An economics prof writing in the NY Times wants to make discrimination against the ugly an actionable matter.
In addition to whatever personal pleasure it gives you, being attractive also helps you earn more money, find a higher-earning spouse (and one who looks better, too!) and get better deals on mortgages. Each of these facts has been demonstrated over the past 20 years by many economists and other researchers. The effects are not small: one study showed that an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.
Beauty is as much an issue for men as for women. While extensive research shows that women’s looks have bigger impacts in the market for mates, another large group of studies demonstrates that men’s looks have bigger impacts on the job.
In an effort to do away with any last vestige of discrimination in society, his remedy:
A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?
The problem here when it comes to employment is that
good-looking people are more intelligent. As usual, this consideration, that people differ in their underlying abilities and that these differences result in different outcomes, such as higher income, is one that otherwise intelligent people refuse to consider. The only reason that ugly people earn less money
must be irrational discrimination.
I'm very tired of this intolerable meddling.
ReplyDeleteOT:
ReplyDeleteYan Shen probably doesn't want us to know about Asians behaving badly.
> At the same time, our theory is probabilistic, not deterministic, and the available evidence suggests that the empirical correlation between physical attractiveness and intelligence, far from being 1.0, is modest at best. Thus, any attempt to infer people’s intelligence and competence from their physical appearance, in lieu of a standardized IQ test, would be highly inefficient.
ReplyDeleteVery small effect indeed. Discriminating in favor of beauty is very far from discriminating in favor of intelligence; therefore, the deadweight loss from banning beauty discrimination is minimal.
And given the uncertainties, you can't even begin to argue that that loss exceeds existing losses from discriminating against ugly intelligent people.
In some fields such as law and entertainment, looks discrimination is obviously pretty common. Actually, I would say that in any male-dominated white collar industry which hires lots of young people straight out of school, there will be lots of looks discrimination. Everyone knows that hot girls have a big advantage.
ReplyDeleteJust a heads up:
ReplyDeleteUncle Tim Wise expounds on the "Moral Absurdity of Race Realism":
http://www.timwise.org/2011/08/race-intelligence-and-the-limits-of-science-reflections-on-the-moral-absurdity-of-racial-realism/#.TllbEoKs1fE.facebook
Owing to the high prevalence of obesity in the US, we have honestly a relative shortage of beauty. And now this jackass wants to tax it (in the sense of trying to reduce the rewards of beauty)? Shouldn't his economics training inform him that taxing something generally reduces the quantity supplied?
ReplyDeleteThe problem here when it comes to employment is that good-looking people are more intelligent
ReplyDeleteThen how do you explain Ashkenazi Jews who tend to be highly intelligent but not that good-looking?
This will go nowhere, can you imagine a hot gal being sued because she would not go out with an ugly guy?
ReplyDeleteAs for Ashkenazi Jews not being "good looking," the last time I checked, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely. YMMV.
As for Ashkenazi Jews not being "good looking," the last time I checked, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely. YMMV.
ReplyDeleteI tend to see more that look like Alan Greenspan, Mona Charen, and Charles Krauthammer. The ones you mentioned are extreme exceptions.
Not surprising the author is a professor of economics at the University of Texas which I believe is the last major college economics department in the US that still is openly Marxist.
ReplyDeleteHamermesh, leftist econ prof, married to a lawyer must be one of Whiskey's Scotch-Irish relatives.
ReplyDeleteEl Hijo Del Anon
Empirical studies demonstrate that individuals perceive physically attractive others to be more intelligent than physically unattractive others.
ReplyDeleteI never heard of such a thing. I always heard that people perceived very attractive people, to be rather dumb. That's my own approach - I certainly do not assume that the beautiful woman I'm eying has a Phd in molecular biology, and I doubt if the rest of you do so either. I've noticed that more intellectually challenging college courses are not teeming with prospective fashion models and movie stars.
And I wouldn't believe Kanawaza if he said "Studies indicate that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow.
last time I checked, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely. YMMV.
ReplyDeleteGellar is pretty darn homely. As for what Ashkenazi Jews "look like", opinions are all over the map.
You have to admit it is kind of hilarious that what was once used as a reductio ad absurdum for trying to legislate 'equality' (see Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron) becomes a serious progressive policy proposal sanctioned by the NYT. I mean, it would be funny if these people lived on another planet.
ReplyDelete"A more radical solution may be needed: why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?"
ReplyDeleteI think a better approach is to declare that ugliness is a social construct and that in actuality everything and everyone is beautiful in their own way (I think I feel a song coming on...)
why not offer legal protections to the ugly, as we do with racial, ethnic and religious minorities, women and handicapped individuals?"
