I hate this kind of research. Scrape some data, observe some correlations, and then imprint your view of the world onto it to draw some ad-hoc conclusions.

For example:

> In this study, researchers asked two different groups of women to look at photos of different men and rate how strong the men looked. Results showed that the rated strength of a male body accounts for 70 percent of the variance in attractiveness (this is a massive effect size).

Except that if you read the paper, you find:

1. "Furthermore, for two of the three regressions, the attractiveness measure became a negative predictor once strength ratings were controlled for. In other words, there appear to be cues in the male body that accurately indicate strength (and are detected as such by raters), but nonetheless are neutral or negatively valued when assessing attractiveness."

2. You know what else is correlated with strength? Mental health, income, social status, etc. You know what the study doesn't at all control for?

3. It turns out if you only give people a photo and have them judge attractiveness, they'll only look at the physique of the person. This doesn't mean it's how people view attractiveness in real-world situations where you have all sorts of other data.