Latest / Ridiculous History / Why was Phrenology a Thing? Part I: The Rise of Dr. Finger
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
- 0:27Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
- 0:30Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
- 0:34Speaker 1: our number one super producer. You know him, you love him,
- 0:37Speaker 1: Mr Max Williams. They called me ben uh Noel. I
- 0:43Speaker 1: have to say, this is an episode that at least
- 0:46Speaker 1: I have been waiting for for a number of years.
- 0:49Speaker 1: It's like up there with the rescut and episode or
- 0:52Speaker 1: the Nixon Voice episode for me. Yeah, those are both
- 0:55Speaker 1: like mythical episodes that will probably never actually happen. With
- 0:58Speaker 1: this one, my friends happening. This is real. It's also
- 1:02Speaker 1: decidedly not real, utter pseudo science. And just really quickly,
- 1:06Speaker 1: just to do a little housekeeping in case anyone notices
- 1:09Speaker 1: my voice sending a little more echoe, it is because
- 1:11Speaker 1: I am I'm podcasting from inside of a hollow void today,
- 1:16Speaker 1: just to paint a picture. I'm moving out of my
- 1:18Speaker 1: house and my studio is mainly I just realized, like
- 1:21Speaker 1: with no stuff in the room, it sounds like a cave.
- 1:24Speaker 1: So please forgive. Hopefully Max can maybe de verb it
- 1:27Speaker 1: a little bit and do some production magic, but you
- 1:30Speaker 1: may catch a little bit of he Oh, but that
- 1:35Speaker 1: sounds good. You're you're dulcet toads are coming in. Uh,
- 1:38Speaker 1: strong and true, strong and true, much more true than phrenology,
- 1:43Speaker 1: which is they subject up today's episode. Weirdly enough, folks,
- 1:47Speaker 1: this is not gonna be entirely us dunking on phrenology.
- 1:51Speaker 1: This is actually the first part of a two part episode,
- 1:55Speaker 1: because that's how into this idea we are, as well
- 1:58Speaker 1: as our research associate Zac. So let's first off, if
- 2:02Speaker 1: you're not driving, folks, feel around on your head. If
- 2:07Speaker 1: you guys ever shaved your heads, do you have Do
- 2:09Speaker 1: you have bumps in your heads? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I actually,
- 2:12Speaker 1: which is surprising because I have like eighteen inches of
- 2:14Speaker 1: heroin now. I have rucked the shaved head look much
- 2:17Speaker 1: of my life, and I actually have a very very
- 2:20Speaker 1: People always comment how round my head is. Yeah, they
- 2:23Speaker 1: call you old smooth skull, right, that was your nickname
- 2:26Speaker 1: back in grade school exactly, it was. You remember those
- 2:30Speaker 1: days very well, know I know, I know I was
- 2:32Speaker 1: there in spirit anyway. Yeah, I've got some ridges in
- 2:34Speaker 1: the back of my head. Um. I'm not quite sure
- 2:37Speaker 1: if they're just like fat rolls or not, but they
- 2:39Speaker 1: are there. Um, but yeah, I'm a top. I've got
- 2:41Speaker 1: a couple of distinct kind of bumpy spots. I don't
- 2:44Speaker 1: think my fontinell ever closed either. So there's that. What's
- 2:47Speaker 1: the font nill o, that's that thing they tell you
- 2:49Speaker 1: not to poke on babies. You're like, you know, murder them.
- 2:54Speaker 1: I have. I'm kidding. I think mine's closed. I was
- 2:56Speaker 1: just doing it so silly joke. So I um, as
- 3:01Speaker 1: a malungeon, we don't have to spend an episode on that.
- 3:05Speaker 1: As a malungeon. There was growing up, there was a
- 3:08Speaker 1: test people used to self administer in Tennessee and ridiculous
- 3:12Speaker 1: historians and Nolan Max if you guys want to play along,
- 3:16Speaker 1: one of the old tests for malungeon's was to take
- 3:19Speaker 1: your take your hand and start at the nape of
- 3:22Speaker 1: your neck where your hair kind of begins, and then
- 3:25Speaker 1: go up and if you are luncheon, you might feel
- 3:29Speaker 1: a tiny bump there at the base of your neck
- 3:32Speaker 1: and your skull. That is called an Anatolian bump or
- 3:35Speaker 1: a malungeon bump, and it was taken as evidence of someone's,
- 3:42Speaker 1: you know, someone's providence. This is very unscientific, but you know,
- 3:48Speaker 1: if you were a phrenologist, you would agree not only
- 3:51Speaker 1: does that bump indicate someone be malungeon, but it also
- 3:54Speaker 1: indicates stuff about their character. And if you were millions
- 4:00Speaker 1: of Americans in the eighteen hundreds, you would be all
- 4:03Speaker 1: about this. Chronology was like a Myers Briggs for people
- 4:08Speaker 1: or an astrological chart. But the difference was they felt
- 4:11Speaker 1: it was quite quite legitimate. Yeah, you know, it reminds
- 4:15Speaker 1: me a lot though, of some of the arcane kind
- 4:17Speaker 1: of medieval sciences, like the humors and all of that,
- 4:21Speaker 1: and the idea of like drilling holes in your head
- 4:23Speaker 1: to release demons. Only this is even more dangerous than
- 4:27Speaker 1: that because that was backed entirely by like, you know,
- 4:30Speaker 1: kind of conjecture and sort of like vague spiritualist kind
- 4:33Speaker 1: of beliefs. This was back by what they believed the
- 4:37Speaker 1: practitioners anyway, to be hard. Science of the mind. I
- 4:41Speaker 1: can remember if this is a band or an album name,
- 4:43Speaker 1: but mind Science of the Mind I always thought was
- 4:46Speaker 1: very funny, And that's what this is. It's like imagined
- 4:50Speaker 1: science involving the brain, but believed to be completely um,
- 4:55Speaker 1: without fault uh and unimpeachably accurate. There's this guy named
- 4:59Speaker 1: Richard Shannon Vix, who's a phrenologist in eight who said
- 5:03Speaker 1: before phrenology, all we knew about the brain was how
- 5:06Speaker 1: to slice it. Yeah, and he got a lot of
- 5:12Speaker 1: applause with this. During its heyday, the practitioners of phrenology
- 5:17Speaker 1: were kind of the pop science public figures of their time,
- 5:22Speaker 1: the Neil Degrass Tyson's you know, they were the one
- 5:25Speaker 1: the people making ted talks, and they owe a lot
- 5:29Speaker 1: of their popularity to a physician named Franz Joseph gall
- 5:35Speaker 1: Like gall Stone, he developed these theories on the anatomy
- 5:40Speaker 1: and the function of the brain in Vienna in the
- 5:43Speaker 1: eighteenth century, same town where Sigmund Freud would later go
- 5:47Speaker 1: on to uh form his own opinions about the workings
- 5:51Speaker 1: of the mind. Yeah, it's funny. Phrenology really was kind
- 5:54Speaker 1: of a precursor to psychology and the early days of
- 5:57Speaker 1: psychology because we know, also had a lot of problems
- 6:00Speaker 1: and there was a lot of pseudoscience and you know,
- 6:02Speaker 1: kind of conjecture wrapped up in that as well. But
- 6:05Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about today. But it is fun
- 6:07Speaker 1: to think about how kind of the trajectory of that,
- 6:09Speaker 1: uh and even today there's a lot of distrust in psychology.