ReplyDeleteTaking this suggestion seriously for a moment - because while being a racial, ethnic "minority, women, etc is pretty evident and a binary state (you're a woman or you're not) beauty is a lot more nebulous. Will the government establish "appearance tribunals" to determine the physical attractiveness or ugliness of each person? If an employer hires a person rated as a "3" by the tribunal while rejecting a "5" and a "1", are they in the clear or subject to prosecution? There are no possible laws or legal rulings which can cover all he possible permutations.
I don't expect this to get much traction. Certain feminists will bang the drum for it (but only for women) but that's it. As a very wise lit professor of mine once told my class, physical beauty is the one prejudice we all bow down before.
ReplyDeleteIt sucks for many of us but such is life. Best to make the most of what you have.
SeanS
SeanS
As for Ashkenazi Jews not being "good looking," the last time I checked, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely.
ReplyDeleteMost Jewish women don't look anything like these women. Gellar and Prepon look like white gentiles, while Kunis looks like a Latina.
As for Ashkenazi Jews not being "good looking," the last time I checked, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely.
ReplyDeleteAmerican blacks do better in the military than in most other walks of life because standardized tests keep out the especially stupid ones.
And the last time I checked, only good-looking actresses have a reasonable shot at becoming famous.
That's why when I say "black actress," Halle Berry is the first thing that comes to your mind.
The plain ones of every ethnicity have already been weeded out long before get a chance to see them on the screen.
Got it?
Even you would have been able to figure out that one for yourself, if watching so much television hadn't made your thought processes lazy and slow, something that invariably spills over into your posts.
Hey, look at the time. Shouldn't you be writing yet another comment over at Steve Sailer's blog about how America must spend a trillion dollars a year on our Middle Eastern wars in order to maintain the flow of cheap oil?
Get crackin', genius!
Oh, not the Kanazawa tripe again. Bit of reality: more intelligent people are not better looking. A quick trip and comparison of MIT campus versus OSU campus is sufficient to give a hint. Lifelong observation by anyone with functional brain confirms it. Whatever appearance to the contrary is aptly explained by selection bias and sloppy statistics.
ReplyDeleteThat said, those calls for legal equality in everything on are pretty hilarious. How soon until I cannot legally refuse to marry some girl (any girl!) because I cannot discriminate against a sum of her qualities? Talk about absurd!
America is gonna have a good looking White male underclass in no time.
ReplyDeleteI've always kinda had a thing for Jewish chicks. Didn't know that Prepon was (half) Jewish. Also didn't know she was a Scientologist.
ReplyDeleteSeanS
Didn't know that Prepon was (half) Jewish.
ReplyDeleteI guess this makes whiskey's argument seem a little weak given one of his examples isn't even fully Jewish. But that's par for the course for him given most of his arguments are filled with half truths.
I think this might be satire.
ReplyDeletePlease tell me it's satire.
"Oh, not the Kanazawa tripe again. Bit of reality: more intelligent people are not better looking. A quick trip and comparison of MIT campus versus OSU campus is sufficient to give a hint. Lifelong observation by anyone with functional brain confirms it. Whatever appearance to the contrary is aptly explained by selection bias and sloppy statistics."
ReplyDeleteAnd would you care to demonstrate exactly how this research was sloppy or biased? As we all know, that's an extreme indictment that needs to be backed up with a little more than just vague hand waving and ipse dixits.
In any case, I really shouldn't have to explain this, especially to this crowd, but the set of people elite colleges isn't remotely close to a representative sample of the overall class of high IQ individuals. Trying to draw conclusions about the general high IQ population by looking at the student body at Harvard and Swarthmore makes about as much sense as saying that everyone over 6'8" in America should be able to run 40 meters in five seconds, since almost all active NBA players can run that quickly. Students at top universities are selected for not just IQ but also for a willingness to sacrifice large amounts of time of study, and are therefore not anywhere close to being a uniform sample of all high IQ people, just as professional basketball players are selected for more than just height, and are thusly not indicative of anything about the broader class people who are merely tall.
NB: The rather slight but positive correlation between physical attractiveness and general intelligence has been demonstrated empirically enough times now that it's not really controversial anymore in the evo-psych world.
Correction:
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I really shouldn't have to explain this, especially to this crowd, but the set of people at elite colleges isn't remotely close being to a representative sample...
Correction:
..about the broader class of people who are merely tall.
"Then how do you explain Ashkenazi Jews who tend to be highly intelligent but not that good-looking?"
And that's why it's called a "relative correlation" and not an "absolute rule." There's a fairly critical difference in there.
An ugly anecdote:
ReplyDeleteBessie Braddock, who as her name suggests, was a fat and self-righteous MP of moderate intelligence. She interrupted Winston Churchill when he was speaking in the House of Commons, and said, "Sir you are drunk".
