The Dark Story of Phrenology 

"A famous french scientist and racist" with no change in intonation, just said as one full statement, is gold

I love how unflattering some of the artwork is. Like the artist had no trouble portraying how grotesque they found it.

"...the doctrine of the skull." Metal AF.

Deeming someone else inferior doesn't justify harm, hurt or even death

Anyone else remember when there was that fad in the 2010’s about just having a random ceramic phrenology bust as like a “witchy” decorative doodad? That was really weird

imagine u got a pimple on ur scalp and suddenly you're considered wise af

Gosh your channel is criminally underrated. Hopefully by commenting the algorithm will start putting your fantastic work out for more people! 👏

Thanks again to the Mutter Museum for helping me out with footage from the Hyrtl Skull Collection. Go check out their RU-vid Channel while you're at it.

The pacing of these videos is always so perfect, concise but still full of info to keep me interested. Thanks for another banger

Really enjoyed the clear flow. You deserve way more credit for your work!

I would've loved to get to sit and draw at Mütter Museum's wall of skulls for hours. It was stunning in how much shape variety there is from person to person. It's a bit embarrassing and dumb to admit, but my friends and I realized we were so used to stock skull shapes and hadn't really imagined there was so much variety in proportions and shapes.

i truly could not believe that you didnt have over 1MIL subscribers !?!? Your videos are so damn well made, clear, concise, and entertaining !!! Wishing you all the success in the world!

We had a family saying, if someone wasn't quite all there, "They need their bumps felt!"

Americans still love this kind of stuff! Who doesn’t know their astrological sign, temperament type, or Myers-Briggs initials? Aquarius, melancholic, INTJ.

This reminds me a lot of “correlation isn’t causation” problems that still pop up in bad science, statistics and propaganda about race, culture and economics.

All the way from Nigeria!!! A top fan!!! Your videos have been helping me through medical college. Thanks

What a great video! You're exactly what I've been looking for in the terms of educational content in the past few years. Good job!

Hi there I really enjoy your videos both for entertainment and study purposes and I would love it if you could do some anatomy palpitation videos for structures like bones and muscles. You have really helped me learn everything I need to know for my anatomy exams and that is very shocking for me due to my difficulty memorizing information because of my dyslexia. So again thank you very much for your help and I hope you see this! ❤

Its always fun to learn more about a subject that I already knew about. But was sure I didn't know enough in. Excellent video.

Been binging your playlists since I just discovered your channel, omg where have you been?! Addicted!

Please stop cutting out the pauses. So doing makes your narrative hard to follow. The right pause is as important as the right word. Great channel, I am subscribed.

Here because Spencer Henry from Obitchuary Podcast said you were the shit 🎉 you didn’t disappoint!

This is so good! I just found your channel and I’m binging all your videos. Great work and thank you for sharing with us!

This is a great video, very informational!

Love this channel. Great video!

that little end jingle is the most cheerful music ive ever heard overlay the word 'eugenics' spoken anyway good vid! this is basically the old fashioned version of buzzfeed quizzes that tell you when youre going to get married and to whom

I think your content is hugely underrated. When I look at it and compare it to your numbers it simply does not match up. Im a doctor and only came across your channel 1 week ago. Ever since I've seen your subscribers grow by 1 thousand per day, approximately. Now I think things are going to start improving for you. 2 years of absolutely amazing content, everytime, and less than 20 thousand subscribers? I was aghast. Wish you the best. Don't let it get the best of you. You are definitely bound to succeed. And I am here to watch and help you with it. Congratulations, professor.

Good production value and interesting content

ATTN: RU-vid This channel rocks.

Another fantastic video. Educational and entertaining. Thank you!

Thank you, I've been researching Phrenology and I found this video very insightful.

I'm very disappointed you didn't use the scene from Django where Candy was doing a phrenology master class to show how phrenology was actually used back then.

Unfortunately this is coming back on tiktok... ive seen it myself its so bad

Your videos are so good. I'm surprised I've never come across it before haha and what's best is I accidentally clicked your video under someone else's

From scholars to skullers.

