Chapter 9: Scientific Looking; Looking at Science

Chapter 9 opens with the notion that, "scientific imagery comes to us with confident authority behind it, in the form of images made by experts, we may assume these images are an objective representation of knowledge, whether we view them through popular media or through professional publication."(Sturken and Cartwright, 347) However it should also be notes that, "scientific images and looking practices are as dependent on cultural context and culturally informed interpretation as images from popular culture, art, and the news."(347). Thus, scientific images, and cultural images are not two wholly separate notions, but two branches of one discourse. I found that I too had fallen under the assumption that these were in fact, two separate area's of visual studies- however this is not true in the least.
One example of scientific images and notions within cultural images would be in one of the most recent U.S. cinematic hits. Sturken and Cartwright discuss phrenology- "the belief that outward physical human body, and most particularly the cranium and the facial features, could be read for signs of temperament, moral capacity, health, or intelligence."(358) An example of phrenology would aptly be used in the scene from Quentin Tarantino's film, "Django Unchained".  A scene is presented in which Leonardo DiCaprio describes how the skull of an Africa American person has "three distinct dots", and that all African American's possess these same dots when the their skulls are studied. However, people of Anglo/European descent do not have said dots. He believes the dots to be an indication of the inferior intelligence level of that particular group, thus exemplifying the "superior" intelligence of the latter. This is a clear representation in which the scientific images influenced the belief of it's viewers at the time- or as Beddoe's writing suggests, "visual science of the body can be used to support a deeply racist cultural ideology." (359)
It would seem that phrenology can largely be agreed upon as a completely outdated and irrelevant science- one which formerly encouraged the bigoted views of dominant ideological groups. However, it is true that even today scientific images still play a role in cultural media, however unrecognized.