- 6:12Speaker 1: It's it's not necessarily seen as much as a science
- 6:16Speaker 1: as other things that are a little more measurable, because
- 6:18Speaker 1: the fact of the matter is, even today we know
- 6:21Speaker 1: precious little about being our workings of the brain. Right,
- 6:24Speaker 1: the human species still has no agreed upon definitionive intelligence.
- 6:28Speaker 1: And that's something we were talking about earlier on stuff
- 6:31Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. I believe what it
- 6:34Speaker 1: was standardized testing. That's right, that's right, really great conversation
- 6:37Speaker 1: is it's one of those topics we always kind of
- 6:39Speaker 1: do a little caveat with or a little disclaimer that
- 6:41Speaker 1: sounds like it could be a snooze, but you have
- 6:44Speaker 1: no idea that conversation goes so many interesting places. And
- 6:47Speaker 1: all three of us definitely had skin in the game,
- 6:49Speaker 1: being products of kind of the standardized test nation, you
- 6:53Speaker 1: know here in America. Oh, that's a good turn of phrase, man,
- 6:56Speaker 1: that that would be a good title for a book. Yeah,
- 6:58Speaker 1: thank you, We should we shoul write it. I mean, honestly,
- 7:01Speaker 1: it's it's there's so much involved in the study of
- 7:04Speaker 1: the mind and so many kind of thought leaders quote
- 7:07Speaker 1: unquote that sort of lead the charge usually propelled by
- 7:11Speaker 1: not much more than raw confidence and enthusiasm around their
- 7:15Speaker 1: particular way of looking at it. And then if they're confident,
- 7:18Speaker 1: enthusiastic enough and have just enough science to back it up,
- 7:21Speaker 1: and I say Swiss, Swiss science, the quotation science, then
- 7:25Speaker 1: people will follow suit and before you know it, there
- 7:27Speaker 1: could be a whole lineage of tests and and theories
- 7:31Speaker 1: and concepts based around something that at its root was
- 7:34Speaker 1: in fact pretty dubious. Yeah, a hundred percent. And we
- 7:40Speaker 1: we've introduced you to gall But which you need to
- 7:43Speaker 1: know about Frunds is that he was a working physician.
- 7:49Speaker 1: He had the skills. He also was a talented anatomist,
- 7:54Speaker 1: and he spent a lot of time dissecting brains to
- 7:58Speaker 1: learn about the origins and the pathways of cranial nerves.
- 8:03Speaker 1: So his his revelatory moment really really happens when he
- 8:10Speaker 1: is a kid. He notices growing up that his schoolmates,
- 8:16Speaker 1: who are very very good at memorization, also tend to
- 8:20Speaker 1: have really big eyes, kind of like fish eyes that
- 8:24Speaker 1: stick out. And he said, I bet there's there's something
- 8:28Speaker 1: behind that. I bet those eyes go somewhere that they
- 8:32Speaker 1: there must be a part of the brain behind their
- 8:35Speaker 1: eyes that the window to the soul. The bigger the window,
- 8:39Speaker 1: the more light gets in to the soul. I mean
- 8:43Speaker 1: that that's that works, right that it sounds like a
- 8:45Speaker 1: childhood theory. We all have our childhood pet theories. He
- 8:49Speaker 1: just never let it go, Nol. He just like he
- 8:53Speaker 1: kept up with it. He kept up with it, And
- 8:55Speaker 1: you're right, the whole idea of never letting it go
- 8:57Speaker 1: really is one of those things that you not supposed
- 9:00Speaker 1: to do with science. I mean, that's not true. You
- 9:02Speaker 1: can be obsessed, you can be driven to try to
- 9:04Speaker 1: find the truth. But this guy has sort of a
- 9:06Speaker 1: preconceived notion based on an observation that was entirely um,
- 9:11Speaker 1: you know visual. You know, it was like, oh, well
- 9:13Speaker 1: look at this. Like it's like one of those causation
- 9:16Speaker 1: correlation kind of deals where it's like, not necessarily one
- 9:20Speaker 1: is not necessarily include the other, Like just because you
- 9:22Speaker 1: observe that people with all that the people that you
- 9:25Speaker 1: observe with big eyes are good at memorization, and therefore
- 9:27Speaker 1: all people with big eyes must be good at memorization.
- 9:30Speaker 1: That's not really good. And it's also a pretty small
- 9:33Speaker 1: sample size. And he's just looking at his like schoolyard mates,
- 9:36Speaker 1: you know. But yeah, so he decided that that this
- 9:39Speaker 1: he came up with his concept based on this that
- 9:42Speaker 1: the brain it was not a single organ and this
- 9:45Speaker 1: is accurate, but but a but you know, myriad of
- 9:48Speaker 1: various specialized parts that each governed different processes, uh, mental
- 9:54Speaker 1: or emotional functions. And by the way, some of this
- 9:56Speaker 1: information that we're talking about right here comes from a
- 9:58Speaker 1: fabulous article from the Atlantic called wonderful title The Shape
- 10:02Speaker 1: of Your Head and the Shape of Your Mind by
- 10:04Speaker 1: Erica Janet from January definitely worth a full read. So, yeah,
- 10:09Speaker 1: he wasn't like barking entirely up the wrong uh the
- 10:11Speaker 1: wrong cranial trunk. He had somewhat of a of a
- 10:16Speaker 1: pretty forward thinking view of the brain. He believed that
- 10:19Speaker 1: all of these parts each have their own dedicated tasks
- 10:22Speaker 1: and and processes and govern different emotional and mental functions.
