This is a joke, right? I mean, it has to be a joke… No. It’s not a joke.

When you want to make a point about how ridiculous something is, some of the quintessential examples of “just plain absurd” ideas in medicine, science and society come to mind. These include such things as Bloodletting, The Flat Earth Society, Tea Leaf Reading, and of course Phrenology.

Phrenology, for those who might not be familiar with the term, is often referred to as “head reading.” It’s the basic idea that one can determine a person’s personality, potential psycological issues, physical health and numerous other things by the shape of one’s head and the presence of any bumps on the scalp. A map of the head, often in the form of a bust, is then used to determine what these bumps correspond to, such as love, violence, intelligence and so on. It was first conceived by Franz Joseph Gall, in 1800, but was dubious from the start, and was already being called psuedo-science by 1843.

Despite this, it was all the rage in the Victorian Era, and had been claimed to be a means by which immoral or inferior persons could be detected, before they even commit a crime – which according to Phrenology they were likely to do, being that criminal-actions were the direct result of moral defecates, detectable by head-reading. (That’s a bit scary.) By the early 20th century, Phrenology was the domain of a few of the fringe quacks and nutters and had been rejected entirely by science. However it reared it’s ugly head (no pun intended) again in the 1930’s as a means of justifying racism and eugenics by the Nazis and others.

Needless to I don’t really need to get into all the reasons why something like Phrenology is absurd, and to most modern people it should be laughable. It’s a good example of “Oh how far we have come.” When you consider that people took it seriously.

BUT: In a prime example of how “It takes all kinds,” and that “You can find anything.. ANYTHING on the internet,” a simple search for the term turns up a few who still actually take the idea seriously. Here’s an example: www.phrenology.org

“The main aim of this page is to advocate a positive approach to scientific Phrenology which is considered a valuable and powerful instrument for: self-knowledge, self-achievement, education, human relationships, human resources, law enforcement…”

YES! They are pro-Phrenology and do indeed believe it has merit. Given how much homeopathy and astrology sites are out there, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised…

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2007 at 9:48 am and is filed under Bad Science, Education, Links, Quackery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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