Hello and welcome once again to the Skeptics Guide to the Universe.

Today is Wednesday, September 28th, 2005.

This is your host, Steven Novella, president of the New England Skeptical Society.

With me tonight are Bob Novella.

Hello everyone.

Perry, D'Angeles.

Good evening everyone.

And Evan Bernstein.

Hello out there.

First some quick follow up from our last show.

Bob made the point about phrenology that it actually spawned a great deal of legitimate research into neurology,

and the structure of the brain, etc. which I was skeptical of, I must say.

But I asked Bob for a source and now he claims he has one.

Let's hear it.

My sources the day the universe changed, how Galileo's telescope changed the truth and other events in history that dramatically altered our understanding of the world.

It's quite a title.

By James Burke, who is the connections guy, a fairly decent source, although I just found out he was a postmodernist, which was kind of disconcerting.

His quote was by the end of the 19th century interest in phrenology had gone, but not before it had spurred brain research well beyond contemporary scientific necessity.

The phrenologist claimed focused attention on brain function and structure, and over the following years that led to the major early neurophysiological discoveries.

So I remember listening to that in audio tape of that book years ago, when the phrenology topic came up, that left to mind and you didn't believe me.

No, I didn't. I guess I stand corrected.

I knew that the phrenology is the idea that you can read someone's personality by feeling the bumps on their head.

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