How to Use phrenology in a Sentence

phrenology

noun

• Some of these studies have not been replicated, and have been criticized as a modern form of phrenology.
  — Brandon Keim, WIRED, 12 Jan. 2009
• Some of these were fads, such as phrenology (the idea that personality or psychology could be determined by the shape of the head).
  — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 22 Dec. 2020
• True-crime fans who have had a little bit too much screen time basically do phrenology on serial killers.
  — Vulture, 8 Feb. 2023
• In the summer of 1868, in sweltering Barbados, a man named W.D. Maxwell, a native of the island, gave a series of public lectures on the subject of phrenology.
  — Christoph Irmscher, WSJ, 22 May 2019
• But others disliked the stench of charlatanism that clung to any ideas associated with phrenology.
  — Grace Huckins, Wired, 17 Aug. 2020
• Visitors could have their cranial measurements taken on the spot, in keeping with the voguish interest in phrenology.
  — Patrick Iber, The New Republic, 14 Aug. 2019
• One of Mensa’s co-founders, Roland Berrill, believed in the pseudoscience of phrenology, which involves measuring skulls to predict mental ability.
  — Cat Zhang, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2020
• The result has been the perpetuation of racist, pseudoscientific practices like phrenology, mood reading software, and AIs that purport to know if you’re gay by how your face looks.
  — Sydney Skybetter, Wired, 7 Feb. 2021
• The 19th century field of phrenology, for example, held that the shape of one’s skull could determine one’s propensity for criminality and violence.
  — Gemma Tarlach, Discover Magazine, 31 Mar. 2016
• The movie talks a bit about the pseudoscientific lineage of this kind of thought — phrenology, eugenics and other attempts to use data to enforce social hierarchies.
  — John Defore, The Hollywood Reporter, 10 Mar. 2018
• This belief isn’t based on empirical evidence, but on a 19th-century hypothesis about free will that has more in common with phrenology than with our modern understanding of how brains work.
  — Joanna Klein, New York Times, 11 May 2017
• This is obviously not a side of phrenology that Mr. Colicchio, who is outspoken about his progressive politics, embraces.
  — Kim Severson, New York Times, 22 Aug. 2017
• Paton, a practitioner of phrenology, a pseudo-science that makes inferences about mental faculties and character traits based on the shape of the skull, took particular interest in Adie’s cranium.
  — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 3 Sep. 2019
• What about Holocaust denial or whatever modern incarnation of phrenology posits that black people lack sufficient intellect to vote?
  — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 31 May 2018
• Pseudosciences like phrenology were used to politely assert the inferiority of black people.
  — Danielle Tcholakian, Longreads, 7 Apr. 2018
• Microclimate and phrenology are explained with clarity and sufficient depth.
  — Sally Peterson, oregonlive, 23 Apr. 2021
• With its title mocking the attempts of phrenology to diminish the worth of African Americans, Smith paints dignified portraits of everyday black people—a bootblack, a washerman—as examples of the unique personalities inherent to every human being.
  — Bryan Greene, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Feb. 2021
• Pseudosciences such as phrenology and eugenics have attempted to ascribe a biological rationalization for the oppression of certain groups.
  — Harry Bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Aug. 2017
• No chemistry department would extend an invitation to an alchemist; no reputable department of psychology would entertain a lecture espousing phrenology.
  — Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2017
• To broaden Kelso’s story, the author takes every opportunity to look beyond the man, with cogent discussions of national political and cultural trends and enlightening digressions on everything from phrenology to dueling.
  — Gerard Helferich, WSJ, 19 Dec. 2021
• In Mécanisme de la physionomie humaine, Duchenne laid important foundations for both Darwin and Ekman, connecting older ideas from physiognomy and phrenology with more modern investigations into physiology and psychology.
  — Kate Crawford, The Atlantic, 27 Apr. 2021

Last Updated: 13 Nov 2024