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It's not common sense now, because everyone now knows that phrenology is balderdash. But once you know that intelligence and personality reside in the brain, but don't know exactly what the anatomy and function of each part of the brain is, it seems quite natural to believe different personalities are due to different brains → differences in the physical shape of the brain correspond to differences in personality → differences in a particular area of the brain correspond to differences in a particular aspect of personality, e.g. time preference or empathy → differences in the shape of the brain correspond to visible differences in the shape of the braincase → observing the shape of the skull allows one to make specific inferences about its owner's personality.
Thinking you can predict someone's propensity to, say, alcoholism, by the shape of their skull is not inherently less commonsensical than thinking you can predict it from their genes. A priori, there's a perfectly plausible causal path either way. That's why you need to proceed with actual scientific research instead of stopping at common sense.
It sounds like we agree for the most part. Knowing that thought originates in the brain, common sense would indicate that statistical analysis of human brains would yield insights. And indeed it has! Larger brains are correlated with higher IQ.
But phrenology was not that! There was no rigor. There was no analysis. It was just making shit up, similar to astrology. It's not common sense to make wild conclusions based on tiny shreds of evidence.
Perhaps we do -- I'm starting to think we agree on the facts of the matter and were just using different definitions of "common sense".
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