- 10:26Speaker 1: Nobody's really Here's really kind of like lost the plot
- 10:28Speaker 1: a little bit, it would seem. He believed that the
- 10:30Speaker 1: size and development of each area, which he called faculties,
- 10:34Speaker 1: were a way of measuring certain qualities and an individual
- 10:38Speaker 1: that pertained to each of these functions, Like if this
- 10:40Speaker 1: part is bigger than this person has a higher capacity
- 10:44Speaker 1: for reasoning, or if this part is smaller than this
- 10:46Speaker 1: person might tend to be more submissive. Um, these are
- 10:50Speaker 1: things that we're going to get into and a bit
- 10:53Speaker 1: in terms of how these were used in horrible, horrific
- 10:58Speaker 1: and racist ways. Yes, yes, just so, I'd also like
- 11:02Speaker 1: to shout out the article in Smithsonian by Mina Sirlander
- 11:07Speaker 1: Morse facing a Bumpy History, which will come into play
- 11:11Speaker 1: in part two of this episode. Actually, so, yeah, he
- 11:16Speaker 1: was not entirely wrong at the basis. We know that
- 11:20Speaker 1: parts of the brain do specific things, and his logic
- 11:24Speaker 1: was pretty you know, it made sense, It was rational.
- 11:27Speaker 1: He said, there's a brain beneath your skull, so just like, um,
- 11:33Speaker 1: he wouldn't put it this way, but you know, just
- 11:35Speaker 1: like a mountain, right or a canyon can indicate something
- 11:40Speaker 1: going on beneath the surface of the earth, so can
- 11:44Speaker 1: the topography of the skull reveal something about the brain.
- 11:48Speaker 1: And like you said, he just took it too far.
- 11:50Speaker 1: And later his followers, other phrenologists, would say, you can,
- 11:56Speaker 1: through certain exercises and methods, strengthen pause of parts of
- 12:01Speaker 1: your brain the same way exercise helps you build muscles.
- 12:05Speaker 1: But interesting though he did not call this science of
- 12:10Speaker 1: his phrenology. He actually called this originally cranioscopy. Uh. The
- 12:17Speaker 1: term phrenology comes about in the eighteen hundreds when a
- 12:21Speaker 1: guy named T. I. M. Forster coins he's a British
- 12:25Speaker 1: physician and his name is a his name is an abbreviation.
- 12:31Speaker 1: But I think it sounds I think really slaps to
- 12:33Speaker 1: have it like robot? Is that his model? Like he's
- 12:37Speaker 1: like a helper robot or something's n I M D.
- 12:40Speaker 1: I am called made Tim. So phrenology was the kind
- 12:52Speaker 1: of later version of this of the science, but I
- 12:55Speaker 1: mean the same versions of the different label on it. Yeah,
- 12:58Speaker 1: what was the other one? Cranioscopy? That sounds that just
- 13:01Speaker 1: sounds like quack science right there, doesn't know. It sounds
- 13:03Speaker 1: like trepid nation almost. It sounds like a medical procedure, yes,
- 13:07Speaker 1: you know, as it does phrenology at least has. I
- 13:10Speaker 1: don't know why it matters or why we have these
- 13:12Speaker 1: sorts of associations with words, but to me, phrenology sounds
- 13:15Speaker 1: a little more proper, didn't It sounds a little more
- 13:18Speaker 1: like a real science. Yeah, it does. It does sound
- 13:22Speaker 1: for some reason more scientific and I looked up the
- 13:26Speaker 1: I looked up the etymology, of course, and it's just
- 13:29Speaker 1: mind plus logy. So it's like mind science. But but people, yeah,
- 13:37Speaker 1: there we go spear Fingers. I love it. So we
- 13:40Speaker 1: have kind of the nexus of the origin story. And
- 13:44Speaker 1: we want to tip our craniums to psychologist Dr Paul Ealing,
- 13:50Speaker 1: Professor Stanley Finger, and Professor Harry Whittaker. I know Finger,
- 13:57Speaker 1: DUCR Finger, So anyway, uh they chase so doctor Finger,
- 14:08Speaker 1: that's true. Figure out galls ultimate like what he nails
- 14:14Speaker 1: down as this science that's later called phrenology. He says,
- 14:18Speaker 1: you know, he called them faculties, like you point out,
- 14:20Speaker 1: In all, he settles on twenties seven different distinct functions
- 14:25Speaker 1: or faculties, and a lot of them are shared with humans,
- 14:31Speaker 1: memory for locations, love and affection for offspring. But then
- 14:36Speaker 1: there are other things he considered uniquely human that are
- 14:39Speaker 1: very much like not in the realm of science, wit, poetry, religion,
- 14:45Speaker 1: and uh ha to loftiness, elevation. I mean, we have
- 14:50Speaker 1: a list of some of his some of the faculties
- 14:53Speaker 1: he described, and some of them makes sense to me. Honestly,
- 14:57Speaker 1: what the heck is hot tour is that like like
- 15:00Speaker 1: hate cuisine, like sort of gorminus. Is that what hotetur means?
- 15:04Speaker 1: You know? The Yeah, it's like tony posh high class.
- 15:08Speaker 1: You know the meme where those three dudes are dressed
- 15:11Speaker 1: like aristocrats and they're like snootily looking down the balcony.
- 15:14Speaker 1: Do you know the one we're talking about. There's one
- 15:17Speaker 1: there's there's that actor uh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's he's
- 15:21Speaker 1: in the front, and then there's two guys in the
- 15:23Speaker 1: usually some version of like I don't know and implying
- 15:28Speaker 1: looking down upon peasants, and it's us looking. It's probably
- 15:32Speaker 1: for you and me. It's probably like us looking at
- 15:36Speaker 1: people who can't beat uh. The first the first boss
- 15:40Speaker 1: at El Debree. Yeah, that's fair. Um. You know, I
- 15:43Speaker 1: will say I did it with the help of the uh,
- 15:46Speaker 1: the rotten stray uh. And that is a pretty powerful
- 15:50Speaker 1: summit that you know, he bites Godrick and then he
- 15:52Speaker 1: kind of basically just waste away from Scarlett Rock. So
- 15:55Speaker 1: I sort of cheese it a little bit. I'm not
- 15:57Speaker 1: gonna lie so I barely deserve to have on those
- 15:59Speaker 1: uh roughly caller and and and waving around that ankie
- 16:02Speaker 1: at my my underlings. But I'll still do it, mind you,
- 16:05Speaker 1: I'll still do it. Oh yeah, Qualifications never stop people
- 16:09Speaker 1: from being from being prideful. Also, I like the deranged
- 16:12Speaker 1: perfumer spirit ash and the skeletal Militiaman will come back repeatedly.
- 16:20Speaker 1: Skeletal militiaman. Dope, do not know the deranged perfumer, but
- 16:23Speaker 1: my imagination is going wild. Perfumer in this game means
- 16:26Speaker 1: to completely different than I think we think of as
- 16:28Speaker 1: a traditional perfumer. Yes, okay, sorry, Max, come on moving.
