In this essay I have argued that graphology, despite its scientific pretensions, remains mired in its occult past. I have shown why the graphologists' favorite justifications are inadequate and alluded to many well-controlled studies which have found that handwriting analysts, denied non-graphological clues about their clients, do no better than chance in describing them. The clients, on the other hand, cannot exceed chance either when asked to select their own from a stack of anonymous graphological profiles. Despite graphology's poor showing in these well-controlled tests, both practitioners and an a goodly portion of the public at large steadfastly continue to believe it works. The latter sections of this chapter were devoted to the interesting cognitive biases that have kept graphology alive by giving customers the strong illusion that it is revealing and accurate when it is not. If graphology cannot legitimately claim to be a scientific means of measuring human talents and leanings, what is it really? In short, it is a pseudoscience.

Pseudosciences are thinly disguised occultisms that have the trappings and usurp the prestige of science but lack the attitudes, the methods, and the repeatable findings that define a real science . Pseudosciences have a number of telltale signs. They are typically isolated from the legitimate scientific disciplines that relate to their subject matter. Devotees are apt to be proud of their lack of orthodox credentials and hostile toward an "establishment" they see as ignoring if not outright persecuting them. They claim powerful but secret techniques that only work for believers, but frown upon skepticism and demands for proof. Pseudoscientists tend to shun mathematical analyses and cling to anecdotal data. Testimonials from satisfied customers substitute for rigorous tests. The idea of a simple control group is foreign to their way of thinking.

Pseudosciences are overrun by cranks who are not only ignorant of the theory and data in relevant scientific fields but claim fantastic results that run counter to well-established research. Often these putative effects would be highly desirable if true, but are postulated without plausible theories and mechanisms to account for why they might occur. What passes for theory in a pseudoscience is typically so vague that it is virtually impossible to test.

Such fields encourage ad hoc assumptions to explain away negative findings. In a word, they are unfalsifiable -- nothing could possibly count against the theory. For instance, when graphologist Jane Paterson found that Ghandi failed to exhibit the large writing she said was typical of great leaders, she explained that his writing showed that he was modest and preferred to lead from a position of inferiority. Special pleading, after-the-fact, in place of firm, testable predictions -- the pseudoscientist's stock in trade.

Data gathering in pseudosciences is slapdash; and research, if published at all, is usually self- distributed rather than found in the appropriate peer-reviewed journals. Pseudosciences abound with nonreplicable results. Their typical response to critics is ad hominem, while ignoring the disconfirming data. Bogus sciences are quick to misappropriate the prestige of legitimate science when it suits their purposes, but they are equally quick to vilify science when it disallows their fanciful claims. When they fail by conventional standards, pseudoscientists suddenly claim to be part of "a new paradigm" that stodgy orthodox scientists can't hope to comprehend. In fact, it is pseudosciences that are stodgy and unchanging. One of their most common features is a reverence for ancient texts that are never updated with new discoveries. An earmark of a pseudoscience is stagnation where there should be intellectual ferment and constant modification by new findings, as in genuine scientific fields. As Carl Sagan recently observed, real science reserves its highest praise for the young who prove their predecessors wrong. Pseudosciences drum doubters out of the corps.

nice post and great usefull information,

satish

Note the allegorical thinking in these representative samples culled from graphology textbooks and articles

I fully agree with DiICU for his well thoght over comments on how people are being fooled. My sincere cmpliments. But for this why blame graphology. It is the creditibility of the graphologist and extent up to & how perspective employer uses this input.I feel employer should not fully depend on it but should use info as an addl input to further prob into the applicants '+' & '-' points.
Graphology can very well predict energy levels, eye for details , how he puts in efforts to accomlish a task,emotional stability & expression,cheating tendencies,speaking true/concealing the facts,pathological liers, sharing resources,confidence,ego levels preservance. flow of thoughts and many things which can be predicted accurately and various schools shouldnt have difference over this until and unlless they have vested interest.

Hello,

I regret the conclusions it has reached. I hope that your investigations are sufficiently informed to be able to make this assertion.

The grafología part of a science: psychology, but she was also seen as a working tool in the hands not only of psychology (as test design), but also of the Educational Psychology, Medicine, psychotherapy, psychology Labor and organizations with applications in the world court, the couple, marketing, public relations, etc..


Yoterra