Studies Show that Black Women are Ugly and Dumb?
The science demands it.
Apparently, some fuckwit conducted a “study” that demonstrated that there are racial differences in the physical attractiveness of women. Mainly, that black women are neither “all that” or “a bag of chips.”
Seriously.
Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?Why black women, but not black men?Published on May 15, 2011 by Satoshi Kanazawa in The Scientific Fundamentalist
There are marked race differences in physical attractiveness among women, but not among men. Why?
Add Health measures the physical attractiveness of its respondents both objectively and subjectively. At the end of each interview, the interviewer rates the physical attractiveness of the respondent objectively on the following five-point scale: 1 = very unattractive, 2 = unattractive, 3 = about average, 4 = attractive, 5 = very attractive. The physical attractiveness of each Add Health respondent is measured three times by three different interviewers over seven years.
From these three scores, I can compute the latent “physical attractiveness factor” by a statistical procedure called factor analysis. Factor analysis has the added advantage of eliminating all random measurement errors that are inherent in any scientific measurement. The latent physical attractiveness factor has a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.
Recall that women on average are more physically attractive than men. So women of all races are on average more physically attractive than the “average” Add Health respondent, except for black women. As the following graph shows, black women are statistically no different from the “average” Add Health respondent, and far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women.
...
What accounts for the markedly lower average level of physical attractiveness among black women? Black women are on average much heavier than nonblack women. The mean body-mass index (BMI) at Wave III is 28.5 among black women and 26.1 among nonblack women. (Black and nonblack men do not differ in BMI: 27.0 vs. 26.9.) However, this is not the reason black women are less physically attractive than nonblack women. Black women have lower average level of physical attractiveness net of BMI. Nor can the race difference in intelligence (and the positive association between intelligence and physical attractiveness) account for the race difference in physical attractiveness among women. Black women are still less physically attractive than nonblack women net of BMI and intelligence. Net of intelligence, black men are significantly more physically attractive than nonblack men.
What kind of dumbassery is this? Honestly. Who the hell comes up with this shit? There is no “objective” standard of beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the motherfucking beholder.
Errrrrrybody knows that.
Never fear, balloonbaggers! It’s not all outrage from me today—(I know how tiresome it can be for some of you). I found this critique of the above patently absurd study to be hilarious:
I just conducted a study that found Black women are more attractive than women from other racial/ethnic groups. I polled myself, 3 different times over 5 hrs. The results are statistically significant and show strong test-rest reliability. I have pretty charts that summarize the data.
Indeed.
Post-racial America. Ain’t it grand?
I’m having one of DougJ’s patented “I wish a motherfucker would” moments—so much so that I created a category in his honor. That’s right Cole. I’m in ur blogz, addin’ noo categoreez.
That is one ugly motherfuckin’ dog.
May 17th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
ABL being her innocent quiet self again. I missed posts like this…
May 17th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Where did you find the dog pic? Now THAT is ugly!! You do know that YOU’RE a real doll, right? :-)
May 17th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
I followed the link the PZ Myers where he eviscerated the guy. Did you grab the thing before it vanished?
I find snotty right-wingers so unattractive. But I don’t try to pass it off as science; just my own good taste!
May 17th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Counter-argument: Nichelle Nichols.
We’re done.
May 17th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
The Scientific Fundamentalist? Are you shitting me?
Apparently this asshat doesn’t believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Oh, Henry!
May 17th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
@Brad Hanon: 2nd counter-argument: Haile Berry
May 17th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
@lamh34:
I was just going to suggest that ABL post pictures of herself, Michelle Obama, Lena Horne, Halle Berry, Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, Theresa Harris, etc., etc., etc.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:00 pm
@Trainrunner:
I believe that could be a vicious jackal, but don’t quote me on it. I trust my own poll on sex appeal, such as she goes up and down..
May 17th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Reading articles like that make me want to crawl under a rock and die. How has our species survived for so long, with so much stupid in our ranks?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
@Brad Hanon: @lamh34:
Goddamn, that’s a helluva one-two punch.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:02 pm
@lamh34: 3rd Counter argument – Thandie Newton
May 17th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
@piratedan: You know, of course there’s going to be a top 1% of attractiveness for any group of people, i.e. Thandie Newton, Halle Berry, etc. I don’t think you even have to take it that far.
I used to live in the Bronx, in Pelham Bay to be exact. All you have to do is walk down the street. I would regularly see girls that damn near made me wander into traffic. This “study” is so stupid as to barely merit discussion.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
This guy’s a winner.
I was going to equate Psychology Today with Der Sturmer, but on reflection I realized that I didn’t want to insult Julius Streicher like that.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
@Trainrunner:
I don’t know what you’re talking about. That is, ahem, one adorable puppeh.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:08 pm
Queen Latifah has medicine for that.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
4th and 5th Counter argument, Venus and Serena Williams
May 17th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Not enough palm for that face. Time to punch some motherfuckers.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:11 pm
Does the author draw a connection between the purported attractiveness of black men and their prevalence in Japanese porn?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
The is the same fuckwad who also wrote that Africans are poor and wretched because of – wait for it – lower intelligence than civilized, brilliant white people, and that if Ann Coulter was president on Sept. 11, she would have dropped nukes all over the Middle East on Sept. 12, and that would have been a very good thing! Whee!
This fuckwad is also associated with the “prestigious” LSE, which stands for Liars Spew Excrement.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
@piratedan:
The Pointer Sisters – all of em
I’m So Excited
I know it’s disco, but fuck it.
GAME SET MATCH
May 17th, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Always remember the hierarchy of lies: lies, Damned lies, and statistics
May 17th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
There should be some added context here. The guy who wrote this “study” used data from a completely unrelated study, the data was not taken with this line of query in mind. He also has a history of saying things like this. Things that are, on any level of examination, idiotic.
More here: http://colorlines.com/archives.....tific.html
And here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyn.....on_the.php
May 17th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I don’t know this d-bag specifically, but there is a well-respected cadre of self-described “racial realist” social scientists who proclaim that data and the scientific method have literally compelled them to choose to make studies that pre-identify racially defined characteristics. They are then forced by the iron necessity of logic to find data to fit their conclusions. Don’t question them, else you’re an anti-scientific pariah. By the way, your favorite scientist—whoever that may be—defends the work of these guys and will slit your throat if you question it. I’ve been in some pretty tough arguments with these people, and I’ve had to throw in the towel because they and each and every other scientist forces me to bog down in statistical analysis and full-knowledge of the relevant literature. Can’t win.
So we are faced with radical racist ideologues who study things like how much farther “the black man” can ejaculate than “the oriental” or “the white”.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2.....neer-fund/
Again, I don’t know about this professor, but many of the others mentioned in the link are invited to comment by Newsweek, Time, major TV networks, etc. And probably Andrew Sullivan, but that’s just a guess.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Alicia Keyes in the movie Smoking Aces
HOOOTTTTT
!
May 17th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
I don’t know this d-bag specifically, but there is a well-respected cadre of self-described “racial realist” social scientists who proclaim that data and the scientific method have literally compelled them to choose to make studies that pre-identify racially defined characteristics. They are then forced by the iron necessity of logic to find data to fit their conclusions. Don’t question them, else you’re an anti-scientific pariah. By the way, your favorite scientist—whoever that may be—defends the work of these guys and will slit your throat if you question it. I’ve been in some pretty tough arguments with these people, and I’ve had to throw in the towel because they and each and every other scientist forces me to bog down in statistical analysis and full-knowledge of the relevant literature. Can’t win.
