Palmistry

[Tazman]

I got an email this morning which reads:

After I had practiced hand analysis for some time and observed its accuracy I began a couple of decades ago to seek ways to reintroduce it into the scientific worlds of dermatoglyphics, a branch of anthropology, and criminal forensic sciences. I seek to integrate the western anthropological fields of dermatoglyphics, and forensic sciences with the fields of recognition of behavioral correspondences. In 2010 an essay of mine was included as Chapter 5 in the academic press Research in Physical Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Professor L. S. Penrose edited by Sudip Datta Banik. My new work Fingerprints and Behavior further expands and explores this integrated field. It is a field that is receiving extensive support throughout Asia from China to Dubai including as computer assisted data matching programs build upon the basic research in the fields. I urge you to become familiar with this integrated field and join in its future study.

My new book is Fingerprints and Behavior: ISBN-13: 978-0983479512 It is available at . . . . . . . The book is also available on . . . . . . . . . . 282 pages, extensively noted with 124 illustrations and graphs and a bibliography of over 150 entries. The Retail price is $17.95.

Fingerprints and Behavior bridges the gap between hand analysis, palmistry, practical psychology, forensic sciences and academic dermatoglyphics, a branch of anthropology, to present a Text for all interested students with extensive notes and bibliography. Use it in brain research, couple it with MRI research, use it in pharmaceutical research, apply it in aptitude testing and human resource selections, child and youth assessments (from birth), or just amaze your friends and total strangers. This 5,000 year old study and art is involved in a scientific revolution today and its effects are sweeping at least two thirds of the people in the world.

The book argues that fingerprints can predict hand coordination in sports, will the two handed basketball free throw go off the rim or swish through the net, whether a golf drive will go straight, hook or slice? It presents the hypotheses that competitiveness, multitasking abilities, perhaps even degrees of honesty can be predicted at birth. This book is certain to raise controversy throughout professional and academic circles as it challenges current psychological theories, can suggest new approaches to child rearing, education aptitude and human resource assessments and psychological evaluations. Its work can aid in criminal and intelligence profiling. This well illustrated and referenced work is the new primer for these fields and has vast applications.

Edward D. Campbell is a lawyer with thirty years background in teaching and practicing hand analysis, author of the Encyclopedia of Palmistry, recognized as one of the ten best in its field, manager of Amida Biometrics, L.L.C., (http://www.amidabio.com ), Chairman of IBMBS (http://www.IBMBS.com), international lecturer in the fields on hand analysis and dermatoglyphics in Asia, North America and Europe. and host of international conferences on behavioral and medical biometrics.

Note that I removed the links to sites selling this book. I'm not in the business of selling science fiction. However, I'm sure that if your interested, with a little ingenuity you can find a place to buy it.

But let me see if I understand this line: "will the two handed basketball free throw go off the rim or swish through the net, whether a golf drive will go straight, hook or slice?"

Is this guy suggesting that friction ridge patterns control the basketball or the golf club more than muscle control and coordination?" So, if you have plain whorls with meet tracings, you hit the golf ball straight? But if you have radial loops, you hook? And if you have ulnar loops, you slice? What about arches? You hack out a huge divot?

Palmistry, phrenology, and now fingeristry?

Give me a break!

[David Fairhurst]

I studied Dematoglyphics briefly at university. It was this backgorund that originally encouraged me to apply for a fingerprint examiner's position.
Dermatoglyphics, a term coined by Dr Harold Cummins, is a study of variations in fingerprint patterns (primarily of ridge counts) between populations. We should all be aware of the higher incidence of large loops and whorls in african populations and, conversely of arches in east asian populations. Not so commonly known are the variations that correlate to other medical conditions, from chromosomal abnormalities, and even psychological disorders.
However, the variations are demographic variations between large populations and, as is so often the case, the variation within the groups is far greater than that between the groups. So there is absolutley no way that you can gain any insight into the individual's race, chromosomal makeup or psychological predispositions through study of their fingerprints.

To Mr Campbell I have one thing to say, "Good luck getting this through a Daubert hearing!"