- 16:36Speaker 1: I'll ever understand you don't understand, as Max, I was
- 16:39Speaker 1: playing Scarum all the weekend. It was awesome. I love truth, honestly,
- 16:43Speaker 1: I love it. Is it two thousand five? I was
- 16:48Speaker 1: surprised by that, but yeah, Morowitch is Oblivion and Skyram
- 16:52Speaker 1: all came out back to back to back, and its
- 16:53Speaker 1: finanvers since we've had one, and it's probably gonna be
- 16:56Speaker 1: another three or fourth to get another one. Yeah, but
- 16:58Speaker 1: there's one on the way. And anyway, I sorry we're
- 17:00Speaker 1: boring you with our description, with our enjoyment, our happiness
- 17:05Speaker 1: with elden Ring. But okay, al right, back to back
- 17:08Speaker 1: to our brain bumps. Uh. There are other things like
- 17:12Speaker 1: the like, tell me what you think about this one
- 17:15Speaker 1: talent for music, the faculty of the relations of numbers
- 17:19Speaker 1: being good at math, or the faculty of spoken language.
- 17:24Speaker 1: Those sound a little bit more. Those sound a little
- 17:28Speaker 1: bit more legit, like something the brain can actually do,
- 17:31Speaker 1: versus some predisposition to hot tour. But again it all
- 17:36Speaker 1: breaks down because he thought these were, you know, skull bumps.
- 17:40Speaker 1: Skull bumps sounds. It's like it's being completely different too.
- 17:43Speaker 1: I just saw I think today about coming called caviare
- 17:45Speaker 1: bumps that it's so like a thing actually something I
- 17:51Speaker 1: hote tour would be into. It's like the idea of
- 17:53Speaker 1: taking caviar and doing little bumps of it like you
- 17:56Speaker 1: would snortable drugs. It's weird. But here we are back
- 18:02Speaker 1: to skull bumps. So we've got these characteristics um that
- 18:07Speaker 1: Gall described now being supported by Sir Tim's um new
- 18:12Speaker 1: you know, coined phrenology concept, and it's all kind of
- 18:16Speaker 1: coming together and really starting to pick up some steam.
- 18:18Speaker 1: So Gall also believes that the two hemispheres of the
- 18:21Speaker 1: brain were actually interchangeable and had similar functions. Of course,
- 18:26Speaker 1: what we know now is that that's not the case
- 18:28Speaker 1: at all. Um, we believed that if one should sustain damage,
- 18:31Speaker 1: the other would compensate, sort of like having two kidneys
- 18:35Speaker 1: or something like that. But again, we know the left
- 18:37Speaker 1: hemisphere of the brand the right hemisphere of the brain
- 18:39Speaker 1: do completely different things. Um. During the nineteenth century things
- 18:44Speaker 1: really started to take off for Gall. He did a
- 18:47Speaker 1: series of lectures alongside a guy named Johann Caspar sport
- 18:51Speaker 1: Tim who was a protege of his, another physician. They
- 18:55Speaker 1: were still think of them as like sort of the
- 18:57Speaker 1: ted Talks of the day. They really like almost went viral,
- 19:00Speaker 1: and these concepts started to be picked up on by
- 19:04Speaker 1: some other very well established people in the scientific community,
- 19:09Speaker 1: or at the very least the community of of of
- 19:11Speaker 1: money and nobles. Yeah. Yeah, And one of the things
- 19:16Speaker 1: we have to realize is that this appealed to people's vanity,
- 19:22Speaker 1: just like a horoscope, you know what I mean. They
- 19:25Speaker 1: were able to say, oh, let me think more about myself.
- 19:29Speaker 1: Humans love doing that, It's like one of their main things.
- 19:33Speaker 1: And that's why people flocked to these folks and the
- 19:38Speaker 1: phrenologists of the day, who for the most part were
- 19:41Speaker 1: not con artists, they weren't flim flammers. They legitimately believed
- 19:45Speaker 1: in what they were doing. That's why they wrote books
- 19:48Speaker 1: about it. They popularized the science. We're thinking of folks
- 19:51Speaker 1: like the Scottish lawyer George Combe who wrote books like
- 19:55Speaker 1: Elements of Phrenology, and he seems to he tend us
- 20:00Speaker 1: to agree with a lot of galls initial findings. Man.
- 20:04Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting distinction that you just made
- 20:06Speaker 1: between these folks in this kind of school of thought
- 20:09Speaker 1: and maybe like the snake oil kind of peddlers of
- 20:12Speaker 1: eras to come, you know, with like the idea of
- 20:15Speaker 1: of medicine and wonder cures and tonics and all of
- 20:17Speaker 1: that stuff. It really calls into question or brings up
- 20:21Speaker 1: the idea of belief, like if you're if you believe
- 20:24Speaker 1: in something that's entirely wrong, and you're basing like you know,
- 20:29Speaker 1: theories and and and and and remedies and science and
- 20:32Speaker 1: things that will change people's lives, not only necessarily for
- 20:35Speaker 1: the better, on these kind of you know, misconceptions. Does
- 20:39Speaker 1: that make you any better necessarily than someone who is
- 20:44Speaker 1: actively conning. I would argue yes, But also you have
- 20:46Speaker 1: to wonder did some of those snake oil salesman truly
- 20:49Speaker 1: believe in the wondrous miracles of their care as they
- 20:52Speaker 1: were peddling. Oh ad percent, there were some people who
- 20:56Speaker 1: were going to make a buck. You'd go to a
- 20:58Speaker 1: very well to do person and give them a reading. Right,
- 21:03Speaker 1: getting your skull read it was a very, very big deal.
- 21:05Speaker 1: So I'm sure there were people who like grease the
- 21:09Speaker 1: cranium a little bit or embellished the good news so
- 21:12Speaker 1: that they could get a better payout and get repeat
- 21:14Speaker 1: customers and get recommendations right word of mouth spreads. This
- 21:19Speaker 1: guy Comb is really interesting because here's how you know
- 21:23Speaker 1: he believed in it. He was such a believer in
- 21:26Speaker 1: the accuracy of phrenology that when he and the lady
- 21:31Speaker 1: he was courting decided to get married, he said he
- 21:35Speaker 1: would not do it until they had both undergone an
- 21:38Speaker 1: examination to determine whether they were phrenologically. I guess, uh,
- 21:45Speaker 1: it's compatible phrenologically, and yeah, let it go. Keep it in.
- 21:51Speaker 1: But uh, but just like you would take a horoscope
- 21:54Speaker 1: birthday compatibility quiz on your social media of choice, that's
- 21:58Speaker 1: what they did. It was like the deal breaker for
- 22:01Speaker 1: his marriage. If their bumps weren't vibing, he was going
- 22:05Speaker 1: to call the whole thing off. But here's the thing.