Churchill is supposed to have replied, "And you, madam, are ugly. But I shall be sober in the morning".
For lots of reasons, I don't think any politician would get way with such a riposte these days. What's more, if Professor Hamermesh had his way an ugly woman could sue a man for saying so. Maybe.
As an undergrad at Harvey Mudd, I used to say "beauty times brains equals a constant" (especially true of the female students).
ReplyDelete"sabril said...
ReplyDeleteIn some fields such as law and entertainment, looks discrimination is obviously pretty common."
This does not compute. Discrimination is when the characteristic is not a requirement. In law the hottest lawyer wins the favor of the stupid jurors. In entertainment I prefer a hot babe and not a fat feminist.
@Bob Arctor
ReplyDeleteAnd would you care to demonstrate exactly how this research was sloppy or biased? As we all know, that's an extreme indictment that needs to be backed up with a little more than just vague hand waving and ipse dixits.
This horse has been beaten to death so much, it's no longer funny when people are not even aware of it. Andrew Gelman used to run a regular show with it. He even once bothered to make it official.
NB: The rather slight but positive correlation between physical attractiveness and general intelligence has been demonstrated empirically enough times now that it's not really controversial anymore in the evo-psych world.
Considering that practices of the evo-psych world as a whole are very much controversial (that is, a laughing stock of scientific quarters), this is not sounding very promising. I know, I know, I am throwing invectives around again. But this stuff-- another bribed with credits psychology students, all 63 of them, providing for an R^2 of 0.08 between vaguely defined terms?--seems to be designed to test good will of outside observers.
Dennis,
ReplyDeleteIQ only relates to a fraction of life outcome variance, so I think when you take that fraction, and then you combine with the correlation of looks with IQ...
But it seems likely to me that other personality attributes that do explain life outcome variance and which are desirable to employers, particularly self esteem, willingness to lead, good mental health, would tend to positively correlate with good looks like IQ does.
So in the narrow sense of IQ I find the explanation you offer lacking, but in the broad sense it could well be a good explanation.
In any case, I really shouldn't have to explain this, especially to this crowd, but the set of people elite colleges isn't remotely close to a representative sample of the overall class of high IQ individuals.
ReplyDeleteYeah, bear in mind the idea here is that people with high IQ are generally more attractive, within any population and on a society wide whole population basis, including the gamut of wallmart shoppers.
It's not really a statement that if you selected specific subpopulations such as a group of runway models and a group of MIT students (who are not only selected for intelligence but a relatively systematizing outlook with a relative disinterest in people which would probably correlate slightly with poor looks), the correlation would still be present. That's bizarre.
I think it's possible that Ashkenazis may be equal or more attractive that the European average, but not as attractive on average as the upper class and upper middle class Whites that they tend to associate with (or whatever class level they associate with) and compare themselves with. Likewise is possible for personality variables.
ReplyDeleteThat would make sense if lots of average variation in intelligence is a general heath factor that tracks attractiveness while Ashkenazi intelligence is somewhat due to overclocking that doesn't have much to do with general health. Although this may not be true.
Looks like Harrison Bergeron is becoming real.
ReplyDelete"This does not compute. Discrimination is when the characteristic is not a requirement"
ReplyDeleteMy point includes folks who shuffle papers in the back room.
Kanazawa's recent paper (2011), Beautiful British Parents Have More Daughters was Andrew Gelman "approved":
ReplyDelete"I thank David de Meza, Andrew Gelman, John Lazarus, Andrew J. Oswald, Robert L. Trivers, and anonymous reviewers for their comments
on earlier drafts."
And, Kanazawa is far from the only scientist who has looked into the alleged association between beauty and intelligence and found it. See his recent (2011) paper, Intelligence and physical attractiveness.
It's amusing to see anonymous internet commentators sneering at a man must have more than 70 published, peer-reviewed papers. Furthermore, it's amusing to anonymous commentators sneering at evolutionary psychology. In this particular case, they must believe that smart, successful men don't disproportionately have children with beautiful women.
Actually, it would be more amusing if it weren't so pathetic.
Physical attractiveness is simply a requirement in many jobs, just as a high IQ is a requirement for being a nuclear physicist.
ReplyDeleteIn many cases, unattractiveness is self-inflicted, e.g. obesity and diet-based skin conditions.
ReplyDeleteIt's amusing to see anonymous internet commentators sneering at a man must have more than 70 published, peer-reviewed papers. Furthermore, it's amusing to anonymous commentators sneering at evolutionary psychology. In this particular case, they must believe that smart, successful men don't disproportionately have children with beautiful women.
Peter Frost has had a three-part series on where EP went wrong ... and how it bested the alternatives ... worth reading.
