Flabbergasted to see Hazel catkins open this early in December. It's only 13 years ago, but finding these flowers open on my first #NewYearPlantHunt on New Year's Day 2013 was quite hard.

These particular plants have been flowering before Christmas in recent years, but, I think, not as early as this.

#Phrenology #NaturesCalendar #HarbingerOfSpring

#PseudoScience (phrenology) and Hate Called the #Irish "Inferior"

Hate, evil propoganda, and pseudoscience. Then as now = Evil stupidity!!!

FYI: Many of these knuckle dragging #whitesupremacists in the 21st century actually believe in ...wait for it... #phrenology 🤮

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iesB_QlKWus&pp=ugUEEgJlbg%3D%3D

"So Mr Guenzel and his co-authors used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness. (Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)

They then used data on these individuals’ labour-market outcomes to see whether the Photo Big Five had any predictive power. The answer, they conclude, is yes: facial analysis has useful things to say about a person’s post-MBA earnings and propensity to move jobs, among other things.

There are plenty of caveats. The predictive power of the Photo Big Five shouldn’t be exaggerated; the authors say it is only an incremental source of information on candidates. The field of AI facial analysis is young, and has been at the centre of methodological firestorms in the past. And even if techniques were flawless, adoption is likely to be slow. Anti-discrimination laws mean that there are obvious legal risks associated with making any decisions based on facial characteristics. Manish Raghavan of the MIT Sloan School of Management notes that companies are wary of using AI for facial analysis (though he worries more about bias infecting chatbot summaries of candidates’ cvs or LinkedIn profiles.)"

https://www.economist.com/business/2025/11/06/should-facial-analysis-help-determine-whom-companies-hire

#Phrenology #PseudoScience #BullshitScience #AI #FacialAnalysis

🇬🇧 💀 **How the racist study of skulls gripped Victorian Britain’s scientists **

"_In research for my forthcoming book on skull collections, I’ve found that Cambridge’s cranial register includes a skull sent from a former student stationed in India. He had plucked it from a cremation site in Bombay despite the outrage of gathered mourners. Brazen grave-robbing and colonial violence were central to the international network that furnished British universities’ skull rooms._"

🔗 https://theconversation.com/how-the-racist-study-of-skulls-gripped-victorian-britains-scientists-262280.

#History #Histodons #Science #HistSci #Phrenology #Universities #ScientificRacism #Racism #Medicine #UK #UnitedKingdom @histodons @science