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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 6 page paper looks at how and why such controversy arose regarding phrenology; the study of the shape of the skull. Then paper explains the underlying assumption made by Gall and Spurzheim and looks at the arguments that were put forward to discredit the new science at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The bibliography cites 2 sources.
Page Count:
6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TS14_TEphrenlgy.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
a basis of examining man. The study of phrenology developed at this time and was presented as a science, but at the beginning of the nineteenth century there increasing doubts
regarding the place of phrenology as a science making the acceptance of phrenology controversial in terms of both the social motivation and the physical anatomy that underpinned the ideas.
To understand the controversy we need to first look at what the basis of the study was, otherwise we cannot understand the criticisms. The study developed of the work of
Franz Joseph Gall (Watson, 1973). The main idea was that the brain was inside of the skull and that the brain is the organ of the mind.
One aspect of the functioning of the brain that was ascertained correctly; the way in which different areas of the brain have different functions and
related to different mental or physical processes, however the remain assumption we now know to be false. This assumption was then interpreted to mean that each faculty must have a
distinct area of the brain and when this was combined with the believe that the size of an organ determined its strength this was seen as indicative that the brain
shape would reflect the development of the different cerebral organs, meaning the development of the mental process controlled by each area of the brain. From this is was assumed that
the shape of the skull would reflect the shape of the brain, growing around it. This meant for phrenologists there was the belief that by reading the skull there was
the ability to measure the psychological tendencies or aptitudes of the subject. Therefore, phrenology was the study of the shape of the
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