Horrible science can be quite popular. For the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, I’m John Stonestreet with The Point.

Dr. Walter Freeman was a neurologist who, during the 1940s, convinced much of the medical community that using an ice pick to scramble the frontal lobe of the brain was a treatment for mental illness. He won praise from national newspapers like the New York Times, and the inventor of the procedure won the Nobel Prize.

In a chilling piece at The Federalist, Renee Gardner shows the similarities between that lobotomy craze and the modern transgender one.

For example, both lobotomies and gender reassignment surgery are irreversible acts promoted through desperation. Advocates for both point to suicide rates, and rush to surgically treat what are psychological problems.

Both are also based on unproven theories, and often hurt the patient more than they help. Most frightening, both have been applied to children.

Destructive pseudoscience was dangerous then and it is now. How many will have to suffer before we realize our mistake?