Loved the dig at the lobster insanity

Thats so interesting recognising the name fowler and then finding out the connection to the octagonal houses!!! We really should build more cool shaped houses

In the very earliest Sherlock Holmes stories he makes mention of physiognomy denoting criminal types but nothing written after 1890.

Great vid

you just put a new word in my vocabulary

15:54 As a Welshman, it’s nice to see we’re in the top 3..

The 69 (NICE) criminals commentary is super chill :)

As a dyspraxic, I can truthfully say that you can acquire new bumps and lumps on your cranium. I've fractured my skull in two places, what can I say, dyspraxia and motorcycles don't mix.

Great video :-) In Italy, Cesare Lombroso popularized these ideas being the father of criminal anthropology. He collected hundreds of skulls, too. I visited his museum in Torino.

"You need your bumps felt" was a saying from my childhood (UK,1960s/70s) meaning that you were insane.

4:22 One of my undergrad psych profs pointed out that of these principles of phrenology, literally only the very last one - that outer skull shape reflects brain shape - has actually been found to be incorrect. Each of the other principles is actually mostly accurate. But that one inaccuracy led them totally astray.

5:00 the absolute pleasure in your voice as you read that 😂😂😂 great band name honestly 😂🤘💀

Those old cartoons are hilarious man! I love that wacky British humor.

"Oh you have a well shaped skull", was it a kind of compliment in the 19th century, I wonder?

I first learned about phrenology from a show about Ray Kroc.

“Uh, sir, Phrenology was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago.” “Of course you’d say that, you’ve the Brain pan of a stagecoach tilter!”

Society has rejected phrenology and eugenics yet still embraces quackery such as homeopathy. Why? There must be factors more powerful than science driving bus. I want to learn more about this.

wheres the eugenics vid i cant find it ?

Unfortunately phrenology has been functionally revived

Yeah, imagine thinking that violent behavior could ever be race based. That would be total nonsense, specially in fiery but peaceful times like these.

Is this recorded on 1.25 speed? My settings are on normal. It sounds too fast. Cant follow.

The governor of Oregon seems to agree with Morton and the like.

That's wierd. The part about physiognomy. It is well documented in the 1600scthat physiognomy means that one can discern the name of a certain individuals based solely upon the outward appearance of said individual. For example that bloke looks like a bill, or that shiela looks like a Karen.

5:06 should have been I hear that skullers have baptized the child before it has come into the world

I wonder what equivalents of phrenology we accept unquestioningly today.

Curious if the Typhoid was inflicted upon him and the very people, the ones who took over

Phrenology could be used in modern age again to create video game characters

Man, science sure made some missteps in the past.

I didn't know these weird phrenology images were from this sudo scientific, but I've always hated them, even if they are meant to be funny.

“You can alter your mind and body with what you eat” “Digestive power is controlled by the brain” So I guess Taco Bell was invented by a phrenologist who really took digestive power seriously

3:50 nice

Who got into phrenology through Simpsons 👇

u sure those lines are dotted?

Wonder is the bulging eyes were because of thyroid

Scientific racism gone not because it was dismissed scientifically, but because it is impossible to make any studies in highly politically censored field. It doesn't mean scientific racism is a viable discipline, but it means we can't prove is it viable or not, because only one side of the question can be vocal.

99% Invisible, episode 498, The Octagon House (07/05/22)

I have a 1845 published book on Phrenology. Thank you for helping me understand the premise better before I open the delicate text.