So we are faced with radical racist ideologues who study things like how much farther “the black man” can ejaculate than “the oriental” or “the white”.
http://abagond.wordpress.com/2.....neer-fund/
Again, I don’t know about this professor, but many of the others mentioned in the link are invited to comment by Newsweek, Time, major TV networks, etc. And probably The Atlantic, but that’s just a guess.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Does this mean that teh gay is now the scientifically established default among the womens?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
I can’t figure out the methodology. The ‘objective’ attractiveness was determined by the interviewer in the study?
Huh?
And what is the “Scientific Fundamentalist”? Seems to be blog not a journal.
One of the commenters in the link has a another blog post that critiques it, which seems pretty good:
http://www.psychologytoday.com.....socializes
May 17th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
I believe the dog is a Khala Dog… bred to be companions to Incan royalty. They were bred for creepiness b/c they are supposed to have some sort of link to the underworld.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Can I personally examine Kandyse McClure and Zoe Saldana for any hidden regions of unattractiveness?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
Current research shows that Satoshi Kanazawa is a profoundly unattractive person.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Technically, a sample size of one isn’t going to produce any statistically significant results.
I love how Mr. Dufus is confusing the personal preference of the interviewer with some level of absolute beauty. Although they have done some studies showing that certain ratios of feature location and high levels of symmetry are a positive.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
@KatinPhilly:
It’s also worth noting that he is an economist, and for a number of reasons they are often the spreaders of the worst evolutionary psychology excrement. For the most part, I think it is because much of their field requires them to assume that all actors are rational agents standing in isolation from others. Affirming the consequent and all that.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Some one needs to do a study about why, after some administrative bureaucrat makes you clean up your office, you always lose track of something really important.
I need that study and a fix for the problem right now, immediately, asap, stat, code red, HELP!
May 17th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Paula Patton, Rawr.
Also, ABFoxyL should be your handle, fwiw.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:18 pm
Ask my wife: Women of every “race” get me in trouble, though not the Governator kind. I’m – mostly – not stupid. And ABL would really get me in trouble.
ETA: My additional names: Pam Grier, Vivica A. Fox
May 17th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
I guess they’ve never opened King magazine
May 17th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
@jl:
Wha? you don’t recognize the methodology first pioneered by The Institute of Cracker Eugenics. It was all the rage back in the sixties, The 1860’s.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:21 pm
I did bother ready any one here, here’s a thought try and get one of this studies money. Just saying, there might be a govt./crazy person site offer the money. Yes you will have to Lie to get the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
May 17th, 2011 at 8:23 pm
@Loneoak:
Nearly ALL of the “race realist” theorists are experimenting out of the area of their doctorates, and most are psychologists or something like that who (though rather aged) are making genetic arguments.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
@Mr Stagger Lee:
another counter-argument for us old-timers—Lola Falana.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:27 pm
@jl:
There are really too many questions, many of them logically prior even to the methodologies, let alone the conclusions.
I’ll say what my take-away is: the subjects prefer non-black. The researcher concludes that this has deep evolutionary causes. Because we all just woke up today and have no history of racism or anything, ergo, it’s objective.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
When you take the bait, the idiots win. And you seem to take the bait every time. Just ignore shit like this.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:29 pm
And this little tune is dedicated to our gracious thread host and Balloon Juice Front Page writer,
Free Your Mind
May 17th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
I’m sure the racist turd at “Psychology Today” has a real thing for Charles Murray.
In fact…hear that? It’s the sound of Marty Peretz advocating for the hiring of the two idiots by TNR.
Also, counterargument eleventy billion: Gabrielle Union.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
@burnspbesq: easier said when it’s not directed at you.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
“Errrrrrybody knows that.”
That right there should be your clue. Pretty much everything that ‘everybody knows’ is wrong. It appears that there is some sort of ‘objective standard of beauty’. Check Nature, something like 10 years ago. It’s not a perfect thing, of course, but it does appear to cross racial, geographical and cultural lines, which is more than a lot of human attitudes do. That being said, anything that tries to characterize one group or other as “less attractive” is pretty much bogus. Stereotypes are ways for us humans to make snap assessments about new encounters, but fools persist in trying to define individuals using them. Same thing with this; taken as a group, people are innumerate, illiterate and dumb. We all prefer our prejudices to actual information, and if we can make it seem all scientifical, why that makes it even more real. At least to Barnum’s Favorites.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
I’ve had a crush on Sandy Denton since the late 80s. All of Destiny’s Child were great-looking too. Sade is also gorgeous.
That’s just considering musicians, and then only of a certain era.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
@jeff:
I agree that this is often the case. But among my scientist students, mostly in bioengineering and genomics, I often find a commitment to the ‘facts’ of racial realist genetics. None of them would say (at least publicly) that it means anyone is lesser or that social policies should favor one group over the other, but that there is an inevitability of finding between group differences on significant traits. I then proceed to pick apart every example they suggest, and I change a few minds, but it’s really a recalcitrant belief among a lot of scientists. They have a very hard time critiquing their categories, particularly because that would mean recognizing that many of the facts about the world they think they believe are at least partially social constructed.
By the way, I would highly recommend this book, especially the essay “Patenting Race” by Kahn. A number of my friends edited/contributed to that book. Also this one by a friend of mine.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
@burnspbesq:
Front pagers post on all sorts of knuckleheaded bait put out by idiots like the ones behind this study. If posting about them was all that was needed for the idiots winning, then BJ has created those by the truck load. nonsense you speak. We mock idiots, all day, every day. They win by nobody challenging their bullshit, no matter how idiotic it seems. We live in a country full of idiots, who have a vote. They are every fucking where, and need to be pointed out.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
@inkadu: I Googled Khala dogs, and they didn’t appear all that ugly. Maybe I just stumbled over the better looking ones.
The dog reminded me of one of the Chinese Cresteds that wins Ugliest Dog contests year after year. Those were ugly dogs.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
if it hadnt been said already:
– the FLOTUS is teh hawt
May 17th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
this is not good news for bobby deniro?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Wow. I’m just dumbfounded.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
Redd Foxx had a bit about racial preference in women. It was the final and definitive word on this subject, showing clearly that any attempt to generalize is just foolish. And it was funny.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
@General Stuck: Isn’t this the same thing that we had to deal with on another ABL thread: Ignore it and it will go away?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
@Splitting Image:
I worked with two utterly gorgeous African American women. One left and went to L.A. to try to become an actress. I don’t know how that went, but she’s not famous. She was gorgeous enough, so her looks weren’t going to hold her back. The other got married and moved to another city.
Point being that there are plenty of non-famous gorgeous black women too.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: giggle
May 17th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
@Loneoak:
Thanks for these references. I’m going to look at them and I may be reading them, too. One thing that’s happened over the last decade is that human population genetics has made it possible to query tons of individual traits and find a possibly associated SNP. The race realists have jumped on this and use the language and even methodology of science—but both their choices of study and their reasoning are totally racist and their studies exercises in racist wish fulfillment.
Thanks again for the reading suggestions!
May 17th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
@burnspbesq:
oh not this again. batten down the hatches. we got a slow learner up in here.
at least he didn’t use “you people.”
