Science, like the world of fashion, has fashions. Some ideas and theories enjoy enormous interest for a while and then fade from view. Physiognomy, the "science" of extracting character from facial features was enormously, and erroneously, influential in the nineteenth century. Lavater's book on the subject sold hugely for its day, and so influential was it that Darwin was nearly refused a berth on The Beagle because his nose was too long. One might not be surprised that such ideas are popular for only a short time; more curiously, some of the very phenomenology upon which science depends has also been shown to appear and then disappear like Alice's cat. ...
Synesthesia is another neurological abnormality that has been in and out of fashion. First described by Locke in 1690 and medically by Woolhouse twenty years later, it was the subject of much scientific interest a hundred years ago. By 1940s, however, it had virtually disappeared from the collective scientific and medical consciousness. ...
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