Ironic note from the dutch quack organization

yogiman wrote:I googled on palmistry in dutch, and came on the website of the dutch quack organization, where a familiar name is mentioned at the bottom of the page (translation from dutch):

"The psychologist Martijn van Mensvoort has done much research into the ways in which to tell something about someone's personality by means of a handprint. However, when one reads that after 2415 analyses he found a good 9 significant results, one knows enough: this is a "seek and thou shall find" research."

Maybe Martijn feels the desire to defend himself here, and I would welcome it.

yogiman wrote:I looked on the research page, and saw that palmists have difficulty to decide extraversion and introversion from a print. Well, they can't properly judge by the thumb and venus mount from a print, but they can see whether the life line is tight or bold. Is the life line such a poor criterion?

Martijn (admin) wrote:
According my experience few palmists are aware of how subjective most assessments made in this field really are, my studies have also indicated that palmists often make subjective assessments regarding many aspects of the hand (including the fingerprints).

And based on the results in my more recent extraversion project I am confident that the path of the life line does not provide a reliable/significant indicator or clue regarding the personality dimenion extraversion-introversion. Actually, there is no clear standard regarding how to assess such a characteristic - despite the superficial visual guidelines that are usually presented in the palmistry literature (which in my perception nearly always display a lack of detail, because making an assessment in practice is often much harder than what is suggested by the illustrations in far most books).
Part of the problem here is also that palmists usually also cherish diffuse perceptions regarding the meaning of the term/concept 'extraversion', which partly explains why each single author tends to associate it with a different/personal set of hand features. In nearly all cases the theory described in the literature is based on anecdotal evidence instead of proper thorough research.

yogiman wrote:

Martijn (admin) wrote:
According my experience few palmists are aware of how subjective most assessments made in this field really are, my studies have also indicated that palmists often make subjective assessments regarding many aspects of the hand (including the fingerprints).

I think that by sticking to the scientific truth you do a great service to the art of palmistry, though I doubt that many professional palmists will agree. The risk is that after years, instead of improving, your mistakes will solidify and the way back will become harder and harder. Worse, one will give misleading information to the client, and will bring damage to the status quo of the art.

Oh yes, sure, I am fully aware that most palmists have a different view than mine (for a large number of reasons).

But I also know that there is actually very little consensus about anything in this field at all... except for maybe the used vocabulary to refer to hand features, but the assessments are nearly always made on subjective grounds combined with a high dosis of speculative/diffuse psychological concepts (which are usually cherished like a personal religion).

But how many palmists do you think are in the position to question + research things thoroughly without worrying about the related financials?

I think a palmist should not claim 'independency of mind' when financials are involved in their palmistry activities & research. In my perception this is where the problems start regarding the lack of 'quality' in this field.

I hope I have expressed this well.

yogiman wrote:
I think the general consensus will be that extravertion refers to -socially outgoing-, and introversion refers to -socially withdrawn-. However, when I view my own mother, then I observe that she is verbally very "outgoing", but when there is no one around she is very much into herself. She is also very averse from taking on new challenges, and is only "physically outgoing" when it concerns environments she is accustomed to. Nonetheless, she has supple fingers and thumb and has got a bold life line, whereas I, who is socially withdrawn, do have a rather tight life line.

I think we will agree that it would be best to single out the "worldchamp" palmreading to help you in your research, but probably there will not be the financial resources.