One of its key assumptions, that there has been no selection on humans for the last 50 or 100 thousand years is clearly wrong. We are not all the same.
It seems worth remembering, to me at least, that (with the possible exception of ss-African and African American women) the SD for women is narrower than it is for men.
ReplyDeleteThus good looking women can still be quite intelligent without necessarily being geniuses.
Secondly, sensible women often avoid trying to outshine the men they are around as that would piss off potential suitors.
I was told, explicitly, on two occasions that I received the job because I was the best looking candidate. Interestingly enough I did not feel oppressed, just flattered.
ReplyDeleteThe trolls that run this country and academia are suffering from a very bad case of sour grapes. Whatever, 50+ years of multicultural propaganda and gentlemen still prefer blondes*. So do rappers, for the matter.
(*not blonde)
any given smart person may or may not be handsome, but all of the really dumb people i've known were hideous. even the ones who weren't beached whales.
ReplyDeleteAndrew Gelman "approved":
ReplyDelete"I thank David de Meza, Andrew Gelman, John Lazarus, Andrew J. Oswald, Robert L. Trivers, and anonymous reviewers for their comments
on earlier drafts."
There is a big difference between commenting and approving. Gelman wrote on this: "He sent me a copy of his paper with a request for comments. I looked at it and replied that I thought his sample size was too small to detect any patterns that might be there (for the reasons discussed in my paper with Weakliem)."
Not exactly an approval, is it?
There's another reason that the beauty-brains connection makes sense. The subjective experience of beauty is thought to be highly influenced by facial symmetry, which in turn is considered an indicator of health and genetic fitness. Health impacts the entire body, including the brain; mens sana in corpore sano. Gottfredson and colleagues have found that sperm quality correlates with IQ, which indicates that better health, whether from genetic or environmental origin, relates to mental health, i.e. intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with the comment that much ugliness is self-inflicted, which makes the econ prof's suggestions all the more grotesque.
"sabril said...
ReplyDeleteMy point includes folks who shuffle papers in the back room."
Yes, sabril I thought of that. But generally speaking it is possible those people could appear sometimes or somewhere, in tribunal or in front of the camera, just for moments or for fortuitous cases.
When instead speaking of hard core entertainment, I would have said I do not believe it.
Or do you think every programmer or designer of a successful videogame is beautiful and every computer techinician of Avatar movie or any sci fi recent movie is beautiful?
**************
That was already read somewhere in the past. Beautiful people have more confidence, are better accepted by peers in schools, mostly of the opposite sex, so they grow up more intelligent because they have more positive experience. For what matters the nurture part of the IQ.
How much evidence is required to invalidate the professor's thesis? For example, I'm very good-looking but have been unemployed for years.
ReplyDeleteTraveller, you really are an ignoramus. So long as the subject was law, you felt it fitting to mention jurors? If there's anything that "doesn't compute," it's that association. Are you unaware that 90% of lawyers never face a jury even once in their careers? Are you unaware that 98% of lawyers never try a criminal case (the type most likely to involve a jury)? Jeez.
ReplyDeleteFrom my experience, Traveller is also wrong about how jurors react to lawyer attractiveness. For example, over the last 25 years one of the most successful plainiff-side trial lawyers in San Francisco has been a guy who looks like a slightly uglified Peter Falk. Many of the defense lawyers he defeated were just the kind of Foxnewsbabe types you think Traveller is thinking of. Just to give you an idea of the terror this guy caused in defense lawyers, in one employment case the prestige-boutique defense woman complained to the judge that our man was "too rumpled."
ReplyDelete"Alwyn said...
ReplyDeleteJust a heads up:
Uncle Tim Wise expounds on the "Moral Absurdity of Race Realism":
http://www.timwise.org/2011/08/race-intelligence-and-the-limits-of-science-reflections-on-the-moral-absurdity-of-racial-realism/#.TllbEoKs1fE.facebook"
To me, that is an amazing article by Wise. The whole first half is a coded message best interpreted: "the old anti-race talking points are dead, dead, dead - time to shore up our arguments and fast". And in the second half he retreats to, essentially, defending anti-racism with a mass of technicalities - somehow, even if HBD is real, even if black people are dumber, it's still okay to sue businesses for hiring less black people, even if they're just hiring less dumb people for a job that needs smart people. Because, you know, the way our legal system works, it's all good. Trust me.
Yeah, Timmy might want to find something a little sturdier to hang his hat on. Quite an admission of defeat, this, from my perspective.
Sarah Michelle Gellar, Laura Prepon, and Mila Kunis were not exactly homely. YMMV.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, Kunis and Prepon are quite plain while Gellar is homely. Most of today's actresses are grotesquely overrated in terms of the looks department, and undoubtedly appear primarily to the Semitic tastes of casting directors. (Not joking here.)
