What are the motifs in The Mismeasure of Man by Stephen Jay Gould?

Gould shows how number crunching is important in science. This was the purpose of craniometry, which sought to measure intelligence in the form of brain size and uses that information to develop a ranking of groups. Most of these rankings were based on the pre-determined racial prejudices of the experimenters. Even though number crunching was used, it still led to faulty results. This is one of the important points of the book. Numbers can be used in such a way as to prove whatever the researcher wants to prove. There is nothing sacrosanct about studies using numbers in terms of the conclusions they lead to except that the studies are usually easier to duplicate to see if the methodology and technique are proven.