- 22:09Speaker 1: You know. While gall was you know, really reveling in
- 22:12Speaker 1: the limelight, you know, in the scientific community and being
- 22:15Speaker 1: treated as something of a kind of a prophet of
- 22:17Speaker 1: the future of science, there's some folks that didn't care
- 22:20Speaker 1: for that too much, specifically clergy high officials in the
- 22:25Speaker 1: Church who believed that these ideas are the ability even
- 22:29Speaker 1: for another human being to make these kinds of distinctions
- 22:33Speaker 1: about God's creations was in fact heresy, and I need
- 22:37Speaker 1: you know to the State of Austria actually prohibited him
- 22:41Speaker 1: from promoting his theories there because of you know, these
- 22:45Speaker 1: religious concerns and the fact that the state was mad
- 22:49Speaker 1: about it and the church was mad about it made
- 22:52Speaker 1: it even more popular to the public. Right, who doesn't
- 22:54Speaker 1: loved every time happens every time. So he's becoming increasingly
- 23:00Speaker 1: disconnected from Austria. He's touring across Europe and he's telling them,
- 23:06Speaker 1: you know, here's the stuff Austria doesn't want you to know.
- 23:11Speaker 1: And in eighteen o five, with his former student now
- 23:15Speaker 1: protege Johann Spurzheim, he's schedattled across the pond. He left
- 23:24Speaker 1: Austria for good. And this is where things believe You're
- 23:30Speaker 1: not really take off of phrenology because, yeah, it's popular
- 23:34Speaker 1: in Europe, but it becomes even more popular in the
- 23:39Speaker 1: United States of America because it reinforces the American zeitgeist,
- 23:46Speaker 1: the idea of self determination, individualism, you know, the can doitiveness. So, uh, Spursheim,
- 23:59Speaker 1: things don't end well for him though. He is on
- 24:07Speaker 1: a whirlwind lecture tour in eighteen thirty two, and maybe
- 24:10Speaker 1: he's working too hard. This tour results in his death
- 24:14Speaker 1: after just six months. Yeah, and at this point the
- 24:17Speaker 1: kind of keys the phrenology Kingdom get passed on to
- 24:20Speaker 1: a ministry student by the name of Orson Fowler, who
- 24:23Speaker 1: believed that he had found his you know, life's passion
- 24:27Speaker 1: and and true calling in a spurt times theory and
- 24:31Speaker 1: this practice, this polemical practice. So Fowler started lecturing as well.
- 24:36Speaker 1: He would basically spread the word to anyone that would listen,
- 24:38Speaker 1: especially at his to his classmates at Amherst College in Massachusetts,
- 24:42Speaker 1: UM and he would do readings for two cents a piece.
- 24:47Speaker 1: It's like sort of like uh like Lucy or no, yeah,
- 24:50Speaker 1: Lucy is it Lucy? And peanuts who did like the
- 24:53Speaker 1: therapy for five cents. I think his was a little cheaper.
- 24:57Speaker 1: Um same idea though, you know, it's like let's let's
- 24:59Speaker 1: let's read our own kind of quack scientific theories, uh,
- 25:02Speaker 1: and actually charge people for it. But it's affordable. People
- 25:05Speaker 1: wanted to listen. So one friend in particular, Um was
- 25:08Speaker 1: a guy who would become the Reverend Henry Ward. Beecher
- 25:13Speaker 1: and Fowler believed that this gentleman possessed something called that
- 25:16Speaker 1: he referred to anyway as a strong social brain with
- 25:19Speaker 1: very large benevolence. It's funny too in the in the text,
- 25:22Speaker 1: benevolence is capitalized almost like it's like sacred in something.
- 25:26Speaker 1: And orson Um really was able to kind of spread
- 25:30Speaker 1: this thought by just again the virtue of enthusiasm and
- 25:36Speaker 1: and and confidence, and just like this is the truth.
- 25:39Speaker 1: You know, when someone says something with enough conviction, you
- 25:41Speaker 1: tend to want to pay attention. That's how a lot
- 25:44Speaker 1: of hucksters work. But again a lot of hucksters don't
- 25:46Speaker 1: even know their hucksters. They're just high on their own supply,
- 25:49Speaker 1: drinking their own coolat, or any other number of cliche
- 25:52Speaker 1: expressions for you know, being kind of up your own backside.
- 25:57Speaker 1: And we should also say in the context of this.
- 25:59Speaker 1: We we mentioned that Spurzheim died, but when he died,
- 26:04Speaker 1: it was considered a huge loss to the medical community
- 26:08Speaker 1: across the Western world. Ralph Waldo Emerson called him one
- 26:12Speaker 1: of the world's greatest minds. The president of Harvard handled
- 26:16Speaker 1: spurs Tim's funeral arrangements. The American Journal of Medical Science said,
- 26:21Speaker 1: the prophet is gone, but his mantle is upon us.
- 26:23Speaker 1: And that's that's the world in which Orson Fowler steps in.
- 26:27Speaker 1: Is the clear kind of air to this throne of skulls,
- 26:34Speaker 1: which sounds kind of metal. I like it. That's the
- 26:38Speaker 1: throne of skulls. And think about it. He's off, he's
- 26:41Speaker 1: saying he's talking to important people, thought influencers, movers and shakers,
- 26:46Speaker 1: and he's telling very nice things about themselves. You know,
- 26:50Speaker 1: his little brother joins the phrase, Lorenzo Fowler, and they
- 26:55Speaker 1: have found kind of a new religion in phrenology because
- 26:59Speaker 1: they both were once you know, they were both once
- 27:02Speaker 1: ministry students. That's so interesting, how you know there was
- 27:06Speaker 1: this backlash by the church, you know, against Gauls theories
- 27:11Speaker 1: to the point where they tried to shut him down.
- 27:13Speaker 1: And now it's almost going full circle. Where these like
- 27:16Speaker 1: former religious kind of zealous, I mean the stuff. Probably
- 27:19Speaker 1: they were probably still believers to some degree, but instead
- 27:22Speaker 1: of spreading the gospel you know, of Jesus that spread
- 27:25Speaker 1: in the Gospel of of of skull theory just so.
- 27:29Speaker 1: And they also, uh, they're also of course charging people
- 27:33Speaker 1: a little every time they do these reads. And this
- 27:37Speaker 1: takes off. There's something really interesting French ridiculous historians. I'm
- 27:43Speaker 1: sure this is no longer the case, but for a
- 27:46Speaker 1: while in France there was this strange evaluation for employment.
- 27:52Speaker 1: Sometimes employers would ask you to hand right things and
- 27:55Speaker 1: then they would have a handwriting analysis applied, and that
- 27:59Speaker 1: could herman whether you or the other guy got the job.
