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the breakfast table: An e-mail conversation about the news of the day.

Malcolm Gladwell and Wendy Kaminer

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from: Wendy Kaminer

Unintended consequences & Does size matter

Posted Friday, June 12, 1998, at 11:56 AM ET

Morning, Malcolm (sorry, it's almost afternoon; e-mail has been down. I missed you.). Reviewing the papers with you for the past few days, I've begin to notice themes. To end this week of news about the tobacco war, today's Times reports that Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is considering suing gun manufacturers and sellers. As Daley observed, his purpose is to hold gun manufacturers liable "just like the cigarette industry."

I know I'm supposed to have a strong opinion on this matter, but ask me how I feel about third-party liability suits, and I can only say, "it depends." I oppose them vigorously in cases involving speech: I don't think Paladin Press should be held liable for the actions of a contract killer who allegedly used one of its books. (Paladin is currently being sued.) And I have never agreed with Catherine MacKinnon that "pornographers" should be held liable for the actual abuse of women--the self-proclaimed "survivors" of pornography. (Actually I can't imagine agreeing with MacKinnon about anything.) The First Amendment, in my view, protects speech absent a clear, very direct, and intentional causal relationship to a crime. Of course, manufacturing and marketing guns or tobacco is clearly not First Amendment activity (although, arguably, the Second Amendment might protect the manufacture of guns). But putting aside constitutional questions and my disdain for both the tobacco and firearms industries, there's something about holding people liable for the way other people use their products that makes me uncomfortable (assuming the products aren't defective). What do you think?

I'm also most interested in your opinion about today's science story. New CAT-scan technology shows that researchers have been overestimating the brain sizes of our forbears, early hominids. Not surprising, considering their low tech measuring methods--apparently they took casts of fossilized skulls and filled them with mustard seeds. (Am I reading this right?) Then they measured the seeds in a flask.

Anyway, we do have an amusing history of obsessing over brain weight. In the late 19th century, scientists claimed that men were smarter than women partly because their brains were heavier. They busied themselves weighing the brains of famous men. Byron's brain was especially impressive, weighing in at 2238 grams. But, as feminist Helen Hamilton Gardner remarked, the brain of a large whale weighed nearly 7,000 grams, and she added if brain weight were a sign of intelligence then "almost any elephant is ... perhaps an entire medical faculty."

Gardner donated her brain to Cornell, and after her death the Times dutifully reported that researchers found "it revealed a wealth of cortical substance, or grey matter, that is only equaled but not exceeded, by the best brains in the Cornell collection."

Isn't science wonderful?

Speaking of which, here's my favorite headline of the week (from the Boston Globe): "Study shows why teenagers often react without thinking."

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