May 17th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
I am sure that said columnist didn’t whisper “you lucky M**her F**ker” when David Bowie married Iman or any of the other absolutely stunningly beautiful Black women mentioned above. The moron’s case is as flawed as that silly comparison of liberal women and conservative women that was sent around the internet about 10 years ago, you can find absolutely bloody awful photos of anyone these days, and then you can contrast them with beautifully lit and posed photos of someone else to “compare” them.
Jeebus I am a white married hetrosexual female and even I have a damn crush on Halle Berry. (I also have a crush on Rachael Maddow but that is beside the point). What was I saying there? Never mind.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
@Loneoak:
Reading The Mismeasure of Man cured me of thinking that scientists are always objective observers of pure science.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:43 pm
That’s the killer point, right there. “The race difference in intelligence” gives it away. This man is no scientist. He is a racist, and as such should not be countenanced, nor listened to, nor acknowledged. If he were to walk through a room, no one of any character would deign to notice his presence. Should he speak, a servant would be summoned to remove him, as no one in polite society would dirty his hands doing so.
He is dead to all thinking persons. Do not argue with him, nor in any manner acknowledge his existence.
He is a troll, but in Flesh-space instead of Web-space.
DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS!
Ed
May 17th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
But the study says that black men are more attractive than non-black men, so it’s totally not racist!
May 17th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
anybody else think the author of this “study” was rejected by a black woman and this is his weird reaction?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:49 pm
1. Assuming that the BMI figures are correct [big assumption]:
BMI doesn’t matter as much as some folks might think it does. My friend Jackie, gone now, was a BIG woman and she had a very active sex life. I don’t know where she found all those guys. And they came back every chance they got. I swear, I think that if she were placed in solitary confinement in a very secure prison she would still have attracted lovers. Lots of them.
2. Who said black women are unattractive? To whom?
As a bisexual female, I have cast lustful glances over lots of different people in lots of different places. I’ve also gone to bed with a few. I have never found members of any one ethnic or racial group to be more or less attractive than others.
I have found that the sexiest thing anyone, male or female, can do is know who they are. If you have a good sense of self, you are attractive no matter what you look like.
3. Hell, you don’t even have to be pretty in order to be attractive.
How many women are mothers? About 2/3 to 3/4 of them. How many women look like movie stars? I don’t know, maybe 10%?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
At the end of each interview, the interviewer rates the physical attractiveness of the respondent objectively> on the following five-point scale: 1 = very unattractive, 2 = unattractive, 3 = about average, 4 = attractive, 5 = very attractive.
Uh-huh.
As a trained interviewer (seriously, I have training in it – I’m a goddamned librarian), i can tell you that objectively speaking the three most beautiful women in the world are (3) Scarlett Johansson, (2) the used bookshop clerk up the road and (1) Stephanie, the girl I sat next to in high school, back when I was 15.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
We live in a Somali neighborhood and the checkout clerks at the local supermarket all look like Iman.
Perhaps the dickwad has an Asian bias? When my hub was traveling in China a few years ago he overheard a group of Chinese talking about another American tourist…”look at that huge nose and the hideous pink skin” they were saying, not realizing that the hubster could speak Chinese.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I just can’t resist this-this post demands it!
Who cares? It is all pink on the inside.
And no girl is ugly with…....well you know the rest.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
I wouldnt kick ABL out of bed for eating crackers.
May 17th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
I live in one of the poorest counties in the northeast. And it’s 99% white. You should see the impact that poverty has on some of the folks here.
I wonder if this bigoted douchebag considered the impact of a lifetime of poverty, that shitty diet that accompanies poverty and back breaking labor has on one’s appearance?
May 17th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
My take away was that ol’ Satoshi wants to fuck a black guy.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
@Kristine: Is this the dog?
May 17th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, Gould is old school, and got it right the first time. However that work covers outdated source material, and it is necessary to keep up with the nutjobs.
@jeff:
Yeah, the SNP association techniques really keep this bullshit going much longer than need be. In my opinion, what is absolutely necessary in genomics is some responsibility to biology. Because we have amassed vast troves of data with very little causal evidence about it’s role in the construction of actual phenotypes of actual organisms, all we have to work with is associations of genetic variation and phenotypes that have very tenuous relationships to biology. So instead of relating functioning genetic difference to something like, for instance, the bone structure underlying the curve of a hip, we do massive scans of genomes and compare with some ridiculous measure of ‘beauty’ that a critical social scientist would knock down in 2 seconds.
The ultimate test is going to be whether there are actual connections to be found between genetic variation, molecular biology, and developmental biology. I have a skeptical stance toward the possibility of ever measuring such relationships—even if they are there, there is no conceivable way of measuring them, especially in humans. So I would actually call off much of the enterprise and instead refocus the resources put into GWAS and other massive genomics projects. (But I hold no purse strings, alas.) It’s in this environment of geneticists and evolutionary psychologists having no fidelity to organismal biology that racist speculation thrives.
And if you do read those books, I’d be happy to discuss it further with you.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:03 pm
I, as a trained interviewer, have objectively rated Satoshi Kanazawa’s attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 5 to be “lime-green puke”, his intelligence to be “coral reef”, and his dick size to be “cashew”.
I can haz peer review?
May 17th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
I don’t like anything about this thread.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Is evo psyche ever used for anything besides bullshit justifications for racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.?
May 17th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
“You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don’t think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you’re not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let’s really get basic and persecute ugly people!”
— Lenny Bruce
May 17th, 2011 at 9:10 pm
@HG Hay:
Yes. It has also produced justifications for the free market.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
See, I would have thought that anybody whose job includes blogging for Psychology Today, probably shouldn’t be chasing away women of any stripe.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
This “study” is ironic being published when the biggest story in the country is of an African maid being raped by the IMF European chief in his Manhattan hotel.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen Psychology Today mags laying around my docs waiting room, waiting for drek like this to worm it’s way from out of the racist swamp onto and into the national synapses.
I wouldn’t call it obscure in the least, and the only question is why in the fuck does a study like this get made in the first place, and the second place, how does it make it into a prominent magazine.
The times we live in? Or random bullshit? you can decide for yourself. And yes, it is ugly, and getting uglier by the day it seems. In the year of our Lard, two thousand and eleven. Go figure.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:14 pm
@Kristine: Oops. I think you may be right. See #73. I guess I don’t know my hairless dogs.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
Ed Drone:
Oh, I’m not arguing with him. I’m just treating this as an open thread and an excuse to make a really long list of hot black women.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:15 pm
@Loneoak:
Well said. There should be more self-awareness in the social sciences, too. I mean, formulating many of the studies I’m talking about is an exercise in racism itself. I’m looking at the Amazon page for the books, but can’t tell if I’m educated enough to read them. It looks like I am, but there are no reader ratings, etc.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
@eemom: best to keep walkin
May 17th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
@General Stuck:
This is the first time I’ve looked at Psychology Today since 1983, so I guess they have that going for them. And the article isn’t even in their magazine (anymore).
May 17th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
Afro-Romance web ad on this page FTW!
May 17th, 2011 at 9:18 pm
So Satoshi Kanazawa is cribbing off of the rest of his crappy research to write these crappy articles.
And, seems like that error is essentially the same one he’s made in this article as well—crunching numbers, while willfully ignoring the reality that produced them…
May 17th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Wow is all I can say about this one.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
The Institute of Cracker Genetics still has a branch open back home.
