Craniology, phrenology and eugenics, once-respectable fields of endeavour that are now regarded with a shudder, may shriek from time to time, but few sane people pay attention to them.
That long odyssey is not so in the world of bin Laden or an Iranian theocrat — or the ignorant who stream out of the madrassas and Friday fundamentalist harangues along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
The loud-mouthed Colonel Quddafi may talk more provocatively than the wiley President Assad, but officials know that Syria has cost a lot more American lives.