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Elective
Physiognomies
"Don't
judge a book by it's cover is all very well,
but
imagine the benefits to your business or
romantic life if you could judge a person's
character just by looks"
Their Faces Give Them
Away, Adelaide Advertiser 1994.
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Physiognomy
is the reading of a person's character from the physical features
of their face. Historically physiognomical studies consisted of
drawings of faces accompanied by a written analysis.
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readings adapted from "Essays on Physiognomy" JC Lavater 1772,
portraits adapted from an image of the artist
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Physiognomy
demonstrates a desire for exactness in the knowledge of inexact
things. Contemporary fields of scientific research such as the
Human Genome Project seem just as prone to tendencies of over-simplification
and projection as those of the enlightenment.
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"Physiognomy
takes cognisance of races and nations as well as of individuals.
It holds that as, physically, there is a difference between
the tawny Mongolian of the far East who rears his miserable
wigwam of twigs and turf and the civilised Caucasian, from whose
hand springs palaces of crystal which he crowds with the triumphs
of science and art."
The Mind in
the Face, W McDowall 1792
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"The
genome project promises to find the pieces of our genetic code
responsible for diseases, but it may also find genetic markers
that determine personality, temperament and sexual orientation.
As we re-engineer the genome we are also re-engineering ourselves
as programmed beings"
Science, Sherry
Turkle 1995
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