4 ms·

Physiognomy is a 19th-century pseudoscience. Why can’t we stop practicing it?

12 points by Vigier 8y ago

qwerty456127 8y ago
Isn't today the time of the rise of physiognomy actually, now powered with neural networks? E.g. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/deep-neural-networks-are-more-accurate-humans-detecting-sexual https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/d... I'm actually afraid the problem of physiognomy is not it being a pseudosceience but it being a severe threat to privacy and equality and a potential source of false positives (as personality is not a 100% product of a body but many people would argue).
guicho271828 8y ago
> Physiognomy gave concrete shape to liberalism’s dark secret: the sense that reasoning and discourse are only part of how society and politics function, and that just looking someone in the face can be more revealing than listening to what they say. Wait, what?
- thomasfoster96 8y ago
  It just reads as though the author conflated every sense of the word ‘face’ in order to make a thinly veiled jab at liberals.
teddyh 8y ago
Visual things are very persuasive, regardless of their rationality. Those who want to persuade others will always have a useful tool in the visual – especially faces, the most captivating type of visual image there is.
pfschell 8y ago
Oy vey, stop with the pattern recognition, guys. Don’t believed your lying eyes, believe political correctness.
nestorD 8y ago
An interesting fact is that, for a time, phrenology was linked to atheism : both of them stemming from a materialistic point of view.
teddyh 8y ago
> Half of the United States looks at the face of Donald Trump and cannot believe that it is supposed to represent them. And half of the United States seems to look at this sallow, unhealthy, and time-ravaged frame, see the panicked flailing of the tiny-fingered hands, and recognize some version of themselves: Out of their depth, failing upward and ever upward on a warm cushion of unearned privilege. Um, what? That sort of came out of nowhere, and is then left hanging, as if every reader should obviously agree with it.
- virmundi 8y ago
  If you do not divide people, then they may get together to create a tower and become gods themselves. The media has to divide, but can't come out overtly in the process. They have do it subtly. Little digs like this remind us all that the important thing that matters is literally skin deep.
logicchains 8y ago
There's research suggesting it's not pseudoscience. E.g. https://www.medicaldaily.com/facial-features-predict-iq-men-long-face-and-wide-set-eyes-make-men-look-smart-not-women-273710 https://www.medicaldaily.com/facial-features-predict-iq-men-..., https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-face-for-politics-new-study-shows-we-can-tell-democrats-from-republicans-in-head-shots/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-face-for... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/12/researchers-use-facial-recognition-tools-to-predict-sexuality-lgbt-groups-arent-happy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8be8f4bc3a85 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/1.... Unless those studies are extremely flawed, it seems possible to predict IQ, sexuality and political affiliation to some degree of accuracy from a person's face.
- ntlk 8y ago
  The first study you link to doesn’t look at IQ, it looks at how people assess one another’s IQ, which is not the same. The study on predicting sexuality wasn’t looking at physiognomy per se, but at photographs of people. One of the criticisms of the study was that instead of predicting sexuality based on facial features it showed differences in how people of different sexualities photograph themselves, eg. using camera angles more associated with how people with a specific gender photograph themselves. Neither of these studies convince me that physiognomy isn’t just prejudiced guessing. Edit: grammar.
  - logicchains 8y ago
    >The first study you link to doesn’t look at IQ, it looks at how people assess one another’s IQ, which is not the same. From the article I linked: "Each student in the picture completed a Czech version of the Intelligence Structure Test that uses various types of tools to measure the different types of intelligence. The images were close-ups of the students’ faces, which featured a neutral, non-smiling expression, and did not wear jewelry or cosmetics, Business Insider reported. The raters took their time rating each photograph for either intelligence or attractiveness. Of the raters, 43 women and 42 men judged photos for intelligence, and 42 women and 33 men judged them for attractiveness using a scale of 1 to 7 (1 being the highest score, 7 being the lowest possible score). The researchers then averaged the intelligence and attractiveness scores each student received. The findings revealed both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by just viewing the facial photographs. Men in the photos with a higher IQ were perceived as more intelligent much more than women in the photos who also had higher IQ scores. In both sexes, a narrower face with a thinner chin, and a larger, prolonged nose characterized the predicted stereotype of a higher IQ, while a rather oval and broader face with a massive chin and a smallish nose led to a prediction of low-intelligence." Note the lines "Each student in the picture completed a Czech version of the Intelligence Structure Test" and " The findings revealed both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by just viewing the facial photographs." So the study did actually measure peoples' IQs using a standardised IQ test, and compared the results of the tests to peoples' assesment of others' IQ based on their faces, showing a correspondence between the IQ people estimated based on faces and the actual IQ scores. Here's a study that directly shows a correlation between sexuality and facial anatomy: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270290521_Facial_Structure_Predicts_Sexual_Orientation_in_Both_Men_and_Women https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270290521_Facial_St...
dogma1138 8y ago
Why is it unreasonable that some facial chareteristics can be used as heuristics to determine underlying genetic conditions? I mean it’s pretty clear that people with Down syndrome have a very unique look and this is not the only genetic disorder that has very defined an unique facial charetarisrics.