If these people weren't built up by the media press as "hot," and if they were just anonymous girls seen at a mall, they'd barely rate a second glance.
"If these people weren't built up by the media press as "hot," and if they were just anonymous girls seen at a mall, they'd barely rate a second glance."
ReplyDeleteHere here. +1
Evidence: http://hideyourarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/63910_mila_kunis_122_896lo.jpg
http://i.min.us/idsCTg.jpeg
I look better without make-up than these ladies, as I'm sure most young thin women do. Hollywood is a big circle jerk pool of ethnic nepotism.
The point here is to drum up more allies for the racist regime.
ReplyDeleteMila Kunis looks hot in that pic. I'm not enamored of med chicks but she's pretty. I've never thought Johannson (sic?) was hot. That pic is hilarious.
ReplyDeleteBut no, Ashkenazis generally aren't good-looking (not that Kunis is Ashkenazi, she looks far more Sephardic than Ashkenazi). But there are always exceptions. I knew an absolutely stunning Jewish girl years ago. Snooty bitch with no personality, but stunning.
As an aside, in my experience, intelligent people almost always look intelligent, and stupid people almost always look stupid. In fact, in general I find peoples' looks reflect their personality.
ReplyDeleteMore of those flash mobs that people can't seem to understand.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they have been emboldened by the SCoaMFOTUS
Mila Kunis looks like an Israeli Russian immigrant nightclub hottie. But there's something unpleasantly elfin about her features IMO. She needs a bigger nose. :)
ReplyDeleteBut yeah, this is irrelevant, the comparison should be within ethnic groups.
A problem here is that the language is misleading - the word "beauty" is loaded and makes you think of picture perfect specimens. In reality, I think what is meant is that intelligent people will generally have decent-looking, symmetric faces. And they won't be fat.
"I've never thought Johannson (sic?) was hot. That pic is hilarious."
ReplyDeleteShe is no great beauty by any means. But she does have great lips and cleavage. All in all, she isn't the poster woman for overrated Hollywood chicks.
As an aside, in my experience, intelligent people almost always look intelligent, and stupid people almost always look stupid.
ReplyDeleteTrue, and looking intelligent is surely one form of attractiveness.
they must believe that smart, successful men don't disproportionately have children with beautiful women.
ReplyDeleteThat proposition was riddled with errors when Kanazawa made it, and it does not get better by repetition.
How strong is the correlation between "smart" on the one hand and "successful" or "high status" on the other? Kanazawa does not know, because he made no serious effort to quantify these attributes. He mentions a study which found that men of 130+IQ are more likely to be engineers - are engineer's supposed to be "high status"? Are engineer's supposed to be the sort of men the beautiful women bat their eyes at? Because they're not. Systems administrators, computer programmers - these are other sorts of jobs which require above average IQ but which are not attractive to beautiful women.
The connection of intelligence->wealth->high status is a loose one.
You can see that Kanazawa is mistaken simply by following beauty pageants. How many of those exceptionally attractive women are enrolled in high IQ pursuits like medicine, math, physics, etcs? Virtually none of them. Yet the theory says that they should be very intelligent.
You can also examine the validity of the theory by comparing the appearance of those students on the math and science track at your university to those majoring in English Lit or Communications studies.
The theory fails empirically - it does not correctly describe the world we live in.
So we turn to analyzing why it fails. All four of the postulates which are presented as having binary true/false answers are in fact matters of degree and interpretation. For instance:
(1) Men who are more intelligent are
more likely to attain higher status than men who are less intelligent.
This is meaningless absent some hard numerical definitions being attached to phrases like "more likely" and "higher status". It seems to suggest that we live in a society where those with the highest status have the highest intelligence, which is patently not the case.
Or : (3) Intelligence is heritable.
It is, somewhat, in a fashion which we still do not understand very well. Having two intelligent parents increases the likelihood that their child be likewise be intelligent, but is very far from making it a certainty. Kanazawa rests his claim on the words "If all four assumptions are empirically true, then ..", but none of them are assumptions which have or need have true of false answers. They are tendencies, proclivities, not laws.
You can also examine the validity of the theory by comparing the appearance of those students on the math and science track at your university to those majoring in English Lit or Communications studies.
ReplyDeleteBut, they're all university students.
"But generally speaking it is possible those people could appear sometimes or somewhere, in tribunal or in front of the camera, just for moments or for fortuitous cases."
ReplyDeleteNot really. For example, at sort of big law firms which recruit directly from high ranked law schools, it would be extremely uncommon for a junior associate to go to court for any other reason than to carry somebody's bags. And yet those law firms are notorious for recruiting hot chicks. The simple and obvious explanation is that the male partners prefer to be around pretty girls.