I'm looking forward to the essay on Eugenics. Sadly, I have to say, as a German, this is something thats important to me: Here in Germany, those bogus oldtimey "science" books are under special publication protection, so no one republishes them, resells them or prints them. We can't even read them. I know a bit about them because I studied Science of Education, and as we all know, Hitler, sadly, is a big part of European (If not the worlds) recent history and therefore, any field of science is impacted by the climate he produced at the time. (For people reading, Hitler loved conspiracy and eugenics and those go hand in hand, sorry not sorry.) I'm glad there is censorship on those books because if they weren't under wraps here, then people would publish them freely and widely and make them out to be something they are not, like its happening in the USA. Just because some countries are free, doesnt mean that the people who live there aren't...sneaky with Hitler stuff. Nazi ideology gets repackaged and repurpused (See, the tiktok trrends on conspiracy or "blackpill" or the "face reading" trends, all based on these outdated, rascist beliefs, but under the guise of science) and its horrifying to see. My country does everything so this shit doesnt get to the people who want to weaponize it and still, people would rather cry about censorship than about what actually happens in reality when you allow a large portion of the population to publish bogus science. Many videos on your channel show the exact trickle down effect that happens when this "knowledge" gets passed off as cool, trendy or "scientific". I just wanna shed light on the issue that back then people thought phrenology was good and cool and trendy and quirky and nowadays, there are people who pick up Nazi books, dont look at the FUCKING PUBLISHING DATE and then RUN WILD with it. And thats just me thinking in good faith, because bad faith would be saying they know its written by nazis, during the nazi era.

Literally Victorian astrology.

Fun fact: this subject is still covered in criminology major courses to this day. Not always as a bygone era "science."

😁 for the algorithm.

❤😅

Ah so this is like Gen Z and Astrology.

I think faculty psychology is very likely to make a comeback.

My mom developed broca's aphasia from brain cancer before she died. Its INSANE

Anyone else find it ironic/ funny how Charles Darwin visually had a really distinguished brow ridge? ...I know it's bad form to poke fun at someone's head shape in order to criticize the racist science of head shapes... But hear me out! The guy who made the theory phrenologists were using to justify their racist beliefs (like the belief non-white people had skull shapes closer to apes than white people and were therefore cool to be treated as subhuman) -the guy whose work could supposedly substatiate that view- was a white guy with a really prominent brow bone. The kind of skeletal feature definitely used in modern imagination when thinking of 'cavemen', neanderthals, even apes! This is a tongue-in-cheek, *not politically-correct opinion*, but just looking at Darwin after saying that white people are "more evolved, seen by our less monkey-like heads" is so insane to me haha. (Amongst it all being insanity). I know I'm an asshole for thinking this, but anytime I see photos of Charles Darwin, one of my first thoughts is always "man, that guy looks so much like an ape/ monkey" x _ x

9:20 Who debunked the fad?

The origin of the sort of racism is Darwinism, and Darwinism is fundamentally racist. If we are just evolved monkeys then you can look at the outside of people, their skin, for example, and judge them on that basis. Darwinism encourages biological determinism, which inherently leads to racism.

I do not think that it is unfortunate when phrenologists gets typhus and dies, not at all.

Sounds like Iridology in a way. There's actually a Doctorate available for that.

A comment for the algorithm. You are amazing!

How galling...

FBI crime statistics by race.

Intelligent design. HA! The things people make up.

Comment for the algorithm. Content too good to not be served up to the masses.

Did "intelligent design" existed at that time?

How do we reconcile the thorough debunking of phrenology with the apparent phenomic traits of certain disorders such as Down syndrome? There seems to be a bit of universality to the personality traits and physical traits of individuals with Down syndrome without regard to race or class; is something like phrenology capable of diagnosing the disorder reliably without a genotypical assay of the individual? And why does Down syndrome often-perhaps overwhelmingly-leave people with distinctive and obvious facial and cranial morphologies in the first place?

Mcat prep 💪💪

There actually really are differences in ethnicities when it comes to skull size and shape just to be clear.

"justify some high-evel bigotry", inconvenient facts, in other words.

Good video. It's a pity that you obsess about calling long-dead people racist. Rich people looked down on everyone who was not wealthy. Poor white men were also discriminated against. Please reconsider how you judge the long-dead from a different age.

I have a doctor friend is saying phrenology is how he rec9gnize crazy people... it says a lot about racism in the scientific scholar even today.

Love the Jordan Peterson burn there

Hmm. Seems like CRT got some of its ideas from this.

I have this exact bust I bought it for 20 dollars