Sydney Smith 
Denysha Taylor Phrenology is first developed by Franz Joseph Gall who believed that the strengths and weakness of one’s mental faculties could be determined by examining the bumps and depressions on one’s skull. According to Thomas Reid, faculties were aspects of mind that influenced human behavior and thought. Gall claimed that the faculties were located in specific areas of the brain. A bump on the skull could reflect its well-developed corresponding faculty; likewise a hollow on the skull meant its corresponding faculty was underdeveloped. Gall attempted to associate specific parts of brain and forms of skull with specific personality characteristic and behavior patterns. For example, by examining the skull of a group of pickpockets, he suggested that the bump behind their ears was related to their tendency to steal.
I want to put phrenology under the category of Fall. According to Gall’s phrenology, the shape of a person’s skull determines the development of his or her mental faculty and thereby influences his personality traits and behaviors. People may develop prejudice to others or even racial discrimination. Take the pickpockets for example again. Because of the belief that who has the bump behind their ears is more likely to steal or lie, people will make their unfavorable attitude or negative judgment towards someone based on bumps behind his or her ears, not actual experience. Moreover, by examining skulls from different races, phrenology becomes a way to measure the degree of evolvement of each race: whether one race is smarter or more advanced than the others. It may lead to discrimination and hate crimes. Wars and holocaust can make the consequence even worse.
Jacey Ferrara
5:14 pm, 10.21.13
Mengyuan,
I think Gall is so interesting. It’s fascinating to me the idea of looking at the outside physical appearances of someones head to determine a set of behaviors and attitudes. I agree that Gall can easily be placed under the Fall. Phrenology very obviously states that people are well developed in some areas and underdeveloped in other faculties, which leads us to understand we are not all created equal and therefore have faults, thus the fall. In addition, I think it’s interesting that Gall typically seems to be describing faculties that lead to judgements of stealing, lying, etc. I don’t recall hearing too many positive things he. For example, he doesn’t say a raised faculty in “X” area is associated with resilient person. I like reading other people’s thoughts on Gall, so thanks for posting!
Matt McMahon
8:46 pm, 10.21.13
I thought this was an interesting post. I had never thought about Gall as related to prejudice but i think it is a connection that makes sense and clearly fits into the Fall.
Caroline Nikolaus
10:20 pm, 10.21.13
Gall really is fascinating, and I was thinking the same thing- Jacey! Does he have theories about the good attributes of human nature? Or what we should do about that? Does Gall only speculate about how he can tell if someone is good or bad, or does he call for a movement to use this skill for the betterment of society? Get rid of the bad? Pair the good ones together? Did he think the bumps were passed down through the generations? It’s all interesting to think about.
Levi Ritchie
10:30 pm, 10.21.13
On the one, Gall’s theory could be used for evil, but I think it’s important that he tried to begin with. As with many other failed ideas, it’s hard to get a better understanding of what you’re doing when none of your work is falsifiable. Phrenology made a big jump in logic about the shape of the skull, but Gall was perfectly correct about different areas of the brain being useful for different things.
Considering that other seemingly unrelated bodily characteristics seem to be associated with psychological and hormonal functions (like your ring and index finger correlating with estrogen and testosterone production), it wasn’t too crazy for him to the think he could find some truth’s in the shape of the skull.
Laura Kate Music
11:35 pm, 10.21.13
Great Post! I really have never thought about how phrenology can be linked to possible racial prejudices. I assumed it was something that never affected society much, or influenced peoples attitudes.
Phrenology is a good example of how things can be given too much importance and before long, people are believing them to be truths. It is alarming to think that if phrenology was given much more emphasis it could have embedded racial or SES prejudices into society.