It's amusing to see anonymous internet commentators sneering at a man must have more than 70 published, peer-reviewed papers
ReplyDeleteIt's amusing to see you bowing down before the gods of publishing and peer review.
The theory does not describe the world we live in. Pamela Anderson does not moonlight as an engineer at the local nuclear power plant. IBM, JPL, and MIT do not troll for likely prospects at beauty pageants. Hollywood and the fashion industry do not hang around the Stanford engineering program looking for talent.
If the theory doesn't fit, you must acquit.
But, they're all university students
ReplyDeleteOf very differing intellectual capability. The theory predicts that the STEM students should be better looking than the liberal arts ones.
Anyone with an IQ over 100 is more intelligent than half the population - actually more than half in the U.S. - and if you think that these people are not more successful than those on the left side of the bell curve, lets see some evidence, because everything I see in the world tells me that they are. You're conflating "intelligent" with "very intelligent". I'd bet that the average beauty pageant contestant has an IQ of at least 100. Also, if you think that men who are at least above average in intelligence and make a decent living are indifferent to women's looks and have to settle for whatever they can get, that also goes against evrything I see.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with an IQ over 100 is more intelligent than half the population
ReplyDeleteObviously. But is anyone with an IQ over 100 better looking than anyone with an IQ under 100?
You're conflating "intelligent" with "very intelligent".
I'm discussing the theory Kanazwa presented. He is the one who mentions engineers with an IQ >= 130 as examples of "high status" individuals. I'm taking his arguments on their own terms.
I'd bet that the average beauty pageant contestant has an IQ of at least 100.
Which would make them of average intelligence but significantly above average attractiveness. Which in turn flies in the face of K.'s argument - his paper is titled "Why beautiful people are more intelligent".
if you think that men who are at least above average in intelligence and make a decent living are indifferent to women's looks and have to settle for whatever they can get
We all settle for what we can get, every last one of us. It has nothing to do with being indifferent to other peoples looks. A white man making a decent living will very likely wind up with a fairly average white woman - because he himself is fairly average.
"The theory does not describe the world we live in. Pamela Anderson does not moonlight as an engineer at the local nuclear power plant. IBM, JPL, and MIT do not troll for likely prospects at beauty pageants. Hollywood and the fashion industry do not hang around the Stanford engineering program looking for talent."
ReplyDeleteNot all correlations are perfect, and when you look at graphs of two- dimensional data sets, you can compute positive correlations from sets with very different looking graphs. For example, there might a much stronger correlation between IQ and, say, score on Hotornot among those with very low IQs than mid-range or above.
The interesting question is how big a positive correlation can be found. I'm guessing that apart from the lowest IQ decile where developmental disorders such as Down's Syndrome play a big role, whatever weak correlation can be found boils down to a signifigant majority of upper middle class people doing jobs that require three-digit IQs being less fat and healthier, on average, than the whole population.
Based on my personal observation, I would expect a Pearson correlation coefficient maybe between 0.2 and 0.4 when computed from a representative sample of people of Northern European origin.
Which would make them of average intelligence but significantly above average attractiveness. Which in turn flies in the face of K.'s argument - his paper is titled "Why beautiful people are more intelligent".
ReplyDeleteHow many papers have titles that are meant to be taken completely literally?
Severn:
ReplyDelete"The theory predicts that the STEM students should be better looking than the liberal arts ones."
No, it doesn't do anything of the sort; it simply predicts a slight but positive correlation between attractiveness and intelligence for the general population. I have no idea why you are having such a hard time coming to terms with this fact.
Let's put it this way: personal wealth/income and Republican partisan affiliation correlate positively and significantly. That fact that Jews, by far the richest ethnic group in America, overwhelmingly vote Democratic does nothing to "disprove" this. Likewise, that 100% of current black Supreme Court Justices are Republicans doesn't "disprove" that the overall population of blacks are heavily Democrat.
A statistical correlation is not an absolute rule that is going to necessarily hold true for every subset of the larger class, everywhere and always. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.
Markku:
ReplyDelete"Based on my personal observation, I would expect a Pearson correlation coefficient maybe between 0.2 and 0.4 when computed from a representative sample of people of Northern European origin."
From the Kanazawa paper linked above the estimated Pearson-r's that have been found are anywhere between 0.12 at the low end and 0.43 at the high end.
Charlie said:
ReplyDeleteTo me, that is an amazing article by Wise. The whole first half is a coded message best interpreted: "the old anti-race talking points are dead, dead, dead - time to shore up our arguments and fast". And in the second half he retreats to, essentially, defending anti-racism with a mass of technicalities - somehow, even if HBD is real, even if black people are dumber, it's still okay to sue businesses for hiring less black people, even if they're just hiring less dumb people for a job that needs smart people. Because, you know, the way our legal system works, it's all good. Trust me.
