The Science and Myth behind Phrenology Essay -- Biology Essays

The Science and Myth behind PhrenologyPhrenology is a phenomenon that attempts to mend ones personality and mental capabilities with the form and structure of ones skull. This science became popular in the nineteenth century as the Eugenics movement gained widespread approval. In Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness, the reference to Phrenology is seeming in the scene where Marlow visits the doctor. Then with a certain eagerness the doctor asked me whether I would let him measure my head. Rather surprisedhe produced a social occasion like calipers. I the doctor always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those divergence out there the African jungle.He gave me a searching glance, and make another note. Ever any madness in your family? he asked, in a matter-of-fact tome. I felt very annoyed. Is that question in the interests of science, too? (Conrad 13). As it can be inferred, Marlow patronizes the doctor by implying that Phrenology is not a scient ific practice because it cannot be used to determine the psychologcal physical fitness of an individual. careless(predicate), the spectacle of this practice in the late 1900s most likely gave Conrad the impetus to effect this parodied scene, which depicts Phrenology as a baseless science however, the practice is not wholly baseless. The founder of Phrenology, Austrian physician Franz Joseph Gall, determined the existence of a affinity between the morphology of the skull and the human character (Peter 1). Franz asserted that the brain is answerable for a humans mental capacities. He attempted to try out this assessment by making statementsfound in his chief work, The chassis and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and ... ...d the movement to justify their White supremacist, Indo-European revolution. Fascist ideologies like Nazism have ravishd some elements of craniometry in the framework of their infamous racist doctrines (Peter 3). As a result of this misu se of Phrenology, it lost much of the scientific respect it hand gained in westward Civilization to the emerging field of psycho-analysis, whose father, Sigmund Freud, believed that the objectivity of Phrenology was limited because of its lack of introspection. Regardless of Phrenologys disgraced past, it can still be regarded as a well-founded science that has an objective groundwork for assessing the importance of self-knowledge, self-achievement, education, and human relationships (Peter 4) in human development. Works CitedPeter, Van den Bosche. Phrenology. http//134.184.33.110/phreno/intro21.html. 05 October 2002.