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Posted by Kris Krieger on November 28, 2007, 4:39 pm
>
>
> Kris Krieger wrote:
>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>A few phrenologists I have met over time have all had in common both
>>>an inferiority complex and the overwhelming need to feel some sort of
>>>both superiority and control over other people to compensate for
>>>their complexes. Can you imagine the creduity of some guy like that
>>>explaining sotto voce how someone is genetically not quite to the
>>>mark because of the shape of his oer her head? Now, imagine the
>>>irritation at being considered one of the phrenologist's presumed
>>>illuminati because of the shape of your own head. Do you want to be
>>>a part of that guy's in group?
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Given that teh skull takes a couple of years to harden, and that, for
>>example, ancient Meso-Americans (I think the Maya but check, because I
>>don't recall) would bind the heads of infants so as to create an
>>elongated shape, and as a second example, the "papoose", wherein an
>>infant would be swaddled against a firm back, tended to give the
>>babies' heads a flattened shape in the back, I do not at all
>>comprehend how anyone can take phrenology seriously. Maybe, as an
>>infant, someone just slept in a certain position most of the tiem, as
>>opposed to someone else. It is such a crock of nonsense that it's not
>>even funny.
>>
>>
>
> I think there is a study suggesting that a slowly closing soft spot on
> an infant's skill is a good thing, it allows the brain to expand and
> that there are congenital deficits associated with binding or
> otherwise affecting skull shapes?
Exactly. Infant brains are huge in comparison to body size, but the brain
still has to grow after that as part of th edevelopmental porcess. I don't
recall exactly what the problems are that occur when the skull hardens too
fast, but it's evidently cause for surgical intervention.
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