- 28:03Speaker 1: Employers in the US at this point start advertising for
- 28:08Speaker 1: employees with particular phrenological profiles, and sometimes they said, look,
- 28:16Speaker 1: we need you to get a reading from one of
- 28:19Speaker 1: the Fowler boys. Women began changing their haircuts to show
- 28:25Speaker 1: off their perceived good bump features skull bumps and you know,
- 28:32Speaker 1: gradients and whatnot. Thats been cobb, is it not? And
- 28:35Speaker 1: that's like that's like almost like some stuff you would
- 28:37Speaker 1: make up and like some sort of weirdo future sci
- 28:40Speaker 1: fi world where it's like people have like some sort
- 28:42Speaker 1: of strange cranial protrusions and they like it. It's like
- 28:45Speaker 1: some sort of new mating ritual or something. This is
- 28:48Speaker 1: very bizarre to me heart degree. And again, these people
- 28:51Speaker 1: were just as intelligent as anybody else, and they're just
- 28:55Speaker 1: as intelligent as the people alive now. In they thought
- 28:59Speaker 1: they were on the forefront of science, in part at
- 29:03Speaker 1: least because it told them things they wanted to hear.
- 29:07Speaker 1: Everybody sat for readings, to the point where it was
- 29:10Speaker 1: almost like owning a cell phone. Today, it will be
- 29:14Speaker 1: unusual for you to not have someone reading your skull.
- 29:20Speaker 1: By the eighteen forties, the Fowler's HQ in New York,
- 29:25Speaker 1: which they called the Phrenological Cabinet, was one of the
- 29:28Speaker 1: most popular destinations in town. It was partially a museum,
- 29:33Speaker 1: but it was also a place where you could get
- 29:35Speaker 1: readings and then they would hold lectures on, you know,
- 29:38Speaker 1: the latest developments in phrenology. They had a lot of
- 29:43Speaker 1: portraits of famous people's heads totally. They even like would
- 29:47Speaker 1: have these like kind of death mask almostly well plaster
- 29:51Speaker 1: cat only death masks, that's just like the face. But
- 29:53Speaker 1: they would like commission when like famous people would pass away.
- 29:56Speaker 1: I don't know how they would go about this, but
- 29:58Speaker 1: they would commission, like, you know, plaster casts of their heads.
- 30:01Speaker 1: And I guess they were so popular and so beloved
- 30:04Speaker 1: they were able to do this through like legitimate channels,
- 30:06Speaker 1: right absolutely, And people thought this knowledge was a way
- 30:10Speaker 1: to empower themselves. Right, they could focus on shaping their
- 30:15Speaker 1: own future, to appeal to American individualism by saying, you know,
- 30:20Speaker 1: now that you know this about yourself, you can work
- 30:24Speaker 1: toward becoming a better you. Right, like one example, that's interesting,
- 30:30Speaker 1: and it would have been a total pr move. Again,
- 30:32Speaker 1: even if they believed it, I think they obviously knew
- 30:35Speaker 1: how to institute some showmanship around this stuff and that
- 30:38Speaker 1: influence that they wielded. They were able to order a
- 30:40Speaker 1: plaster cast of Aaron Burr's head when he passed away
- 30:44Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty six. There and Burr, of course, is
- 30:46Speaker 1: the man who shot Alexander Hamilton's I, which has been
- 30:49Speaker 1: massive you know, national news. Absolutely, you know, people on
- 30:52Speaker 1: the edge of their seats. And they were able to
- 30:55Speaker 1: do this and then report upon examination that Burr's head
- 31:00Speaker 1: the bumps contained um organs of secretiveness and destructiveness that
- 31:06Speaker 1: were of course in large, and I just want to
- 31:09Speaker 1: point out nearly our third president in American history, Aaron Burr. Yes,
- 31:14Speaker 1: so damn close. I don't know if you guys remember this.
- 31:17Speaker 1: There was an Oreos commercial when I was a kid,
- 31:20Speaker 1: and I can't remember exactly what the setup was, but
- 31:22Speaker 1: the punchline was some historian like saying, Aaron Burr trying
- 31:26Speaker 1: to answer this question, and he's got a mouthful of oreos,
- 31:29Speaker 1: so he just goes. I always thought that was really funny. Yeah, well,
- 31:36Speaker 1: that's something good that came from Burke. The Fowlers made
- 31:47Speaker 1: this set plan using phrenologies of basis. They said, we
- 31:51Speaker 1: are going to completely up end society and improve it.
- 31:57Speaker 1: We're creating a perfect socialist, more real system. We're taking
- 32:02Speaker 1: all the science that could improve the mind or benefits
- 32:06Speaker 1: mankind and it will make a better world. And to
- 32:11Speaker 1: your point about commercialization, they also just happened to be
- 32:15Speaker 1: the people who sold all the accoutremal you needed to
- 32:19Speaker 1: make this happen. It's like Apple coming out and saying
- 32:23Speaker 1: iPods are going to save the world. You can also
- 32:27Speaker 1: only buy them here, so totally. Yeah, be apart be
- 32:30Speaker 1: the change you want to see in the world. With us,
- 32:33Speaker 1: with our help and our help alone. Uh yeah, because
- 32:35Speaker 1: I mean they probably have like proprietary tools, like you know,
- 32:38Speaker 1: those like calipers for measuring the skulls. And it's one
- 32:40Speaker 1: of those things where you could probably could have made
- 32:42Speaker 1: your own and and you know, pursued your own study
- 32:45Speaker 1: of phrenology. But in those days, it's not like they
- 32:47Speaker 1: had YouTube or other means to find out this stuff.
- 32:50Speaker 1: If you wanted the literature, you had to get it
- 32:52Speaker 1: from the source, let alone like specialized tools and things.
- 32:55Speaker 1: And I don't know this for a fact, but I
- 32:57Speaker 1: imagine there must be some really fascinating collects of some
- 33:00Speaker 1: of this kind of memorabilia, uh in in in the
- 33:03Speaker 1: United States. I wouldn't be surprised if the Motor Museum
- 33:05Speaker 1: in Philadelphia maybe had some weird phrenology stuff. Yeah. And
- 33:11Speaker 1: I used to have one of those reproductions of a
- 33:15Speaker 1: phrenology skull map or whatever they're called. Can you describe
- 33:18Speaker 1: that to as it's something we've been kind of hinting around,
- 33:20Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people have probably seen them,
- 33:22Speaker 1: But it's a it's an interesting thing that really took
- 33:25Speaker 1: on like such a widespread kind of life of its own. Yeah,
- 33:29Speaker 1: so it essentially like depending on what kind of UM
- 33:34Speaker 1: model you're looking at, because there were multiple You would
- 33:38Speaker 1: see ahead usually male looking head with no hair, and
- 33:45Speaker 1: atop the cranium from like the bottom of your eyebrows,
- 33:50Speaker 1: two around your ears to the back of your skull.
