Voting Station

Franz Joseph Gall

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Doctor

The Resume

    (March 9, 1758-August 22, 1828)
    Born in Baden, Germany
    Neurologist
    Naturalized citizen of France (1819)
    Wrote 'The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General and of the Brain in Particular, with Observations upon the Possibility of Ascertaining the Several Intellectual and Moral Dispositions of Man and Animal, by the Configuration of Their Heads' (1819)
    Founded the pseudoscience of phrenology in which personality could be assessed based on the shape of the skull

Why he might be annoying:

    The key assumption of phrenology, that the contours of the skull follow the underlying shape of the brain, was wrong.
    He was rejected for the French Academy of Sciences multiple times.
    Phrenology was used to demonstrate the superiority of Europeans over 'lesser' races. (Such as one of Gall's disciples proclaiming that Maori and Australian aborigines could never be civilized since they lacked the bump produced by the cerebral organ for creating art.)
    At his autopsy, his skull was reportedly found to be twice as thick as normal.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He rejected an offer to become personal physician to Emperor Francis II in order to preserve his independence.
    He was exiled from Vienna, not for practicing pseudoscience but because his belief that there was an organ for religiosity was considered atheistic.
    It also landed his publications on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books (1802).
    Although he was wrong about the importance of bumps on the head, his belief that different mental abilities were located in different parts of the brain was correct.

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 83 Votes: 54.22% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 5 Votes: 80.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 4 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 11 Votes: 54.55% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 16 Votes: 56.25% Annoying