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I love people who haven't read a lick of history. Sure, Phrenology just died out on it's own. You got it.

• imgabe 5y ago
  Enlighten me. Please do describe the concerted efforts by governments and institutions to ban discussion of phrenology. What was the punishment for unauthorized phrenology lectures? Are you not violating all these anti-phrenology laws right now by even bringing it up?
  • krainboltgreene 5y ago
    > Phrenology was banned in Vienna for a variety of reasons, including the overenthusiasm of Gall's followers, and the treatment of women. https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=sntemp https://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?refere... In fact in places where it wasn't banned it flourished.
    • imgabe 5y ago
      > The ban seemed to make phrenology more popular, and it spread to other European countries. Literally the very next sentence. Banning things doesn’t work. Phrenology died out because it was openly discussed, debated, and debunked. If you are confident you can prove you’re right about an issue, you don’t need to ban anything, you just go ahead and prove that you’re right. When you start banning things people only take that as evidence that it’s some secret forbidden knowledge that threatens the existing power structure and they’re even more motivated to pursue it.