4 ms·

The "average face pictures" make it clear that the average weight of the straight people is higher than the average weight of the gay people. My guess is that

The "average face pictures" make it clear that the average weight of the straight people is higher than the average weight of the gay people. My guess is that they actually built a fat detector. It certainly wouldn't surprise me to find that gay people are on average much less fat than straight people. A quick search through the actual papers shows that they made no effort to control for the effects of weight.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
I'm having trouble finding any information on the issue, but I did find one paper that refutes your claim[1]. That info was gathered from British people, and didn't show any difference in weight between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Whether or not fat is what's being detected depends on the dataset I suppose, though. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11911936 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11911936
danieltillett 9y ago
Especially when facial lipoatrophy is a well known side-effect of anti-HIV drugs [0]. 0. https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/changes-face-body-lipodystrophy-wasting https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/changes-face-body-lipo... Edit. I never complain about downvoting (who cares it is just HN), but what exactly are people downvoting? It is a well known side-effect of the older anti-HIV drugs to lose fat from the face (it tends to be deposited around the belly and organs). Even if you controlled for overall weight, then you would still need to control for facial fat separately.
- stevenwoo 9y ago
  Didn't vote but they looked at men and women - hence if it found lesbians with some sort of accuracy your HIV treatment hypothesis doesn't work - I'm pretty sure lesbians get HIV at a much lower rate than gay men or drug addicts. It also seems your hypothesis presumes the vast majority of gay men have HIV infections. I didn't bother looking it up, but both those assumptions seem pretty faulty from memory.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Yes lesbians are at a reduced risk to being infected with HIV than heterosexual women. It is not my hypothesis that weight differences is the signal being detected, it is the GPs. I was just pointing out that facial fat may not correlate with weight in the different populations studied.
- Arcsech 9y ago
  My guess is that people are downvoting due to the assumption/stereotype that HIV is associated with homosexuality. While it's true that HIV is more prevalent among men who have sex with men in the US[0], some still think of HIV as "the gay disease", which it is definitely not, and the stereotype contributes to stigmatization of homosexuality. That may not be what you intended, but it's one way of reading your comment that can come across negatively. [0]: https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    Thanks for answering. Unfortunately in the population studied (white americans) HIV is far more prevalent in men who have sex with men (>70% of all new infections) than in heterosexual men and women. If your two populations vary significantly in any factor you need to control for it or make sure you rule out that it is significant - this is science 101. Having read the paper and authors notes, it appears that facial fat differences are unlike to be the signal being detected.
    - m_mueller 9y ago
      You only need to control for it if the total number of infections is a significant percentage (probably somewhere around 1-5% depending on significance level) of each group population - otherwise you'd have to control for anything and everything and statistical field studies would be completely impossible to allow for any conclusions (while as it is it's just really hard).
      - danieltillett 9y ago
        This is true, but you should at least make an effort to rule this out. The really hard thing in science is not fooling yourself by overlooking something important.
rothbardrand 9y ago
Haha, let me introduce you to the bear community. TBH, I can't say for sure, but at least in this area, the gay community is very diverse in weight and bears / chubs are very popular. Going on a gay dating app as a chub you get mobbed like a skinny blond woman does on a straight app.
- m_mueller 9y ago
  I think you're mixing up the fact of outlier (subgroups) with the location of the mean in a normal distribution. Looking at the pictures in question it does seem to me that GP has a point, i.e. BMI could be a simple proxy for what the NN is detecting as sexual preference.
losvedir 9y ago
> My guess is that they actually built a fat detector. Mmm, given that the system was correct 80% of the time and the majority of fat people are not gay, then this can't possibly be true, right?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago

I'm having trouble finding any information on the issue, but I did find one paper that refutes your claim[1]. That info was gathered from British people, and didn't show any difference in weight between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Whether or not fat is what's being detected depends on the dataset I suppose, though. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11911936 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11911936

danieltillett 9y ago

Especially when facial lipoatrophy is a well known side-effect of anti-HIV drugs [0]. 0. https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/changes-face-body-lipodystrophy-wasting https://www.poz.com/basics/hiv-basics/changes-face-body-lipo... Edit. I never complain about downvoting (who cares it is just HN), but what exactly are people downvoting? It is a well known side-effect of the older anti-HIV drugs to lose fat from the face (it tends to be deposited around the belly and organs). Even if you controlled for overall weight, then you would still need to control for facial fat separately.

stevenwoo 9y ago
Didn't vote but they looked at men and women - hence if it found lesbians with some sort of accuracy your HIV treatment hypothesis doesn't work - I'm pretty sure lesbians get HIV at a much lower rate than gay men or drug addicts. It also seems your hypothesis presumes the vast majority of gay men have HIV infections. I didn't bother looking it up, but both those assumptions seem pretty faulty from memory.
- danieltillett 9y ago
  Yes lesbians are at a reduced risk to being infected with HIV than heterosexual women. It is not my hypothesis that weight differences is the signal being detected, it is the GPs. I was just pointing out that facial fat may not correlate with weight in the different populations studied.
Arcsech 9y ago
My guess is that people are downvoting due to the assumption/stereotype that HIV is associated with homosexuality. While it's true that HIV is more prevalent among men who have sex with men in the US[0], some still think of HIV as "the gay disease", which it is definitely not, and the stereotype contributes to stigmatization of homosexuality. That may not be what you intended, but it's one way of reading your comment that can come across negatively. [0]: https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/statistics https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/stat...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- danieltillett 9y ago
  Thanks for answering. Unfortunately in the population studied (white americans) HIV is far more prevalent in men who have sex with men (>70% of all new infections) than in heterosexual men and women. If your two populations vary significantly in any factor you need to control for it or make sure you rule out that it is significant - this is science 101. Having read the paper and authors notes, it appears that facial fat differences are unlike to be the signal being detected.
  - m_mueller 9y ago
    You only need to control for it if the total number of infections is a significant percentage (probably somewhere around 1-5% depending on significance level) of each group population - otherwise you'd have to control for anything and everything and statistical field studies would be completely impossible to allow for any conclusions (while as it is it's just really hard).
    - danieltillett 9y ago
      This is true, but you should at least make an effort to rule this out. The really hard thing in science is not fooling yourself by overlooking something important.

rothbardrand 9y ago

Haha, let me introduce you to the bear community. TBH, I can't say for sure, but at least in this area, the gay community is very diverse in weight and bears / chubs are very popular. Going on a gay dating app as a chub you get mobbed like a skinny blond woman does on a straight app.

m_mueller 9y ago
I think you're mixing up the fact of outlier (subgroups) with the location of the mean in a normal distribution. Looking at the pictures in question it does seem to me that GP has a point, i.e. BMI could be a simple proxy for what the NN is detecting as sexual preference.

losvedir 9y ago

> My guess is that they actually built a fat detector. Mmm, given that the system was correct 80% of the time and the majority of fat people are not gay, then this can't possibly be true, right?