Final answer:
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and Franz Gall were notable for their work in craniometry and phrenology, respectively, attempting to demonstrate biological superiority of specific groups by measuring skulls. These attempts were later discredited as pseudoscience.
Step-by-step explanation:
The scientist who did measurements on skulls to attempt to demonstrate biological superiority of specific groups was Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. He worked in the field of craniometry, a pseudoscience that studied human head shape and brain size. Blumenbach proposed one of the famous groupings in the late 1700s by measuring human skulls, separating humanity into five different races. This was later discredited along with the field of craniometry itself.
Another noteworthy figure in the history of skull measurement was Franz Gall, a German physician who developed phrenology. This practice involved measuring the distances between bumps on the skull to infer personality traits, character, and mental abilities. Gall's methodology was popular initially but was discredited due to lack of empirical support.
Anthropologists, biologists, and geneticists today argue against the concept of race as scientifically valid. While there are genetic markers for certain physical characteristics, these do not justify dividing the human population into distinct racial categories as there are more genetic variations within such categories than between them.