- 33:54Speaker 1: There would be these maps that describe what is happening
- 34:00Speaker 1: in your brain and apparently what you can glean from
- 34:03Speaker 1: the shape of the skull above it self see things
- 34:06Speaker 1: like sublimity, cautiousness, destructiveness, combative secretiveness. That's what they were
- 34:13Speaker 1: looking at. For Aaron Burr, they were actually to pay
- 34:16Speaker 1: on the model. They were like looking a little bit
- 34:18Speaker 1: above his left ear to see if anything great was
- 34:21Speaker 1: going on. And although yes, we're dunking on it a
- 34:25Speaker 1: little bit because this is clearly pseudoscience, it might interest
- 34:30Speaker 1: a lot of our fellow ridiculous historians to know that
- 34:33Speaker 1: phrenology is a movement was in some ways surprisingly progressive. Yeah,
- 34:38Speaker 1: that's right. There was almost like a women's lib kind
- 34:40Speaker 1: of like subculture of phrenology UM. After her marriage to
- 34:44Speaker 1: Lorenzo Fowler, Lydia Folger started lecturing on phrenology. She caught
- 34:49Speaker 1: the bug as well, but she applied it specifically to
- 34:52Speaker 1: the lives of women and in their place in society.
- 34:56Speaker 1: So if you had like a woman who is a
- 34:59Speaker 1: phrenologist kind of like on board, it was a big
- 35:01Speaker 1: deal for the fowlers in general because it allowed a
- 35:03Speaker 1: lot of women to kind of come into the fold
- 35:06Speaker 1: because again they were providing useful or very least flattering
- 35:12Speaker 1: information to them as well. And this has been seen
- 35:15Speaker 1: largely assembing for men. That was used to understand the
- 35:18Speaker 1: workings of the minds of men, and then it wasn't
- 35:20Speaker 1: really including women. Um. But in eighteen forty nine, when
- 35:23Speaker 1: she was only twenty seven, Lydia actually enrolled in a
- 35:26Speaker 1: then newly established Central Medical College of Syracuse and Rochester.
- 35:31Speaker 1: In the Central Medical College there was kind of a
- 35:35Speaker 1: bit of a modernist bench to the medical school, sort
- 35:38Speaker 1: of eclectic as it's referred to, which included things like
- 35:41Speaker 1: holistic medicine, plant remedies, hygiene, diet um. And she got
- 35:45Speaker 1: her medical degree and became the second woman in the
- 35:48Speaker 1: United States to do that, and then she was able
- 35:50Speaker 1: to kind of become this voice for women in the
- 35:54Speaker 1: world of phrenology, which was becoming more and more mainstream. Yeah,
- 35:58Speaker 1: and Phrenology was also decent intralized, so there wasn't an
- 36:02Speaker 1: overall structure or hierarchy. It was kind of an individualistic
- 36:07Speaker 1: pursuit with no national association. And most people I saw
- 36:12Speaker 1: a chronologist, once you got the reading one time, you
- 36:15Speaker 1: didn't come back and say, hey, I've been doing a
- 36:19Speaker 1: lot of cognitive pull ups. Have my bumps changed? You
- 36:22Speaker 1: just took what they said at that time, and most
- 36:25Speaker 1: chronologists supported women's rights and said, look, women are human beings.
- 36:30Speaker 1: They have all the same potential as men, and a
- 36:34Speaker 1: lot of them use this to argue for the equality
- 36:37Speaker 1: of the sexes. And it had a lot of good
- 36:43Speaker 1: things in that respect, socially progressive things. But as we
- 36:49Speaker 1: saw apart one of today's episode, we have to take
- 36:52Speaker 1: a bit of a turn. Just like earlier I said,
- 36:56Speaker 1: people back then were as intelligent as they are now.
- 37:00Speaker 1: So it should be no surprise that despite how good
- 37:03Speaker 1: phrenology made everybody feel, there were a lot of skeptics
- 37:08Speaker 1: who said, okay, alright, alright, pump your brakes. I don't
- 37:13Speaker 1: know if we're on the money here. Because as this
- 37:19Speaker 1: was gaining such mainstream popularity, there was of course parallel
- 37:22Speaker 1: science going on good science that we're finding some pretty
- 37:26Speaker 1: contradictory things that were really casting a pretty negative light
- 37:33Speaker 1: on phrenology, or at the very least the science of phrenology,
- 37:36Speaker 1: because a lot of this was confirmation bias, where it
- 37:38Speaker 1: was like seeking results, seeking particular answers. As we mentioned,
- 37:42Speaker 1: part of what made this so popular was the fact
- 37:44Speaker 1: that you could give someone a reading that would kind
- 37:47Speaker 1: of make them feel good about themselves or make them
- 37:49Speaker 1: feel like they were in some way special because of
- 37:51Speaker 1: these specialized parts of their brain. But when you start
- 37:54Speaker 1: to look at a larger selection of individuals, you might see,
- 37:58Speaker 1: for example, uh, someone having a very well developed organ
- 38:02Speaker 1: that you know, it dictates their benevolence um, but they're
- 38:06Speaker 1: not very benevolent people at all. And this was usually
- 38:10Speaker 1: they found a way to explain it away by referring
- 38:13Speaker 1: to other organs that might counteract the size of that
- 38:17Speaker 1: particular organ. So there was always a way, like in
- 38:21Speaker 1: most kind of scams, to explain contradictory evidence. Um. But
- 38:26Speaker 1: then he started to get other, you know, serious scientists
- 38:30Speaker 1: that were looking into this, and they weren't able to
- 38:32Speaker 1: be misled or argued with so easily. Yeah, a hundred
- 38:36Speaker 1: percent man like the doctors, scientists, some religious figures, and
- 38:42Speaker 1: even politicians, as we mentioned earlier, had plenty of negative
- 38:46Speaker 1: stuff to say about phrenology, and their criticism was valid.
- 38:52Speaker 1: One French scientist, Laurie Jean Pierre Laurenz became like goals
- 38:58Speaker 1: arch nemesses and he is always saying phnology is malarkey.
- 39:03Speaker 1: And let me tell you why, doctor Gall. Here's what,
- 39:08Speaker 1: here's what Marie Jean Pierre did this. This scientist said, okay,
- 39:13Speaker 1: let me take all your uh phrenology theories about animals, okay,
- 39:19Speaker 1: and let me dissect the brains of rabbits, birds and
- 39:23Speaker 1: dogs and see how the remaining sections function. And all
- 39:29Speaker 1: the evidence from all his experiments ghoulish as they were,
- 39:32Speaker 1: proved that Gall was incorrect. The brain acted as a
- 39:36Speaker 1: whole unit and not just as like street irreplaceable parts.