12 points by Vigier 8y ago

Isn't today the time of the rise of physiognomy actually, now powered with neural networks? E.g. https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/deep-neural-networks-are-more-accurate-humans-detecting-sexual https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/d... I'm actually afraid the problem of physiognomy is not it being a pseudosceience but it being a severe threat to privacy and equality and a potential source of false positives (as personality is not a 100% product of a body but many people would argue).

guicho271828 8y ago

> Physiognomy gave concrete shape to liberalism’s dark secret: the sense that reasoning and discourse are only part of how society and politics function, and that just looking someone in the face can be more revealing than listening to what they say. Wait, what?

thomasfoster96 8y ago
It just reads as though the author conflated every sense of the word ‘face’ in order to make a thinly veiled jab at liberals.

teddyh 8y ago

Visual things are very persuasive, regardless of their rationality. Those who want to persuade others will always have a useful tool in the visual – especially faces, the most captivating type of visual image there is.

pfschell 8y ago

Oy vey, stop with the pattern recognition, guys. Don’t believed your lying eyes, believe political correctness.

nestorD 8y ago

An interesting fact is that, for a time, phrenology was linked to atheism : both of them stemming from a materialistic point of view.

teddyh 8y ago

> Half of the United States looks at the face of Donald Trump and cannot believe that it is supposed to represent them. And half of the United States seems to look at this sallow, unhealthy, and time-ravaged frame, see the panicked flailing of the tiny-fingered hands, and recognize some version of themselves: Out of their depth, failing upward and ever upward on a warm cushion of unearned privilege. Um, what? That sort of came out of nowhere, and is then left hanging, as if every reader should obviously agree with it.

virmundi 8y ago
If you do not divide people, then they may get together to create a tower and become gods themselves. The media has to divide, but can't come out overtly in the process. They have do it subtly. Little digs like this remind us all that the important thing that matters is literally skin deep.

logicchains 8y ago

There's research suggesting it's not pseudoscience. E.g. https://www.medicaldaily.com/facial-features-predict-iq-men-long-face-and-wide-set-eyes-make-men-look-smart-not-women-273710 https://www.medicaldaily.com/facial-features-predict-iq-men-..., https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-face-for-politics-new-study-shows-we-can-tell-democrats-from-republicans-in-head-shots/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-face-for... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/12/researchers-use-facial-recognition-tools-to-predict-sexuality-lgbt-groups-arent-happy/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8be8f4bc3a85 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/09/1.... Unless those studies are extremely flawed, it seems possible to predict IQ, sexuality and political affiliation to some degree of accuracy from a person's face.

ntlk 8y ago
The first study you link to doesn’t look at IQ, it looks at how people assess one another’s IQ, which is not the same. The study on predicting sexuality wasn’t looking at physiognomy per se, but at photographs of people. One of the criticisms of the study was that instead of predicting sexuality based on facial features it showed differences in how people of different sexualities photograph themselves, eg. using camera angles more associated with how people with a specific gender photograph themselves. Neither of these studies convince me that physiognomy isn’t just prejudiced guessing. Edit: grammar.
- logicchains 8y ago
  >The first study you link to doesn’t look at IQ, it looks at how people assess one another’s IQ, which is not the same. From the article I linked: "Each student in the picture completed a Czech version of the Intelligence Structure Test that uses various types of tools to measure the different types of intelligence. The images were close-ups of the students’ faces, which featured a neutral, non-smiling expression, and did not wear jewelry or cosmetics, Business Insider reported. The raters took their time rating each photograph for either intelligence or attractiveness. Of the raters, 43 women and 42 men judged photos for intelligence, and 42 women and 33 men judged them for attractiveness using a scale of 1 to 7 (1 being the highest score, 7 being the lowest possible score). The researchers then averaged the intelligence and attractiveness scores each student received. The findings revealed both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by just viewing the facial photographs. Men in the photos with a higher IQ were perceived as more intelligent much more than women in the photos who also had higher IQ scores. In both sexes, a narrower face with a thinner chin, and a larger, prolonged nose characterized the predicted stereotype of a higher IQ, while a rather oval and broader face with a massive chin and a smallish nose led to a prediction of low-intelligence." Note the lines "Each student in the picture completed a Czech version of the Intelligence Structure Test" and " The findings revealed both men and women were able to accurately evaluate the intelligence of men by just viewing the facial photographs." So the study did actually measure peoples' IQs using a standardised IQ test, and compared the results of the tests to peoples' assesment of others' IQ based on their faces, showing a correspondence between the IQ people estimated based on faces and the actual IQ scores. Here's a study that directly shows a correlation between sexuality and facial anatomy: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270290521_Facial_Structure_Predicts_Sexual_Orientation_in_Both_Men_and_Women https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270290521_Facial_St...

dogma1138 8y ago

Why is it unreasonable that some facial chareteristics can be used as heuristics to determine underlying genetic conditions? I mean it’s pretty clear that people with Down syndrome have a very unique look and this is not the only genetic disorder that has very defined an unique facial charetarisrics.