One branch.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:20 pm
@jeff:
I teach some of both to undergrads who don’t necessarily have much experience thinking about this stuff. The Reardon especially has some very accessible parts about the history of racist genetics. You can always skip over the more theoretical parts, although that means you might not want to pay for it.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
@jeff:
My point was it isn’t from some pea brain blogger, and it is all kinds of interesting the depressing effect it is having on some of the BJ commentariot, despite mine and splitting image’s yeoman efforts to reference hot black wymins folk as a rejoinder to the ugly of the study. And mine with good tunes linked. umph? strange crew around here these days. I guess that includes moi.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
@khead:
One branch.
Not too ironically, it’s the one branch that steadfastly refuses to diversify.
Go figure.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:24 pm
black women are statistically no different from the “average” Add Health respondent, and far less attractive than white, Asian, and Native American women.
That’s weird. Based purely on my own personal observations, most Native American women…..
Well, let’s just say the White Man’s Diet of refined flour and processed cheese has not been kind to them.
(An exception is Q’orianka Kilcher, who starred in The New World.)
May 17th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
ABL,
I’m still pissed, but it’s par for the racist course.
When I first heard about this bullshyt yesterday, I wanted to shrug it off as just another ‘ hating on Black women ‘ article.
But, then, I listened to Elon James White’s internet radio cast, and the woman, Bassey, made so much sense about why this was much larger than ANOTHER hating on the Black woman article. She was absolutely righteous in what she said, and I was feeling her.
Didn’t make me any less pissed off, so I thank you for being able to write something coherent about it.
Between this, and fighting with a self-hating colorstruck KNEEGROW on another blog who thought he was just gonna roll up in the blog and insult FLOTUS with nobody pushing back on him, to him labeling me ‘a bitter Black woman’, for having the nerve to call his Black ass out…I just wasn’t feeling writing anything about the article.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Beauty is subjective?
That is just silly. Let’s see, you take twelve playboy bunnies and twelve toothless crack whores and line them up. (that does sound like a party, doesn’t it??)
The chances are even steven that a passerby will find each of them equally attractive?? I don’t think so.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Hey, if stupid people want to insist that black women can’t be attractive, good. More for me.
EDIT - something about the original post tells me old boy got shot down in flames repeatedly in his attempts to be a new Thomas Jefferson.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
@ChrisS:
So many double meanings.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
@Cliff:
Cher.
‘Nuff said.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
@Loneoak:
I’m pretty advanced in my own way, but I know already that I can’t deal with the statistics and regressions and so on. Thanks again!
May 17th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
This sort of shit used to just be circulated around certain circles. At least now we can all them out. But calling them out doesn’t necessarily stop them from continuing doing the same thing.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
@Dog @ top: don’t listen to anyone on this thread. I think you’re beautiful.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
Another key insight from this libertarian evolutionary psychologist:
See, this musta been the first dang time anybody ever what said that libruls believe in evolution but don’t let evolution weed out the weak in society!
Right?
If only we had more of a, I dunno, social form of Darwinism.
It’s so brilliant, it’s one of those things I just know I could have thought of, but didn’t, or also could have remembered.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
@General Stuck:
I understand. Sometimes the home team here gets an influx of serious-pants types who can’t get jokes. Anyway, ABL started it and there’s plenty of room for banter imo.
i.e.:
which is pretty awesome.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Remember, also: the “Scientific Fundamentalist” is not a scientific journal.
It is a blog.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
@NobodySpecial:
Agreed but this ignorant crap is just so sad. People filled with so much hate and bigotry they can’t see the beauty in the world. What a fucked up way to live.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
And yet another counter-argument: Mrs. Cisco.
Fuck that dude. Sideways. As asiangrrlMN would say, with a rusty pitchfork.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:51 pm
The dude’s still got a blog at Psychology Today. Here are some of his kooky entries (for real):
“Criminals Look Different From Noncriminals: As it turns out, humans possess the ability to tell who’s a criminal and who’s not simply by looking at them because criminals look different from noncriminals.”
“Beautiful People Really ARE More Intelligent: Beautiful people have higher intelligence than ugly people, especially if they are men.”
“Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence? The answer: No.”
“What I Have Learned from Barry Goldwater: Sometimes scientists can learn an important lesson from politicians.”
And to think I was about to subscribe to Psychology Today. Guess not.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:53 pm
I was confused by the references in the quora.com post…in the first sentence they refer to Psychology Today, in their attribution they give “Scientific Fundamentalist”, which is an oxymoron. Then I consulted teh googlez. Oy vey.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:55 pm
@El Cid:
It may be merely a blog, but he has an appointment at London School of Economics, hardly Cracker University of Southeastern Georgia. Prestige matters with this stuff.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
@El Cid: It’s a blog tied to the magazine Psychology Today. So we should condemn Psychology Today.
(edit: yes, by the same token, I think The Atlantic deserves to be condemned for it’s McArgleBargleNess. They chose to associate themselves with someone who can’t operate a calculator to save her life, they deserve whatever comes from that association)
May 17th, 2011 at 9:57 pm
@ArchPundit:
I’m a cracker and I find this comment intriguing.
May 17th, 2011 at 9:59 pm
This study is disgusting on all sorts of levels. I give lectures to my anthro classes about the zombie lies of racial affiliation being linked to intelligence, (The Mismeasure of Man mentioned above is a classic debunking, but that didn’t stop Hernnstein and Murray from publishing The Bell Curve, unfortunately.) These idiots SO want their racial prejudices to be justified by science that they are becoming pathetic. It never even occurred to me that some would try this with attractiveness, however, simply because it is so demonstrably false. I think all this guy has done is revealed TMI about himself.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
@eco2geek: Sounds like either Psychology Today is desperate for page hits, or it’s just a good-for-nothing rag. Or both.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:01 pm
I’m sure this has been asked before, but…
?!
OH, HOLY GOD, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING IN THE PICTURE?
May 17th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
@soonergrunt: That’s Paul Ryan before he puts on his makeup.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
@Loneoak: The point is not about him. It’s that such a claim is not published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.
Also, this guy is profoundly weird:
So, throughout evolutionary history most couplings between men & women were when newly pubescent girls are sent to be part of a village chief’s stable of wives?
Really?
So, this would represent the genetically evolved predilections of young women? They marry middle aged village chiefs because suddenly some gene awakens their desire for 3rd or 4th wife status?
I’ve learned about a great variety of cultures, throughout the world. Now I am ashamed for all of those scholars of Africa, Asia, or Latin America for keeping this basic fact from us.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
@El Cid:
The principle problem with social Darwinism is that it assumes humans are too stupid to overcome their selfish genes. Well, in the case of the social Darwinists, this might not be a bad assumption, I’ll grant.
As Dawkins has pointed out, repeatedly, humans have tossed self-awareness into the mix, which changes the rules of natural selection.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
@eco2geek: Please be sure to let Psychology Today know why, exactly, they won’t be getting your money.
This bullshit study reminds me that every. single. time. there’s a picture or news story about Michelle Obama, a big chunk of the comments are about how fat and ugly she is.
Really? Michelle Obama is ugly? The hell she is.
Maybe those jokes about her giant ass really crack ‘em up at the Klan rally, but to the rest of us it’s just a warning to get the fuck away from the person telling it.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I have to say this is one of the most entertaining blogs I’ve seen….and I’ve seen like 4.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
@Ash Can: It’s more than a little disturbing that they’d give someone a public forum to publish racist bullshit like that!
