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>the idea that they are correlated implies that my physical features will change when my sexual preference change No, it doesn't. It means sexual orientation a

• sova 9y ago
  "Sexual Orientation and Hormonal Composition" is a whole field of research on its own. Sexual Identity and Portraits we scraped off a dating site is too tenuous a leap for me to appreciate as any sort of "data" for serious science. If they had taken 5000 people, asked them to self-identify, and took a blood sample and measured various hormones, that would be a lot more satisfying. Yes, I am emotionally bothered by this whole enterprise, because sexual orientation is not something you can understand through portraits, and this study makes the claim that 7/10 times a computer can do it. That's not the case. Let's say there's a 50% chance that hormonal/chemical composition and sexual orientation are related, and let's say there's a 50% chance that hormonal composition affects facial features. That means that for the both of them to work out we have a 25% chance they are correlated. That's a pretty generous estimate, given that there is no data supporting the second half of that equation where "hormonal composition affects facial composition" as far as I'm aware. The best we are doing with this dataset is inferring hormonal composition from what someone put down as their sexual preference. Or am I missing a large piece of the puzzle?