Talk:Phrenology

message: I seem to remember that Sherlock Holmes used phrenology. This article makes no mention of that. --87.198.16.181 (talk) 21:03, 5 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sherlock Holmes 

message: I do not know if there is any basis whatsoever to the anecdote about David Lloyd-George and C.P. Snow (no source is given), but, in any case, they do not belong to the Victorian era, as the article implies. They are both 20th century figures, and Queen Victoria died in January 1901. Lloyd-George did not become a Cabinet Minister until 1906, and was Prime Minister from 1916-1922. Snow was not even born until 1905, and did not become prominent until the 1940s and 50's. Although it is possible that Lloyd-George was a believer in phrenology (although by his time it was already widely discredited), and it is possible that Snow met him in his old age, neither of them were Victorians. I am going to remove this anecdote. Even if true, it is misplaced and misdated. Treharne (talk) 14:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lloyd-George and C.P. Snow 

message: Is it really apt to label phrenology as a "pseudoscience"? Obviously it's discredited but I found that Wikipedia generally uses the word pseudoscience to label beliefs that are more modern or still followed in the modern world, and/or whose followers were contemporaneously countered with decisively refuting evidence but ignored it regardless. Phrenology is an old theory that existed before advanced neuroscience, and while there were many opponents to it equally many scientists still confided in it and it influenced much of contemporary brain physiology and psychology until it was more conclusively disproven. Although its refutation came relatively quickly, I still think that it falls more appropriately under the category of obsolete scientific theories, akin to the miasma theory of disease or spontaneous generation of lifeforms, by virtue of how widely believed it was in the first half of the 19th century. GN-z11 ☎  ★ 11:25, 19 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction label 

message: The sentence, “While it contributed to the advancement in understanding the brain and its functions, remaining skeptical is something that was learnt overtime.”, seems either badly formed or there is a type-o or word missing, but as I 1. do not have experience editing Wikipedia and 2. am not sure which of the above is happening, i.e how exactly to fix the sentence or if it just needs to be removed, I thought it better to simply note this for someone else to tackle. 2601:603:4D81:6720:694D:36D8:DB69:2A44 (talk) 02:46, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange sentence in introduction 

message: In the section Gender stereotyping this passage appears:
"Gender stereotyping was also common with phrenology. Women whose heads were generally larger in the back with lower foreheads were thought to have underdeveloped organs necessary for success in the arts and sciences while having larger mental organs relating to the care of children and religion. While phrenologists did not contest the existence of talented women, this minority did not provide justification for citizenship or participation in politics."
But nobody knows what the phrase this minority refers to.
I hope that someone knowledgeable about this subject will fix this.
2601:204:F181:9410:5874:FD97:CEEB:3FFB (talk) 19:54, 18 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unclear passage