Neat... racist woo! "Personology"

[trotsky]

I hadn't heard of this bullcrap until just this morning. Guess I was lucky to miss it because it PISSED ME OFF. The blathering idiots on a radio morning show were relating the highlights. The gist of it is that your facial structure and features supposedly reveal your personality characteristics. What it comes down to is judging people on the basis of their appearance/looks. That, to me at least, is RACISM.

Wikipedia has a basic writeup here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personology

But the most revealing sentence comes from the Google snip of the actual personology web site (personlogy.com, which doesn't seem to be responding this morning):

Personology is the synergistic culmination of years of research and analysis by many scientists and philosophers.

Well there ya go.

[TZ]

1. This is accepted currently? Oy vey

Well it figures, if you look at that Wiki article it links you to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
Phrenology, which I learned about in college (in the late 80's mind you) in anthropology measuring personality/intelligence based on skull/head morphology. Which IS out and out racism. I really thought this whole area of study was thoroughly and completely debunked a long time ago.
Looks like the racists have just "modernized" and streamlined old and outdated scientific justifications for racism..:banghead: :puke:

[trotsky]

2. I wanted to scream at the radio.

One of the supposed "links" is that if you have a "Roman" or hooked nose, you're good with money. Fuckity fuck why don't they just come out and say "Jews are tightwads" and get it over with? I can't believe this racist bullshit still gets any kind of support. They just keep trying from different angles.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Graphoanalysis is widely accepted, too

I've been asked to submit handwriting samples as part of a job application -- for a job that didn't involve and handwriting.

This is anecdotal, but I've heard that this is common in evaluating job applicants in various parts of Europe. I hope that's not true.

[dropkickpa]

6. Whoa! I'd be completely unemployable!

I handwrite as little as possible, because my penmenship is horrific. I am SO glad to be a child of the computer age.

[DavidDvorkin]

7. Same her

I didn't respond to that request -- not because of my penmanship, but because I thought it obvious why they wanted it.

[LeftishBrit]

17. Me too!

[realisticphish]

18. and I

I write like a third-grader

[dropkickpa]

19. Me too

My handwriting is slightly better than Dropkid's, and she's in 1st grade.

[TZ]

20. lol

maybe we need a writing contest to find the worst..I would maintain that's me...Of course there's chicagomd who automatically qualifies for the bad handwriting award being an MD......:P

[dropkickpa]

23. I'm game!

I'll have to wait until I get to work tomorrow to scan something in. I'm conversing with fellow science geeks, it's sort of work related, right?

[moggie]

24. I found some of my old school exercise books

I was amazed to see how much better my handwriting was when I was at school. Now, I'm hopeless. I was so glad when chip-and-PIN authentication was introduced for credit and debit cards, because my signature is different every time, so paying by card used to be an ordeal.

[trotsky]

25. My writing got so bad that in college I had to switch to printing my class notes.

Because even *I* couldn't decipher my script. Now I sign my name, which usually ends up as a scribble, but that's it.

[realisticphish]

26. i stopped using cursive

in middle school. I write in print, except for signatures, and I have to think for a minute before writing in cursive.

God, on the GRE you have to copy down this huge paragraph in your own handwriting (which they have decreed is cursive). It was hell; it felt like I was writing in chinese

[varkam]

13. I would've submitted a handwritten essay...

on why Graphoanalysis is total woo-woo nonsensical bullshit. :evilgrin:

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Good idea!

Wish I'd thought of that.

[RedShoesBlueState]

4. At the risk of invoking the Swastika thing....

I know, I know...it's just too easy to go to the Nazi comparison BUT....they were all about measuring skulls to prove their racial theories. They didn't call it phrenology, but the similarities are there. So, this crap surfaces again, under another guise, 60 years later.

[trotsky]

5. No need to feel bad about bringing that up.

Because it's the same rotten fruit from the same diseased tree. It *should* be brought up whenever a new form of it comes around.

[onager]

8. That didn't work out so well...

As shown in the great biographical movie Europa, Europa.

I don't want to spoil it if you haven't seen it. But in one scene the protagonist, a Hitler Youth member, ends up in an "Adolf Hitler School" for promising future-fuehrers.

The teacher calls him in front of the class, measures his skull and nose length, and pronounces him a perfect Aryan physical specimen.

The Perfect Aryan, unfortunately, is Solomon Perel. Who is very Jewish.

The physical appearance thing really bugs me, too. Using that standard, anybody would have got in the car with handsome, happy-go-lucky Ted Bundy.

[realisticphish]

9. excellent film

i liked the part where he was practicing saluting, and started to turn it into a dance

And, not to nitpick, be he is pointed out as NOT perfectly aryan (he had brown hair/eyes), but still of western european origin, which made him ok, if not "perfect."

[onager]

10. Thanks. Been a long time since I've seen it.

But when you talked about him turning the salute into a dance, it reminded me of the dance between Hitler and Stalin in the movie.

[realisticphish]

11. lmao

i had forgotten that :D

[varkam]

12. It sounds like recycled phrenology.

Phrenology was the idea that you could determine personality characteristics from the shape of the skull. I guess they just decided to move down a few inches :shrug:

Oh, yeah, and it's still total crap.

[realisticphish]

14. Oh, yeah

clearly bone structure has a massive effect on our personalities. I mean, without high cheekbones, how would you focus your Qi?

[Warpy]

15. And we thought phrenology was dead.

I guess no stupid idea ever dies, it just waits for a new batch of suckers to come along.

[LeftishBrit]

16. This sort of stuff was quite influential in the 19th and early 20th centuries

This is Wikipedia, but a pretty accurate summary of the older theories - Lombroso was probably the most influential theorist. And yes, it was strongly linked to racism (and sexism: women usually don't have the initiative and intelligence to be criminals, and female criminals are of a peculiarly dangerous masclinized type!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropological_criminology

[NoodleBoy]

21. So why don't all Nobel Laureates look the same?

Why don't all of my doctors have the same shape of head? Why do none of my professors have the same brow?

The most ridiculous aspect of shit like this is when you challenge it, and someone says, "DOOD don't be Pee-See!" Since, you know, I'm only concerned about looking like I'm not a racist, and not that supposedly innocent assertions about the way people look is a reflection of their innate worth is the way most hardcore racism starts.