May 17th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
@soonergrunt: I though it was a young Crypt Keeper…
May 17th, 2011 at 10:10 pm
@Villago Delenda Est:
I didn’t realize. Of course, I try to keep my knowledge of Cher to an absolute minimum.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
@arguingwithsignposts: The photo at the top of this post is of the dog I’m thinking about. Sam, another Chinese Crested, that was a repeat winner. It was elderly, blind in one or both eyes, ill, and as you can see, the absolute Cryptkeeper of all Dogs.
Chinese Cresteds seem to win this title most years. Damn, they’re ugly critters.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
@Daddy-O: Wait a minute, I thought it was “beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.”[1]
[1] J. of Alcohol & Psychology, “Does Blood Alcohol Concentration Affect Males’ Visual Judgement of the Opposite Sex?”, A. Coors, B. Weiser, P.B.R. Cahn, et al.
I haz a reference, so I iz scientifical!
May 17th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Speaking as someone who has advanced degrees in social sciences, and actually natively understands all his goblety gook about error free measurement… and further speaking as someone who because of said training is often annoyed by web pages who critique the methodology of scientific studies due to the half-baked and over-confident misunderstanding of science displayed on the part of the critiquer… Based on all of this I would like to make the following pronouncement. This “study” is not actually crap, it merely misconstrues its own valid results. It does not show that black women are less attractive, it shows that his PARTICIPANTS find black women less attractive… which says FAR more about his participants (of which he apparently is one) than it does about actual black women.
The actual title of the study should therefore be altered to read “racists assholes are less attracted to black women: Smug self-satisfied pricks are smug and self-satisfied”.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
This guy’s a fucking trove. Totally unlike the stereotype of implusively bullshitting sexist libertarians convinced of their own superior genius.
And remember, he’s right because he knows this stuff through personal experience. And in talking with people he knows.
So shut up.
Yes, yes, if only the dedicated US press could serve as a model for the recklessly free UK press.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
Off-topic, but satisfying:
I’d like to see the fraternity’s officers not merely expelled from the school but to have the sentence carried out in a ceremony of public humiliation – I’m thinking of that scene from the history of the French military where the convict, before an audience of the convict’s former peers, the epaulets and insignia are ripped off their clothing and their sword is broken. In this case, the epaulets could be replaced with the Izod alligator and thier swords with their laptops. Sadly, given the degree of entitlement and inherited power among them I’d be surprised if they got more than a slap on the wrist. Still, it’s nice to see that George Bush’s fraternity has been required to undergo a complete break in tradition and continuity because of their awful pro-rape chants.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
@El Cid:
Could you repeat that? I must have had something crazy in my ear.
“Durrr, why aren’t teenage girls into flabby old men? It is a mystery!”
May 17th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
@Loneoak
Indeed, and J. Philippe Rushton is a fellow of AAAS. And he has many fellows who are also esteemed full-professors at major universities.
It’s not some blog when William Saletan basically popularizes one’s research on Slate.com, you know? This is more respect than 99.9% of researchers ever get.
http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123
(note: Saletan later apologized for relying on fucking Nazis for his information. Too late.)
Right now, Jensen, Rushton, Lynn and their friends at the Pioneer Fund and elsewhere are well-received and well-respected wherever they choose to go, and are respected by their colleagues.
Here’s the Wiki on “race realism”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_realism
I have tried to argue with some of these people, but I was told that I didn’t have the credentials, which if pretty ironic coming from these guys.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
I dated a South African woman who was pretty smart about race and gender stuff. After an epic argument about Tom Sawyer she said “You’re American. You have issues about race. Get used to it.” I thought she was wrong at the time but I take the possibility seriously.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Please free me from moderation purgatory! I come in peace.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
@Villago Delenda Est: The principle problem with social Darwinism is that it isn’t about genetics or biological heritability, wherein the main source of change is the random mutation of genetic information.
Other than that, they’re pretty close.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
No one’s mentioned Aisha Tyler? Is it the asslessness?
May 17th, 2011 at 10:16 pm
@soonergrunt: His name be Sam.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:18 pm
ABL: don’t feed the ev-psych trolls. Also y’all forgot Beyonce!
May 17th, 2011 at 10:18 pm
@El Cid:
I’d say rather that the source of variation is random mutation and the cause of species change and speciation is environmental pressure. That meets my daily quota for pedantry.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
This is racism because i am a very smart young black lady and I am not dumb in school i get a b c s all the time and I am not ugly I am pretty because a lot of people say so when i take my pitures. SO I dont know what you are talking about.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
The Rolling Stones didn’t agree. Brown sugar, why do you taste so good?
May 17th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
@RossInDetroit: You could have pwned her with “what you say about his company is what you say about society”.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:22 pm
@RossInDetroit: Source of change, i.e., why anything happens upon which the rest of evolution takes place.
The theory of evolution doesn’t make much sense if genes are choosing which way to go.
But that’s what people do.
Although it would be kind of interesting to think through a society in which social change really does happen through the winnowing out or geographical isolation etc. of random social behavior mutations.
What would a random social behavior mutation be, anyway?
May 17th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Louis XIV covered this topic recently. Young, hetero males loves them all kinds of ladies. Film at 11.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: Why aren’t teenage girls confused that they haven’t already been married off to village chiefs?
After all, there could have been societies large enough to do this for tens of thousands of years, albeit scattered about the globe and not in biological or social contact with each other.
We need to wake up as a society and realize that we can alleviate the pain that our young girls experience while growing up and instead we need to respect their biological yearnings and coerce them into being a colony of sister-wives chained to the regional manager of a chain of retail stores.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
@RossInDetroit: Unlike the South Africans, who were raised in an environment of racial acceptance and tolerance.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
More headlines from the Scientific Fundamentalist:
This guy is a lunatic.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
The pup in the post is, if memory serves, the penultimate holder of the title “World’s Ugliest Dog.” He died a little ways back, thus ceding the title.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
@El Cid:
I was speaking strictly of the biological kind, having just plowed through a couple of old books on teh subject to refresh.
Interesting question. I think there could be one. Examples: people affected en masse by a freak event like, um, internment in a prison camp, surviving a disaster, being isolated together, etc. If they developed specific social characteristics to cope and those persisted it could be a social mutation. It would be prone to fading out unlike a genetic mutation, of course. In fact, if such a thing as social mutation could occur it would be as likely to be found in slaves or prisoners as anywhere else. Not that I believe this happens or that ‘social mutation’ is the best way to describe it but it’s an interesting thing to think about.
Some argue that for the last 30,000 years human ‘evolution’, in the loose sense, has been driven by culture rather than by environmental selection for biological characteristics.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
@ppcli:
To her credit she never made any such claim.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
@El Cid:
Which is one of Dawkins’ points.
The “selfish gene” is a metaphor, not a precise description. The gene doesn’t “think” about what it needs to do to survive. It just does, and those situations that tend to allow for survival are reinforced by natural selection. Mutations that help are reinforced. Mutations that don’t help get discarded. Environmental conditions change, and a previously helpful mutation that no longer does, gets dropped.
Humans, on the other hand, DO actually think. Which changes the rules.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:34 pm
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
I think this is that childhood friend I recently dropped from my Facebook. Or probably one of his fans.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
@El Cid: Well, you know how chicks are. Their mouth, eyes, body language, and struggles to escape say no, but their evolutionary nature says yes.
If you’re a tribal chieftain.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
Must be a slow news day, what with the Queen visiting Ireland, the Governator’s love child and sundry other trivial events.
Yeah, it’s hard to get riled up over something so totally foolish. Didn’t even bother looking at the links, seen this stuff before.
