284 Thurs and Numbers
cant parts of those activities formerly called natural philosophy and natu-
ral history, the more rhetorical punch pseudoscience packed as a weapon
against one’s enemies. By the same token, even taking account of its many
possible meanings, pseudoscience gave people the ability to mark off sci-
entifi c pretense and error as especially worthy of notice and condemna-
tion, making science all the more clear by sharpening the outlines of its
shadow and opening the door to attestations of its value in contrast with
other kinds of knowledge. In this sense, pseudoscience did not simply run
afoul of scientifi c orthodoxy—it helped to create such orthodoxy.
Pseudoscience began its career in the English- speaking world rather
modestly. While certainly in general use during the early and mid- 1800s,
it was still somewhat rare, particularly in contrast to the latter decades of
the century and the 1900s. This is visible, for instance, in full- text searches
for the term in American magazine articles from 1820 to 1920.^7 In general,
the results of such a survey show no usage at fi rst, then a steadily increas-
ing appeal, with a slight surge in the 1850s and a dramatic increase in the
1880s, leading to a comparatively high and somewhat constant level of
use around the turn of the century. By this time pseudoscience was be-
coming an international term of opprobrium. The French used the same
word as the English did; however, other nationalities coined cognates:
Pseudowissenschaften in German, pseudoscienza in Italian, seudociencia in
Spanish, pseudovetenskap in Swedish, pseudowetenschap in Dutch, andпсевдонаука in Russian.^8 Americans, however, seemed to have been fond-
est of the term, which makes the American context particularly interest-
ing for examining the rise and evolution of pseudoscience.
During the 1830s and 1840s a wide variety of novel ideas appeared on
the American intellectual landscape that some people thought strange.
These novelties included religious groups such as Mormons and Miller-
ites and social- reform movements associated with women’s rights and
abolitionism. A host of new scientifi c and medical approaches, ranging
from the do- it- yourself botanical cures of Thomsonianism to the minute
doses of homeopathy, also circulated. Probably the most emblematic of
the crop of - isms, - ologies, and - athies that fl ourished in the antebellum
soil was phrenology. In its most popular form, which linked the shape of
the skull (and the cerebral organs underneath) to the details of an indi-
vidual’s personality, phrenological doctrine was spread across the nation
by a cadre of devoted lecturers and head readers and by a thick stack of
cheap literature.^9
For many of its skeptics, phrenology provided one of the primary ex-
amples of pseudoscience and, sometimes with special emphasis, “pseudo
science.” As we indicated above, the very fi rst reference we have found to