau regarding race, while the Census Bureau defers to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The OMB denotes “sets of” populations. The OMB refers to sets of population groups, which means that, according to Spencer 2014, races are a particular, not a kind, which is different from Hardimon 2017 who argues that races denote a “modest biological kind.” But, semantics aside, both arguments are sound and both arguments establish that biological racial realism is true. Both arguments also establish the claim that Native Americans are a separate race.)
Yes I’d accept the article, but I’m very busy this evening and especially tomorrow so their might be a delay on publishing it, depending on when you submit.
@RR
They are different races, but genetically it is still possible to have a situation where a portion of contribution from either group is hard to tell apart especially if it is a small amount. Case in point: 23andme’s common east Asian and native American category for ancestral components that they cannot distinctly identify as east Asian or native American.
This issue seems to be mostly because their training sets haven’t had enough native American DNA for that category to be as easily identified as others, so it could be accidentally dumped into east Asian. Other generic genetic testing companies have had similar issues with native American ancestry in the past. But this comment interaction is 4 years old, and her DNA result is even older. So the companies likely have improved their identification power by now.