I used to do accounting work for a guy who had a video shop. Database information was shared with hundreds of other small vendors. The porn preferences of customers were interesting. Movies starring blonds sold bigtime. Movies with Asian women were steady selling through thick and thin. Movies featuring most other women, without regard to ethnicity, were significantly lower selling (or renting), depending on the performer. The least popular titles tended to be those featuring redheads. Go figure.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
This is great. All these white men popping up to say they find black women attractive, is such a wondrous display of post-racism.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:50 pm
@Villago Delenda Est: Right. I get Dawkins. I’ve read all his work. However, he’s not relevant here because Dawkins really was focused on understanding evolution. On that level, it doesn’t matter what his main points were. He was at least on topic.
The actual topic of “evolution”. Meaning, the real thing. I.e., biology, genes, the whole lot.
That’s the difference between discussing evolution as biology, and this nonsense about how people conduct their societies as “evolutionary” or “Darwinist”.
“Evolutionary psychology” is a term used to describe a huuuuuge range of topics and methods of investigation, and instead what we’re mainly exposed to is vapid bullshit about how ‘i just done a study and i ask’t some peepulz and they liked this here face so i think wimminz sekritly want hump billionaire village chiefs’.
I think it’s kind of darkly amusing that anthropologists who were so cautious throughout the latter decades of the 20th century against swiftly throwing out theories of human behavior based on very little evidence now get to watch this being done by people calling themselves psychologists—who back then considered themselves the much more scientific field.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
@Pb:
re: “intelligence” and poverty… I try to get my students to question every use (in psych research) of the term “intelligence” and check whose definition, whose test is being used. If it’s anything in the IQ arena, well guess what, head circumference at birth is a predictor. (bigger head, bigger subsequent IQ) And premature birth leads to babies popping out w/smaller head size than if they’d had the time to grow some more. And poverty wouldn’t possibly predict risk of premature birth, could it? (cough cough cough)
The author of the blog post (not ABL, the bad use of survey data poster child) makes me sick. That he has tenure and I do not makes me cry, so I won’t dwell on it!
BTW Darwin was awesome, and boy must he spend lots of time a-spinning! How the heck do these social [not-really-]darwinists look into the future to know what evolutionary pressures will come next? We just know a few of the ones we’ve survived.
Loneoak, if there’s a safe way for you to leave a way to reach you, I’d be interested in the chance to follow up.
May 17th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
@eemom: Indeed. One of the most prominent defenses of Rosa Parks’ determined civil disobedience by men was “I’d do her.” Sometimes we forget that.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
@SRW1: Actually, that reminded me of Idris / the TARDIS choosing “the pretty one” to communicate with when the Doctor needed help in the most recent episode. I, of course, wholly concur with her choice.
And back on topic: fucking racist fuckwads. How do they work?
May 17th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
Queue the teatard explosion:
Navy to name ship for Cesar Chavez
Hahahahaha.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
There is no “objective” standard of beauty. Beauty is in the eye of the motherfucking beholder.
Eh. Mostly I agree in that everyone has different things that attract them, but certain aesthetic principles like symmetry and ratios between shoulders, chest, waist, and hips will make for certain shapes/people being considered more beautiful than others. That’s why clothes are tailored in certain ways—in order to make a more aesthetically pleasing presentation.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:03 pm
I’m as white as they come and I like black chicks.
They’re hot.
I won’t go into the specifics but lets just say black chicks have nothing to envy in the “attractiveness” department.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
@burnspbesq:
If this had come from Limbaugh or Stormfront, I’d agree. But it’s Psychology Today, a mainstream (semi-) scientific publication. This needs to be pushed back, and pushed back hard.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
Satoshi-kun, maybe you should investigate links between racism and general unattractiveness http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kana.....nazawa.jpg
May 17th, 2011 at 11:07 pm
@Martin:
Further proof that the thug Obama and his soshulist goons are destroying America from the inside, by celebrating one of their own, a communist dictator.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
PS with thanks to ABL —
Ask a bunch of civil servants in the DC area (even white ones with racist attitudes) and this slightly-less-pathetic method is going to reveal the secret that African-American women are not only better looking but consistently better dressed than pasty sisters such as myself.
Humph. People and their crazy pseudoscience!
May 17th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
@handy:
Oh not that Chavez? Well I stand by my comment anyway since it makes the baby Jeebus cry when honor Messican furners.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:11 pm
@4tehlulz: Holy fuck. The ‘black women are unattractive’ bit is absurd and stupid but his war post that you linked to is completely sociopathic and mind-bogglingly stupid. How did you find that thing?
May 17th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
@Villago Delenda Est:
The principle problem of social Darwinism is that it ain’t science. Never has been. Never will be.
I think that Dawkins overstates the case, but your mileage may vary.
Let’s say that a meteor crashes into the Earth that creates permanent night and also renders all electronics useless. Over time, humans who develop night vision might have a chance of survival. Self awareness wouldn’t help much.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
I see all the names mentioned in this thread and raise you Carnaval in Rio.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
@SLKRR: hahahaha
!
May 17th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
@Brachiator:
Gonna be hard to “develop night vision” when everyone drops dead of cold and lack of food after the first week or two…
May 17th, 2011 at 11:24 pm
@Comrade Mary:
Ooh. Spot on Doctor Who reference.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Blahblahblah
They probably had a bunch of skinny white boys that cringe at the site of a thick ass doing the evaluating. “how’s my dick supposed to hit THAT doggystyle? I’d be lucky if I reached halfway!.”
+4
May 17th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
@SLKRR: After such an event, the best approach would be to cut taxes. And stop all the spendin’.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
@eemom:
We’d do the same if some jerkoff did a study on how ugly stupid white women was, especially the prudish ones. Or would that be sexist? Scratches head.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
@SLKRR: RE: Let’s say that a meteor crashes into the Earth that creates permanent night and also renders all electronics useless. Over time, humans who develop night vision might have a chance of survival. Self awareness wouldn’t help much.
There is suggestive evidence that past catastrophes reduced the number of ancient humans to a small band, but did not kill them all. Permanent night would not necessarily be freezing cold, nor would all food resources be eliminated.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
@Brachiator: Okay, but now where do we hide from the vampires? And could they even see us holding up our crosses, it being permanent night and all?
May 17th, 2011 at 11:45 pm
@eemom: I’m sorry, what was the study about again? Are we all of the sudden not supposed to find women attractive?
(stepping away from Eeyore) One more name: Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry.
(I hate it when I find non-tag formatting shortcuts. I wanted to use to asterisks.)
May 17th, 2011 at 11:45 pm
@Comrade Mary: Fucking racist fuckwads don’t need to work, because they are so awesome on account of their race.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
@eco2geek:
This has got to be a spoof. I can’t believe that the editors of Psychology Today have forgot about phrenology and other attempts to identify criminals by head shape, and facial or body features.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:49 pm
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I would’ve added my name to those placing ABL on the hot list, but didn’t want to come across as being fresh with a front pager on BJ. Keep that betwixt you and me. K
May 17th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
@Brachiator: First off, I don’t think self-awareness is really the wordyou want to be using. Conscious decisions will play a role in evolution, even if we limit it to the simplistic meteor causing permanent night by some slight of hand that is handily left unspecified and the only trait were interested in is night-vision example. Conscious decisions will impact who chooses who to mate with, so it could in fact accelerate any natural biological changes that occur by groups choosing to break down existing social taboos so that individuals with chosen characteristics get to breed more often than they otherwise would be able to. Breeding could be done scientifically to hasten the development of better night vision, again, probably hastening the natural process.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
The fact that some idiot could come up with a “study” like this isn’t much of a surprise to me. I do admit to being astonished that anyone of consequence took it seriously enough to give it space. But then, I apparently do tend to overestimate the intelligence of my fellow creatures.