The funny thing is that cultural leftists like Wise dug their own graves when they abandoned the protectionism of the traditional left. If he hadn't embraced open borders, he could say we need to tighten the borders so we can help the low-IQ NAMs we've already got. Now he's got to find a way to justify the continued importation of poor, ineducable Mestizos, after he's basically admitted that NAMs are a permanent parasite class.
@severn - "I'm discussing the theory Kanazwa presented. He is the one who mentions engineers with an IQ >= 130 as examples of 'high status' individuals. I'm taking his arguments on their own terms."
ReplyDeletethat is only one example of the sort of man who will occupy a position of higher status than someone with a below average iq. kanazawa also gives as example from another study men in professional/technical professions having an average iq of 111.
i think you are confusing "intelligent" (or "more intelligent") with "very intelligent."
"good-looking people are more intelligent"
ReplyDeleteActually this is irrelevant. Blogger Half Sigma analyzed GSS data and found that when you control for career track, there is no association between IQ and income. Being higher in IQ has no advantage in getting a higher income.
To the extent that high IQ outearn low IQ, it's because they're more likely to finish college and get credentials to end up on a high-paying career track. If people on the same track are examined, there's no relation between IQ and income. Sounds hard to believe, but google Half Sigma's blog and search for "career track." Half Sigma also found that earnings peak for those with an SAT score of 1100.
The study the New York Times references compared people of "similar background" (education, job, career) who varied just in looks and found the beautiful outearn the ugly. IQ cannot explain this. Employers must be discriminating agains the ugly and in favor of the good looking.
My observation is that the college educated tend to be better looking than the general population...... but within the college educated subgroup, the beautiful people are dumber than the ugly. Just compare the campus of any State U to a more selective engineering or liberal arts college. The correlation between intelligence is likely to a point, then there's likely a negative correlation for those who are 110+ IQ.
ReplyDeleteThe study compared people of similar background. Which means that within a white collar firm, it's likely that the dumber/better-looking people outearn the smarter/nerdier/uglier people.
I've noticed that good looks matter more in fields with lots of social interaction, selling, or public presentation (finance, management, sales/marketing). Fields with less public exposure punish the ugly less.
> Actually this is irrelevant. Blogger Half Sigma analyzed GSS data and found that when you control for career track, there is no association between IQ and income. Being higher in IQ has no advantage in getting a higher income.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that controlling for what he calls career track is not justified... or is debatable, at least. It's as though one were to control for grades, or for job performance.
that is only one example of the sort of man who will occupy a position of higher status than someone with a below average iq. kanazawa also gives as example from another study men in professional/technical professions having an average iq of 111.
ReplyDeleteMen in tech fields are not "high status". They may earn a decent salary, but that is not what being "high status" means.
i think you are confusing "intelligent" (or "more intelligent") with "very intelligent."
I think you are using "intelligent" to mean "of average intelligence". I also think that you don't understand Kanazawa's argument, which does suggest that the most beautiful people should be the children of the most "high status" males and therefore (given the connection he believes exists between status and intelligence) also be the most intelligent.
To put this in the form of a question: Assuming that all of K's assumptions are correct,and that "beautiful people are more intelligent", why would this be seen only for a narrow range of values of "intelligent" and not apply across all IQ ranges? The logic of K's argument is that Beauty and Intelligence should be connected for all levels of beauty and intelligence, not merely for some IQ range between 100 and 115 or whatever. And K himself makes so such argument as you suggest about his theory breaking down at higher IQ levels.
Note that the current "dumb blonde" stereotype (which generally implies a pretty, blonde girl) is a recently developed one:
ReplyDeletehttp://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2010/06/blonde-jokes-arent-funny.html
"The ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype gradually spread outside the U.S. As a rural Ontario teenager in the 1970s I heard this term on American sitcoms, but it had no connection to my reality. Nor were the blondes at my school thought to be sexually permissive. In the late 1980s, as a doctoral student in Quebec City, I remember the puzzlement that initially greeted blonde jokes, this humor having no relation to existing beliefs about hair color in French Canada. Today, blondes are routinely stereotyped throughout Canada as being sluttish and stupid, as if they have always been so.
This stereotype likewise came late to Europe."
No, it doesn't do anything of the sort; it simply predicts a slight but positive correlation between attractiveness and intelligence for the general population. I have no idea why you are having such a hard time coming to terms with this fact.
ReplyDeletePerhaps because I can read, a task seemingly beyond you. Kanazawa, as is his custom, does not make the sensible comments which his defenders put in his mouth. The title of the paper is "Why beautiful people are more intelligent". Not, you will note, "Why there a slight but positive correlation between attractiveness and intelligence for the general population".
