What's the difference between phrenologist and phrenology?

Phrenologist


Definition:

  • (n.) One versed in phrenology; a craniologist.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) To the contrary, he and the phrenologists took a traditional concept of function regarding the contribution or duties of a part within the overall "animal economy" and argued that the "faculties" of the soul are among the functions of the nervous system.
  • (2) This paper examines the status of aphasia localization prior to Broca, and, specifically, the extent to which Broca's discovery may have been anticipated by the phrenologists.
  • (3) Victorian novels are replete with characters – particularly women characters – who exhibit what we might recognise now as some of the symptoms of anxiety disorders, from fainting to hysteria: manifestations of inner turmoil that would, in real life, have had the phrenologists running to examine their heads, and the hydropathists rushing to welcome them to their new-fangled spas (cold-water remedies were particularly popular when it came to treating what our ancestors regarded as a form of madness).
  • (4) The renowned amateur anthropologist Charles Mountford promoted a 1945 lecture tour about Aboriginal people in Arnhem Land under the title Australia's Stone Age Men, drawing on a stereotype that had defined the work of Darwinists and phrenologists for 150 years.

Phrenology


Definition:

  • (n.) The science of the special functions of the several parts of the brain, or of the supposed connection between the various faculties of the mind and particular organs in the brain.
  • (n.) In popular usage, the physiological hypothesis of Gall, that the mental faculties, and traits of character, are shown on the surface of the head or skull; craniology.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The paper describes the design and use of a machine, the "Psychograph," which automatically measured the size and shape of the skull and provided evaluations of mental traits according to phrenological principles.
  • (2) Phrenology, best described as a pseudo or even voodoo science "of the mind", had created its own prolific market for the body parts – especially heads – of Australian and other indigenous people since the late 18th century.
  • (3) It is held that this circularity of definition reflects the fundamental unity of conscious experience and, as a consequence, that the search for the biological substrate underlying individual functions too readily degenerates into a morphological and biochemical phrenology.
  • (4) Professor of engineering and psychology in the US, William Uttal, calls these trends in neuroscience "neo-phrenology".
  • (5) Long after phrenology was widely discredited, Aboriginal skulls were still sought and displayed with the same benign sentiment that one might attach to animal remains.
  • (6) Practices based on such concepts are now considered by most to be a manifestation of quackery, though phrenology is still believed in by some.
  • (7) Phrenology is based on the assumption that various modalities of behavior are localized to specific morphologic areas of the brain.
  • (8) Some of the anthropologists, attracted to phrenology, asked for skulls, while others wanted skin with elaborate tribal markings.

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