Anyhow, ABL - who took this post-racism stuff seriously? I’d really like to challenge the reality quotient of anyone who actually proposed its existence.
oh, I have
May 17th, 2011 at 11:54 pm
@El Cid: You’re entirely right: Vampires are going to be the tricky bit. We’ll just have to hope they get really really slow after all that overeating because of their sudden access to a 24-hour buffet.
May 17th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
@El Cid:
Funny, the other day I was asking my commuting buddies if there was ever a film that consistently showed humans from a vampire’s perspective, with more desirable blood types glowing differently in the dark. Beauty would be in the blood, and vampires would lose all need to look at humans and consider most physical traits.
Besides, in my universe Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a product of natural selection.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:01 am
@Brachiator:
Climate change may be the genesis event of our species. Around 2.4 MYA the Isthmus of Panama rose up and blocked water from flowing from the Pacific to the Atlantic. No warm water to the north polar region caused the arctic to develop an ice cap. Ice age resulted (seriously skipping details here). Africa dried out. trees disappeared and savanna spread. Australopithecus living in the trees had to travel farther to shelter. The predators that had been preying on the herd animals nearly wiped them out once they were exposed on the ground. A few survived. They grew smarter because of brutal environmental pressure. Once their hands were not needed to climb trees they were free to carry immature offspring. This allowed a longer development periods for infants to grow larger and more complex brains. Say hello, Homo. All because of climate change.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:04 am
We have adopted children from Ethiopia. When we were meeting the fairly large Ethiopian immigrant/student community in our area, we joked that Ethiopia must not allow the ugly citizens to leave the country. It was just a joke folks!
But Ethiopians are a particularly handsome and elegant bunch of people on the whole.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:07 am
@scav:
Uh, no. Let me use an example that many Balloon Juicers may easily grasp. Selective breeding has led to many varieties of dog, based on traits that humans like. But when dogs go feral and freely breed, the type quickly reverts back to varieties of mutt, because all the selective breeding does not seem to have a significant impact on what dogs are from a genetic standpoint.
Humans ain’t smart enough yet for any kind of selective breeding to anticipate or outdo what natural selection does.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:08 am
@eemom:
Candace Parker isn’t hot because she’s black. She’s hot because she’s hot. And she can dunk.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:15 am
@eemom – You’re not wrong. Sorry, I was the first guy in this thread to post the name of a beautiful black woman, and I honestly intended it as the sort of dismissive “Oh, shut the fuck up” that Kanazawa’s article deserves. In snowballing, it kind of went a different direction, and came out… you’re right, kinda weird. I’m sure if I hadn’t said it someone else would have, but I still apologize.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:15 am
Liberals will blame alleged global warming for everything, including teh ghey.
(I realize I’m treading into El Cid territory but I couldn’t resist.)
May 18th, 2011 at 12:15 am
@Brachiator: All that means is that we’ve not been doing it long enough for speciation to take hold. If the mountain separating two breeding populations would magically disappear, or a land-bridge suddenly appear between Galapagos islands at certain times, those species wouldn’t have become distinct either. The natural processes may provide structure and limits to the process, but it assert conscious selection on the part of humans can’t operate within those rules seems a nonsensical position to take.
ETA: Oh, and the dogs become feral dogs, they don’t revert to wolves or whatever they were before they become domesticated.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:19 am
@RossInDetroit: RE: There is suggestive evidence that past catastrophes reduced the number of ancient humans to a small band, but did not kill them all. Permanent night would not necessarily be freezing cold, nor would all food resources be eliminated.
Interesting. But I was thinking of something more recent. From a recent BBC series on human evolution:
The ways of natural selection are amazing.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:22 am
I do have to say that Kanazawa sounds like the model poster boy for the Sadlies. He fits right in with all the other wackaloon bottom feeders they profile over there. I’m guessing Tintin is on the case as we speak.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:25 am
@Brachiator:
To go there it’s necessary to differentiate between different types of change within species, and to separate out speciation events. That takes a lot of data to unravel. It may be easy to breed white and black dogs from grey ones. Or large and small dogs from medium sized ones. But that’s a long way from making a lasting and significant change in a species. Some change comes easily (color). Other change (number of vertebrae or digits) is very hard to create because the causes are complex.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:25 am
@ArchPundit: HA! well-done.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:29 am
@Brachiator:
I read that material about the theoretical ‘bottleneck’ when it came out. It’s tantalizing. hard to disprove because from this distance even an event that lasted 14 centuries is practically instantaneous. Most of the evidence comes from analysis of genetic drift, IIRC. Humans, despite appearances, share an enormous amount of genetic material and have little variation compared to other species.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:29 am
@scav:
Call me when “conscious selection on the part of humans” has a significant impact on human evolution. Until then, it’s just some wild ass speculation on a blog.
The interbreeding of feral dogs is unrelated to the selective pressures that create a species. But all the crap that humans breed for are mixed up again into whatever dogs are. The bottom line is that the conscious breeding decisions of humans don’t amount to much when it comes to dogs. I doubt that conscious breeding decisions would amount to much when it comes to humans.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:31 am
And if there ever was permanent dark expect the surviving humans to all have a mutation that either conserves vitamin D or produces it without UV light.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:32 am
As an artist it is a fact that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. There is something called the golden ratio. It is known that black women do not fit perfectly into the golden ratio and their features are off slightly. IT IS A FACT THOUGH THAT ALL RACES ARE OFF SLIGHTLY. Meaning that this study has already been done by real scientist, philosophers, artist, and anthropologist.
The conclusion being that true beauty is universal and undeniable and all people have a bias for or against the minor fluctuations of different cultural groups but it does not state that any race has a particular advantage in terms of looks over any other groups.
The Learning Channel and the History Channel have broadcasted documentaries on the golden ratio and the golden mask.
This guy is a dick.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:35 am
@Brachiator: The difference between wolves and dogs is the difference I was highlighting. Furthermore, the assertion that human conscious decisions can’t impact natural selection is as unproven scientifically as the assertion that it might.
ETA: Oh, and the bar set that “To influence evolution” as equivalent to “Producing permanently distinct species” is a rather artificially high.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:38 am
It’s a moronic study to undertake for a couple of reasons: (1) it is about as politically incorrect as you can get, so no matter what the results of the study are, you’ll be forever labeled (properly so) as a racist, and (2) as mentioned in the comments, beauty is subjective and in the eye of the beholder. So doing an objective study on a subjective subject is an exercise in futility.
What is interesting about the study is that it doesn’t seem to differentiate between whites and blacks who were polled. If you assume that people are more attracted to the opposite sex of their own race, with many more white people in this country than black people, you’re bound to get more “white girls are prettier” responses simply because there are more white people.
Basically, the study proves nothing except the racist character of those that conducted the study. Why they even did the study is beyond me. There has to be more to this than meets the eye, because I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually undertake this study for purely scientific or sociological purposes. There is a back story to this that we don’t know which would provide a lot more insight into the whole thing.