[Tazman]

Hello David

. . . even degrees of honesty can be predicted at birth. . .

This is definitely NOT the dermatoglyphics of Dr. Harold Cummins. Dr. Cummins is spinning in his grave.

[David Fairhurst]

Tazman,

Indeed, this application of population studies to individuals belongs in the dumpster of junk science with phrenology and graphology.
There's nothing incorrect about collecting evidence to demonstarte that men have, on average, larger feet than women.
When someone says that because the footwear impression was a size 6 the offender was a woman, then we have a problem.

I sought to point out that the science of dermatoglyphics is not junk in itself, only that the reverse (or should that be perverse) application of demographic data to devine individual characteristics is total BS.

[Tazman]

Don't worry, David. I never meant to imply that dermatoglyphics is junk science. The fortune telling enterprise of Mr. Campbell's is most definitely NOT dermatoglyphics -- it is palm reading at its novel worst. The fact that Mr. Campbell has hijacked the word "dermatoglyphics" is an abomination. Dermatoglyphics is the study of fingerprint patterns as related to other physical characteristics and it is meant as a group study, not an individual study. So, for example, when one reads of a study linking breast cancer in women to high ridge counts in the thumbs, that does not mean that a woman with high ridge counts in the thumbs will automatically get breast cancer. It means that the predisposition to breast cancer was in place in the embryo as the volar pads were present and the ridges were forming.There may be a common genetic cause, but no cause and effect relationship is proven. And just as an arch pattern at the scene of a burglary does not imply that a person with Down's syndrome committed the burglary, a high ridge count in a woman's thumb does not imply breast cancer.

That fact that this moron Campbell equates fingerprint patterns with skill at throwing a basketball, striking a golf ball, or even telling the truth proves to me that he wouldn't understand the science of dermatoglyphics if it jumped up and poked him in the eye with an index finger having an accidental whorl. He is a charlatan of the worst cloth, misusing a valid scientific term to try and disguise his lies with a veneer of legitimacy.

If there were a law requiring truth in advertising, this fraud would go to jail.

[L.J.Steele]

Surely, I have mentioned here the gem I saw in a new-age bookstore a few years back Pawmistry: How to Read Your Cat's Paws (1998). It looks like a serious book about discovering your cat's personality thru the markings on its paws, tho the author now says it was written as a joke. Once in a while, I see this at a used book store and am tempted to stick it on my shelf with my various forensics reference books just to see the reaction from office visitors who like to glance over one's shelves. (I do keep Forensics for Dummies up there for that very reason.)

No one has ever lost money understimating the intelligence of the public, I fear.

[Mike Fletcher]

Tazman,

I must say many many thanks for this posting - I have not laughed that hard or loud since Basil Fawlty accidentally mentioned the war (but got away with it) – brings a tear to the eyes…..

You had me at the very first line -

“After I had practiced hand analysis for some time and observed its accuracy ……

“extensively noted with 124 illustrations…….”

“Edward D. Campbell is a lawyer with thirty years background in teaching and practicing hand analysis”

Sounds very much like ‘wankology’ to me.

“The book argues that fingerprints can predict hand coordination in sports, whether a golf drive will go straight, hook or slice?” So what if you are wearing a golf glove?

Graphology, Palmistry, Phrenology, Pawmistry, Fingeristry and now Wankology.

Regards, Mike

[Gerald Clough]

Surely, I have mentioned here the gem I saw in a new-age bookstore a few years back Pawmistry: How to Read Your Cat's Paws (1998). It looks like a serious book about discovering your cat's personality thru the markings on its paws, tho the author now says it was written as a joke.

No, it really works. I applied the lessons to the analysis of my six cats. In every case, it indicated strong tendencies to introversion, resistance to suggestion, a substantial degree of inertia, and cruelty to lesser animals. Can't argue with that.

I'm still practicing on people. (Not using the cat lessons, although I know some people who they would probably work on.) But I haven't quite mastered the essential skill of detecting a well developed gullibility line.