Physiognomy.
Physiognomy (Gk. physis, nature and gnomon, judge, interpreter) is a theory based upon the idea that the study and judgement of a person's outer appearance, primarily the face, may give insights into their character or personality. The term physiognomy is also used to refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain, without reference to its underlying or scientific characteristics.

This article will deal with physiognomy as a theory of character evaluation that may produce a set of correlations that do not always evidence themselves in the general population. Physiognomy is not a strict science, but rather a method of analysis that indicates a variety of correlations in its subjects. Again, it is not always accurate when applied to the broad population. For this reason, physiognomy is not used as the basis of biological or psychological theory. That application of its ideas is folk science or pseudoscience and, in the past, has been used, along with other forms of scientific racism, to promote discriminatory ideas.

The word was in common use in Middle English as fisnamy or visnomy (as in the Tale of Beryn, a 15th Century sequel to the Canterbury Tales: "I knowe wele by thy fisnamy, thy kynd it were to stele"). Its validity was once widely accepted, and it was taught in universities until the time of Henry VIII of England, who outlawed it (along with "Palmestrye") in 1531[1]. Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the whole concept of 'fisnamy'.

The following types of physiognomy may be distinguished:

absolute predictive physiognomy, in which there are believed to be invariable 100% correlations between physical features (especially facial features) and character traits; this has been disproven
scientific correlation physiognomy, in which there are believed to be rough statistical correlations between physical features (especially facial features) and character traits due to a person's physical preferences that are caused by corresponding character traits, such that gene mixing causes the correlations; this type of physiognomy is therefore allegedly based on genetic determinism of character. Although this type of physiognomy has generally been disproven as well, the idea has been revived as personology. The main explanation of personology, much of which is also considered pseudoscientific by mainsteam scientists, is that in general biology, different physical makeups correlate with different behaviours. For example, an illegal drug user often has a gaunt/desperate appearance, people who appear frail are unlikely to be demanding and more generally a life of smiling or frowning may leave a physical mark (especially on older people).