See, sometimes I agree with you guys. I know I’m still a troll, but I’m also a conservative and a non-racist. I guess that makes me quite a unique specimen! Troll, conservative, non-racist. I’m probably the only one with those three characteristics that has posted a comment on here since, well, ever. :-)
May 18th, 2011 at 12:41 am
@RossInDetroit: RE: Selective breeding has led to many varieties of dog, based on traits that humans like. But when dogs go feral and freely breed, the type quickly reverts back to varieties of mutt
The larger point is that all the size, shape and color variation in dogs or cats or cattle are actually fairly trivial. The various varieties of dog are not separate species. And the changes that humans have imposed have probably done little to “improve” dogs as a species.
Similarly, I think that people who have a hard-on for “improving” humans through breeding are blowing smoke. Reality and the randomness of natural selection is working against them.
But as always, your mileage may vary.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:41 am
@scav:
Strictly speaking, natural selection is differential reproductive success of individuals caused by environmental factors. If conscious decisions of humans cause differential reproductive success that’s something else.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:42 am
@scav:
So far, human attempts to significantly impact natural selection in animals and plants has a mixed record. Human attempts to significantly impact natural selection in humans has been a failure.
The Spartans believed that their breeding practices would create a superior warrior class. The Macedonians kicked the Spartans’ asses and the Romans later reduced them to exhibits in a human zoo. But hey, you are certainly welcome to give it your best shot, even though science and history are against you.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:51 am
Well, if you want to split hairs as fine as that, fine. Glory in it. I don’t even want to bother working out why conscious thought is suddenly not a natural process.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:54 am
@Brachiator: Well, looking at the physical condition of the Hapsburgs gives me great confidence that obscure breeding rules has no impact whatsoever.
ETA: Because now, apparently, I have to reach the goal of a “Successful” change in order to make an impact on evolution, not just any change.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:56 am
In other news, Newt’s epic faceplant made my day. Josh Marshall caps it off with this quote, which deserves a meme of its own: “any ad which quotes what I said on Sunday is a falsehood.” He’s preemptively denying any repetition of his own statements. And there, friends, is the essence of the modern Republican.
On that note I’m off to bed.
Cheers
May 18th, 2011 at 12:57 am
@Lysana: No, No, No. It’s Mitt’s Dog after the “ride”.
May 18th, 2011 at 1:07 am
@scav:
Yeah, the Hapsburgs were lippy. Not much of an impact on human beings or evolution in general. And the inbreeding is a useful warning about trying to direct evolution. The Hapsburgs thought that they were breeding hardy aristocrats. Didn’t quite work out that way.
You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to show significant change or successful change. You define it any way you want. But to suggest that any change at all is some kind of “impact” on evolution is trivial and not really worth discussing.
Like RossInDetroit, I’m off to bed.
May 18th, 2011 at 1:15 am
That’s not a dog.
That’s bachman without her mask and wig.
May 18th, 2011 at 1:18 am
“IT IS A FACT THOUGH THAT ALL RACES ARE OFF SLIGHTLY.”—-orthodoxecclectic
Well, I agree with *that” part.
(I found the girls dwelling in the region between the rivers Vistula and Dnieper to be most excellent-looking overall. Lots of high foreheads, deep-set eyes and small derrieres. My chubby-chasing companion was all “m’eh! )
Black chicks? Do half-and-halfs count? If so: Afro-Dutch.
And Sade’s cool. Do Sade to Sade!
And who’s that black girl that was always appearing on Love American Style? Childhood inchoate crush on her.
Too, Marilyn McCoo back in the day.
May 18th, 2011 at 1:39 am
@Brachiator: So am I. But I still don’t think that the breeding delusions of the Spartans as matched against the reality of Macedonian strategy and tactics in warfare serves as proof that conscious decisions do not play a role in evolution. Human breeding now takes place in a context with rules imposed by conscious thought, decisions and cultural norms. So I think it reasonable to posit that those “rules” have as much chance to influence evolution as the natural barriers to breeding (well, we do suffer from a short span of attention, that is a problem). Furthermore, conscious human decisions can impact animal breeding to even greater effect but apparently not even that may not be enough for you to admit we might possibly be a part of the evolutionary environment impacting those species development. Hell, we can drive them to extinction and not impact evolution. No matter, everything’s unproven except I really couldn’t take the Spartans delusions being evidence of anything except the Spartans being fucking deluded.
May 18th, 2011 at 1:47 am
@eemom:
Sorry the thread creeped you out so much. I have the same opinion of this guy as I do of the guy who developed something called “Quantitative Musical Analysis” to prove the Rolling Stones were a better band than the Beatles.
The only thing that does for me is make me pull out a bunch of CDs and start listening to all of my favourite songs, all the while wondering how anyone can be stupid enough to think that an argument over whether “Sing this All Together” is a better track than “It’s all too Much” is really worth winning. Pretty much the same thing is happening here.
May 18th, 2011 at 2:01 am
Wait,...an asian said this? Okay, now I UNDERSTAND!
Obviously he has never been to the Caribbean!
May 18th, 2011 at 9:06 am
@Brachiator:
What are you talking about? First off, non-natural selection is called “artificial selection”, and it has been highly successful at creating measurable change (though not always the desired change). Problem with humans is that we have really long breeding cycles compared to most of the animal kingdom, so trying to influence measurable change in human populations would generally take hundreds or thousands of years, or longer. But it has been achieved with bacteria, plants, fish, and numerous mammals with shorter breeding cycles, such as horses, foxes, wolves-dogs, etc.
And your example of Spartans, regardless of whether or not they achieved some super warrior breed of human, leaves out a number of extraneous factors in their wars with the Macedonians.
May 18th, 2011 at 10:40 am
Wow. Wow wow wow.
I personally am not generally attracted to black women—there are exceptions, and I did date one for a little while—but on the whole, just not my thing.
And this is probably the dumbest thing ever printed anywhere ever.
May 18th, 2011 at 10:47 am
Beauty is a function of facial symmetry. The more symmetric a face the more beautiful it is. Race has nothing to do with it. Its all about congenital development. It also why people with broken jaws and misshaped noses tend to be less attractive.
May 18th, 2011 at 11:31 am
I’m late to the show, but since someone else already called for Nichelle Nichols, my efforts here are superfluous.
May 18th, 2011 at 12:11 pm
@Caz:
“Why” is a good question. Apparently, the researchers of the national Adolescent Health study, a survey on teen attitudes and behaviors that is conducted periodically, added a part where they (the researchers) ranked the attractiveness of the teens completing the study on a 1-5 scale. (Kanazawa calls this ranking “objective,” even though it’s just the researcher’s opinions). Since black girls were consistently ranked lower in attractiveness than black boys and girls of other races, Kanazawa concludes that black women are scientifically less attractive.
Leaving aside the whole race question, why the hell would adult researchers judge the appearance of teen participants in a study about adolescent behavior and health? And in terms of informed consent, did the teens know their looks were being judged?
May 18th, 2011 at 6:36 pm
This is knowlege that is right up there with knowing how many craps a dog takes in a 24 hour period.
Now that it is established that black women are ugly, just what does this mean for black women or women in general and what are we to do with this information?
May 20th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
This is knowlege that is right up there with knowing how many craps a dog takes in a 24 hour period.
Now that it is established that black women are ugly, just what does this mean for black women or women in general and what are we to do with this information?
I think it means we are lucky because we don’t even have to consider the advances of men since they appear to be the biggest problem women have. Ugly is good.
May 20th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Ironically, the ‘study’ was done in London…..Cheers
[“]?
May 22nd, 2011 at 12:01 pm