In your column about handwriting analysis you wrote, “More than 200 objective scientific studies have demonstrated that graphology is worthless as a predictor of personality.” After I whined a bit, you conceded that you had misstated matters. It wasn’t that 200 studies had independently concluded graphology was worthless; rather, one researcher, Geoffrey Dean, made this judgment based on a “meta-analysis” of 200 previous studies. Even Dean’s study is seriously flawed and doesn’t support the conclusions drawn.

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Let me define what I believe is in contention. I specifically do not claim that handwriting analysis is useful for a purpose such as personnel selection; that people who practice it are honest, scientific, or consistent in their analyses; or that all or most of the personality traits they claim to find reflected in handwriting actually are. I propose simply that elements of personality are reflected in handwriting. That’s all. And that’s exactly what the column claims is not true.

Let’s consider your objections to Geoffrey Dean’s argument, which appears in The Write Stuff: Evaluations of Graphology–The Study of Handwriting Analysis (Beyerstein and Beyerstein, editors, 1992). At the outset Dean makes what you feel is an important concession: Studies have shown that untrained people given handwriting samples can guess with modest accuracy the sex and approximate intelligence of the writer–on the first count, 60 to 70 percent accuracy, versus the roughly 50 percent you’d expect from blind chance. But then, you say, “he removes these factors from his study.” (I’m quoting from your message board postings.) You find this outrageous. Sex and intelligence obviously have a major impact on personality. If graphology’s predictions about these traits–the very traits it’s best at spotting–are declared inadmissible, that eliminates the strongest arguments in support of the practice, yes?

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.