I’m currently reading The Magnificent Spilsbury and the Case of the Brides in the Bath by Jane Robins. She quotes from The Strand magazine of 1908 in which Dr Bernard Holander wrote “As regards the anatomical marks of the typical criminal… there is a general conformation of the head which characterises the born criminal…his skull is widest from ear to ear…”.
She then quotes from a lecture given by Dr Albert Wilson in June 1908 in which he reports that in examining the brain of “a most degraded man and a murderer” and finding the grooves were “abnormally shallow” and part was “shrivelled”.
Fast forward to 2011 and, a hundred years on we have tinyurl.com/6ayjmoz (or tinyurl.com/6fvm42k if you prefer the Daily Mail version) and you find Professor Adrian Raine, a former Home Office criminologist, reports; “Abnormalities in the parts of the brain that handle emotions, guilt and fear are far more common in criminals than in law-abiding members of society”.
So, are we going backwards of forwards? Science or ignorance? Queue here to get your head measured.
John
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I'm a supporter of retrophrenology - worked on my kids. ;>)
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...…his skull is widest from ear to ear…
Most of the people on my telly look like that, must be the dodgy widescreen.
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On cctv absolutely everyone looks like a furtive slinking toerag. Once you've been seen by one of those things it's just a matter of time before you are pulled for looking dodgy in some significant place.
I suspect Zero may have been involved in developing the technology, and inserted that feature into it to keep us all on our toes.
It can't have been Sheikh RattleandRoll unless he did it by accident. He's far too kind-hearted to do something like that on purpose.
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The trouble with CCTV is that its always of original crap quality, and is always at long distance so always blown up.
Its a surprise we don't think everyone is a indistinct loose collection of pixels.
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>> On cctv absolutely everyone looks like a furtive slinking toerag.
Too right, I hate watching myself on cctv walking into a shop, they really do not flatter anyone. And I don't like those mirrors that make you look skinnier - I'm skinny enough, I don't want my legs reduced to pipe cleaners.
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I love mirrors that make me look skinny...
Pat
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>> Fast forward to 2011 and, a hundred years on we have tinyurl.com/6ayjmoz
"Psychologist Dr Adrian Raine said recognising problems in a child's limbic system, which controls emotion, will allow scientists to predict future offenders and psychopaths."
Minority Report, Tom Cruise 2002 www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/
"In the future, criminals are caught before the crimes they commit..."
(Good film BTW)
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Criminals even boast they are going to commit crimes in advance.
As I read the refusniks on the Census, we appear to have a LOT of criminals here :-)
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You look like a criminal - bathtub tom