- 39:41Speaker 1: Harvard professor Oliver Wendell Holmes UH said he also drew
- 39:47Speaker 1: exception to this. We've actually we've got a quote from him.
- 39:51Speaker 1: That's right. He said, the walls of the head are double,
- 39:53Speaker 1: with a great air chamber between them. Over the smallest
- 39:56Speaker 1: and most closely crowded organs. Can you tell how much
- 40:00Speaker 1: money there isn't a safe which also has thick double
- 40:03Speaker 1: walls by kneeding its knobs with your fingers. So when
- 40:06Speaker 1: a man fumbles about my forehead and talks about the
- 40:10Speaker 1: organs of individuality, size, etcetera, I trust him as much
- 40:14Speaker 1: as I should if he felt the outside of my
- 40:16Speaker 1: strong box and told me there was a five dollar
- 40:19Speaker 1: or a ten dollar bill under this or that particular rivet.
- 40:25Speaker 1: But shots fired. Um, we had another guy, you know,
- 40:28Speaker 1: another Again, we're talking about these like very serious scientists
- 40:32Speaker 1: in Washington, d c At Professor Thomas Sewell, who also
- 40:35Speaker 1: rejected phrenology as a way of understanding the brain. He
- 40:39Speaker 1: said that brain injuries almost never affected bodily function in
- 40:44Speaker 1: the way that was predicted by phrenology. In addition, he
- 40:48Speaker 1: said that the brain couldn't possibly be measured from the
- 40:51Speaker 1: skull alone. Uh, And that goes hand in hand with
- 40:54Speaker 1: what Oliver Wendell Holmes said so expertly and that strong
- 40:58Speaker 1: box analogy. So let's just also note that, you know,
- 41:01Speaker 1: while Holmes didn't necessarily say that phrenology was entirely useless,
- 41:07Speaker 1: he did feel like it's true scientific nature was at
- 41:12Speaker 1: best built on not very sturdy ground. Yeah, and then
- 41:16Speaker 1: he had other snarkier critics as well, Samuel Clemens Street
- 41:21Speaker 1: name Mark Twain. He said that Fowler has found in
- 41:26Speaker 1: my skull a cavity where humor ought to be. John
- 41:30Speaker 1: Quincy Adams said, you know, I wonder how for I
- 41:34Speaker 1: just can you look at each other in the eye
- 41:36Speaker 1: without laughing? And I added that but it was it
- 41:42Speaker 1: was there. I'm sure the story right right, And later
- 41:47Speaker 1: in the editors over it. Encyclopedia Britannica wanted to debunk phrenology,
- 41:55Speaker 1: so in their definition of the Encyclopedia, this is a
- 41:59Speaker 1: true story. They published instead of just a basic definition,
- 42:04Speaker 1: a seven page rebuke of the whole idea, and they
- 42:10Speaker 1: clearly had an ax to grind. And you don't want
- 42:12Speaker 1: to make an editor mad and nol. I gotta say,
- 42:16Speaker 1: I'm glad we made this a two parter on purpose,
- 42:19Speaker 1: because this is like, this is already pretty long, and
- 42:22Speaker 1: this is just part one. We haven't even gotten to
- 42:25Speaker 1: the dark side of phrenology. Well, I think we've done.
- 42:28Speaker 1: And huge thanks to Zach Williams for, you know, digging
- 42:31Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff up for us. It's an
- 42:33Speaker 1: excellent and fascinating topic. And just in the backstory that
- 42:37Speaker 1: we've kind of gotten to so far, but it really
- 42:40Speaker 1: does take a turn two more that I think some
- 42:42Speaker 1: of the associations people might have with phrenology are It
- 42:45Speaker 1: depends on who you are and where you're from and
- 42:48Speaker 1: how much you've dug into this. But um, there are
- 42:51Speaker 1: kind of echoes in this history of abject racism. I'm
- 42:57Speaker 1: using some of these tools as a way to keep
- 42:59Speaker 1: people down and justify some of the most detestable institutions
- 43:03Speaker 1: in the history of the world. Agreed, and we hope
- 43:08Speaker 1: that you tune in to learn more about phrenology Part
- 43:12Speaker 1: two of this two part series. Thanks as always to
- 43:16Speaker 1: our super producer, Mr Max Williams, Thanks to all of
- 43:20Speaker 1: you fellow ridiculous historians, and shout out to everybody just
- 43:24Speaker 1: looked up uh phrenology head map or has been awkwardly
- 43:29Speaker 1: feeling around the top of your head throughout the course
- 43:32Speaker 1: of this episode. We hope he dug it. Can't wait
- 43:36Speaker 1: to hear your phrenological results. I gotta wonder, you know.
- 43:40Speaker 1: I'm thinking, of course, we'll have the quiz to return soon, nol,
- 43:44Speaker 1: but I'm thinking I bet Jonathan knows more than we
- 43:49Speaker 1: might assume about phrenology right because he shaves his head.
- 43:53Speaker 1: He does, but I will tell you he's he's this
- 43:56Speaker 1: guy in the Smooth Skull Club with with with Mr
- 43:59Speaker 1: Max over here. Yeah, and so thanks to thanks to
- 44:03Speaker 1: the quister. And what does that mean? What if you're
- 44:04Speaker 1: completely smooth? You got no bumps at all? You got
- 44:09Speaker 1: no bumps bumps? Uh man. We're also going to chaos,
- 44:14Speaker 1: pure chaos magic. We're also gonna get into how this
- 44:17Speaker 1: this kind of bump analysis started to extend to like
- 44:21Speaker 1: facial features as well, and like, oh, the nose on
- 44:24Speaker 1: that guy means that he's not he's not up to
- 44:27Speaker 1: the task of whatever job he's applying for. Like it
- 44:29Speaker 1: kind of makes me think of that's where like the
- 44:31Speaker 1: idea of I like the cut of your jib came from. Yeah, yeah,
- 44:34Speaker 1: And we'll get into the etymology of cutting your jib
- 44:38Speaker 1: as well. We'll learn about something from predecessors of phrenology.
- 44:42Speaker 1: All in all, can't wait. We're gonna get weird with it.
- 44:45Speaker 1: Please join us later this week. Shout out to, of course,
- 44:49Speaker 1: our composer Alex Williams. Shout out to the rest of
- 44:52Speaker 1: the Ridiculous History crew, our pals. Heve's Jeff Coach, Christopher
- 44:57Speaker 1: Hasiotis and no, you know shout out to us. Shoutouts
- 45:01Speaker 1: are nifty craniums. I guess yeah, Well you got out, Tom,
- 45:05Speaker 1: all right, um, We'll see you next time. Books. For
- 45:14Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
- 45:16Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
- 45:19Speaker 1: favorite shows.