Concept

Phrenology

Overview

Phrenology is a pseudoscience that involves the measurement of bumps on the skull to predict mental traits. It is based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules. It was said that the brain was composed of different muscles, so those that were used more often were bigger, resulting in the different skull shapes. This provided reasoning for the common presence of bumps on the skull in different locations. The brain "muscles" not being used as frequently remained small and were therefore not present on the exterior of the skull. Although both of those ideas have a basis in reality, phrenology generalizes beyond empirical knowledge in a way that departs from science. The central phrenological notion that measuring the contour of the skull can predict personality traits is discredited by empirical research. Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was influential in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. The principal British centre for phrenology was Edinburgh, where the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820.

Phrenology is today recognized as pseudoscientific. The methodological rigor of phrenology was doubtful even for the standards of its time, since many authors already regarded phrenology as pseudoscience in the 19th century. There have been various studies conducted that discredited phrenology, most of which were done with ablation techniques. Marie Jean Pierre Flourens demonstrated through ablation that the cerebrum and cerebellum accomplish different functions. He found that the impacted areas never carried out the functions that were proposed through phrenology. Paul Broca also discredited the idea when he discovered and named the "Broca's area": the patient's ability to produce language was lost while their ability to understand language remained intact, due to a lesion on the left frontal lobe. He concluded that this area of the brain was responsible for language production. Between Flourens and Broca, the claims to support phrenology were dismantled. Phrenological thinking was influential in the psychiatry and psychology of the 19th century. Gall's assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in specific areas of the brain is considered an important historical advance toward neuropsychology. He contributed to the idea that the brain is spatially organized, but not in the way he proposed. There is a clear division of labor in the brain but none of which even remotely correlates to the size of the head or the structure of the skull. It contributed to some advancements in understanding the brain and its functions.

While phrenology itself has long been discredited, the study of the inner surface of the skulls of archaic human species allows modern researchers to obtain information about the development of various areas of the brains of those species, and thereby infer information about their cognitive and communicative abilities, and possibly even about their social lives. Due to its limitations, this technique is sometimes criticized as "paleo-phrenology".

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Lastly, among the indirect and involved manifestations of this tendency, we must not omit the innumerable small irregularities of structure which result from the crossing of dissimilarly-modified individuals. It was shown (§§ 89, 90) that what are called "spontaneous variations," are interpretable as results of miscellaneously compounding the changes wrought in different lines of ancestors by different conditions of…
Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Volume 1
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Is it not significant that we have hit on the same word to distinguish the function of our House of Commons? We call it a _representative_ body, because the interests with which it deals--the pains and pleasures about which it consults--are not directly presented to it, but represented to it by its various members; and a…
Herbert Spencer, Illustrations of Universal Progress
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Phrenology hardly does more than restate the problem. To answer the question, "Why do I like children?" by saying, "Because you have a large organ of philoprogenitiveness," but renames the phenomenon to be explained. What _is_ my philoprogenitiveness? Of what mental elements does it consist? And how _can_ a part of the brain be its organ?
William James, The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1
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