Can We Judge People by What They Look Like? In Fact, Yes | Hacker News Reader

Can We Judge People by What They Look Like? In Fact, Yes

unz.com

6 pointsvixen997 comments

The academic background of the author of this book, "Dr Edward Dutton", is Theology and Religious Studies:

https://edwarddutton.wordpress.com/

Quite how that qualifies him to write a book on evolutionary psychology is anybody's guess. I'd give his claims about as much credence as your racist uncle forwarding "studies" regarding the supposed tendencies of his least favourite ethnic groups.

But self-consciously "alternative" news sources will seize on anything that they use to claim their biases have a rational basis, rather than an emotional one, I suppose.

Suppose that you could believe studies of the kind that finds athiests have more of a tendency to have bad skin. And suppose that it found 80% of athiests do have skin quality that is below the median for whatever group of fresh-persons was being tested. Now I meet a person whose skin appears to me to be sub-median. How is it actionable?

Even if I restrict myself to things that many of us might think have some basis, such as: people with glasses are often more studious. People come in for a job interview. Do I have under the strengths column a "glassses" checkbox?

Supposing that the book's claims are accurate, it would provide some Bayesian justification for police profiling at traffic stops, choosing whom to approach at a bar, etc.

(Standard caveats apply.)

What is the prior in this logic?

Daily reminder: Bayesian logic does not deal in quantifiers. Trying to represent quantifier based logic in Bayesian systems results in absurd. (The update function does not work.)

Thus it cannot be used to justify or counter existential statements.

It can tell you: given prior A and conditional statements B through W, the chain probability assuming distribution Z may be Y. It cannot easily deal with truncated chains either.

Despite all the links in this article, as far as I can tell only two studies are referenced: a 1968 study of 95 male undergraduate subjects, and a 1973 study of 144 female undergraduates.

Well, I just hope those "aggressive, impulsive" large-breasted women aren't buying plate armor with a chest divot before they go on their raids, or they're going to have a bad time.

I wonder if the 2 physiology studies noted in the review are at all influenced by the fact that they were carried out in populations of ~100 college students before Return of the Jedi was initially released?

people with mental mutations are more likely to have physical ones

Is this a known fact? (Where) can I find more information on it?

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