Modern science owes a debt of gratitude to phrenology for laying down the theoretical groundwork that opened the door to modern neuroscience… yet phrenology is maligned as a poster boy for bad science. Its history reveals some truths we would stand to benefit from recognizing: our cultural ignorance of how science progresses, of what is “scientific”, and the convenience of rewriting history, are all part of this story.

Phrenology: the story

Phrenology is thought of as feeling for bumps on the head to predict personality and intellectual capacity. Even Wikipedia, which we take to be an objective and grounded source of information, fails to provide the real history.Phrenology is the brain-child (haha) of Franz Joseph Gall, who believed boldly against the mainstream that the brain is not a homogenous unit, but consists of subsystems. Gall also believed in the malleability of the skull and the relationship between size and activity of nervous tissue, and this resulted in a secondary principle of phrenology, that mental faculties correlate with the size of brain regions.More notably, phrenologists sought to prove, against the mainstream, that the brain is the seat of the mind.Phrenology is now, as it was in the 19th century , considered a pseudoscience. But “pseudoscience” is a specious term, easy to support in retrospect, often wielded to support popular dogmas. Bechtel and Richardson, in a philosophical/historical text of science (“Discovering Complexity”), describe the appellation “pseudoscience” as a “rhetorical flourish designed to enforce a particular point of view - an ideologically conservative view in particular”. In this case, the conservative and popular viewpoint of the time was that the mind was essentially unexaminable.

Blind in hindsight: rewriting history in search of whipping boys

Early opposition to phrenology was based on anti-materialist and antispeculative movements. Opposition was not because phrenology was non-empirical; indeed, phrenology WAS empirical, though not experimental.Prior to phrenology, Cartesian notion of cognition suggested that the brain was an inert transmission device for the soul to the physical realm. In addition, the Cartesian model viewed the brain as a homogenous unit. Phrenology led the attack against this Cartesian idea of a spiritual source of cognition and a homogenous brain, and introduced the idea that the brain consists of centers subserving specific functions.Phrenologists were mocked for their contrarian ideas, now widely accepted, that the brain consists of discrete parts responsible for different faculties. This perspective was elaborated upon by the two celebrated scientists Pierre-Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke, providing us ultimately with the theoretical groundwork that opened up modern neuroscience."We eat the breadcrumbs" of phrenology, but refuse to pay homage.

Social ignorance of science: what does it mean to be “scientific"?

The denigration of phrenology reveals something about our society. We mock the phrenologists… because phrenologists made predictions that were proven false.Yet in this, phrenologists are no different than any other (accomplished) scientists. The notoriety and association with pseudoscience reveal something disturbing about the human condition - our fear of failure. Yet failure sits at the heart of scientific progress. So we laugh and rewrite history, instead of realizing that this very line of inquiry brought us the basic insight responsible for how we understand the brain…In the end, the only thing wrong with phrenology was that it was parts of it were proven wrong; the process of generating the theory of phrenology actually reflects the true scientific spirit. Like all scientific beliefs, true and false, it has been used to support absurd and even unethical ideas, and had a large share of dogmatic and unscrupulous adherents. But to claim that phrenology is a pseudoscience is to do a major disservice to history and the scientific spirit.It is sad to see how capable we are of rewriting history to maintain our indignation for failure in science. Science flourishes through failure, and our condemnation of failures reveals two major things about us as humans: the rejection of progressive thinking by experts, and the susceptibility of the masses to the experts (burn the pedestals).

Decide for yourself...

See the principles of phrenology below, and see if it sounds like pseudoscience to you...1. The brain is the organ of the mind2. The brain is not a homogenous unity, but an aggregate of mental organs with specific functions3. The cerebral organs are topographically localized4. Other things being equal, the relative size of any particular mental organ is indicative of the power or strength of that organ5. Since the skull ossifies over the brain during infant development, external craniological means could be used to diagnose the internal states of the mental charactersTo introduce against the mainstream, and subsequently normalize 3 major principles (at the cost of 2 wrong ones) is a better track record than most scientists will hope for. And even that regions can grow as a function of use (for example, the hippocampus is larger in London cab drivers, due to a higher demand of spatial orientation).We need to come, as individuals and as a society, to nurture the scientific spirit, the tolerance for our own and other’s failures in their lines of inquiry. Of course, this doesn’t mean persisting in a failed direction, but even then, there is something to be said for persistence when confronted with contradictory evidence…