Not that these exists any decent data in support of even that more nuanced position, but it's at least an arguable position. Kanazawa does have this habit of arriving at sweeping and definitive conclusions which his data simply cannot support.
Don't even get me started on the question of what "beauty" is and how it can be scientifically measured.
Let's put it this way: personal wealth/income and Republican partisan affiliation correlate positively and significantly.
All of that is true. Where you would venture out onto quicksand would be in suggesting that this shows that Republicans are more intelligent and more physically attractive than non-Republicans. There is a wealth of hard reliable data on the demographics of wealth, race, ethnicity, political affiliation, and other factors. These is no such data on "beauty", and very probably there cannot be such data.
I ridiculed the Times writer at 4:53PM for suggesting that the state could ever possess the sort of knowledge about beauty necessary to ban "lookism". That applies equally those of you on the right who think that everyone's physical appearance can be assigned a value.
As a noted scientist once put it - Not everything that can be measured is of value, and not everything of value can be measured.
"Kanazawa, as is his custom, does not make the sensible comments which his defenders put in his mouth."
ReplyDeleteIt's a pop science journal sold at Walmart and CVS, not Physical Review B. Simplistic and exaggerated writing is the coin of the realm there, always has been.
"Don't even get me started on the question of what "beauty" is and how it can be scientifically measured."
"Beauty" is a subjective mind-state that can't be quantified, and no one here is saying that it can be so. On the other hand, what can be rigorously measured is the perceived attractiveness of the individual by using a sufficiently large sample of third party observers.
"X is better than Y" is a statement of prescriptive opinion that can neither be confirmed nor falsified; "X is generally seen as better than Y by statistically significant majority" is a statement of descriptive fact that can be.
"Not that these exists any decent data in support of even that more nuanced position, but it's at least an arguable position."
And that's wrong. There's a fairly uniform consensus in the older literature cited, and not just from Kanazawa's (sometimes sloppy) research, that perceived physical attractiveness and general intelligence exhibit a slight but significant positive correlation, even if BMI is controlled for.
"All of that is true. Where you would venture out onto quicksand would be in suggesting that this shows that Republicans are more intelligent and more physically attractive than non-Republicans. "
But I didn't assert that, right? I simply stated that existence of Jews, being (on average) wealthy and pro-Democrat, didn't negate the fact that generally speaking higher income Americans are more likely Republican than lower income ones; some small subsets won't follow the broad, macro-scale trend. The same holds true of elite college STEM majors, who are by no means an even, unbiased sample of typical high IQ individuals at all.
On the other hand, what can be rigorously measured is the perceived attractiveness of the individual by using a sufficiently large sample of third party observers.
ReplyDeleteA similar measurement used in voice communications is that of MOS (Mean Opinion Score). It's a subjective score of the quality of a codec that is handy in sorting things out.
One theory, which I may have mentioned before (not sure), is my own: that the attractiveness of party A's voice is inversely related to the physical attractiveness of party A.
Eg. If the lady on the other end sounds extremely hot it is more than likely she is a complete buzzard, and vice versa. I call it Hannagan's Law of Voice Beauty. Maybe I should come up with a similar scheme to the MOS to further the tests but, now that it's out, I've lost all patent control.
I assure you I have tested this extensively over many years and stand by it. It's not 100% solid but is a very good guide. Feel free to test it at your leisure.
Should have read: "that the attractiveness of party A's voice is inversely related to the physical attractiveness of party A's head." My hypothesis does not factor in the size of the rear end, gut, or other attractiveness factors though they may well be related.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I have met many a fine looking scone attached to a body that's gone all pear shaped so have not accounted for those other factors of beauty and attractiveness.
To account for evolutionary theory I propose that with the increasing demand for bodily dissociated communications comes the evolutionary need to increase attractiveness via the mediums of exchange. An attractive lady will already have many suitors and have no need to increase attractiveness elsewhere.
A lady with a head like a gargoyle thus must develop the facility to trap unaware prospective partners via other means. I'm not sure how things go on average when Party A physically meets Party B but, at least they got to meet thus increasing Party A's chances of mating.
The same goes for those body bra things that pull everything into a format resembling hotness. What happens when things actually do get hot and in the process of disengaging the couture things become revealed for what they are, as it were. In such instances I suppose must one choose to run or imbibe. If the latter I suggest you take the attitude, "I'll drink you beautiful!"
Thanks to Anonymous 8/29/2011 10:03 PM for an excellent link.
ReplyDeletehttp://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2010/06/blonde-jokes-arent-funny.html
Its findings are exactly what one might have expected:
The current blonde stereotype began in the U.S. of the early 20th century...This attitude existed in different communities, but it entered the mainstream culture primarily via Jewish immigrants and specifically through their contributions to art and literature. It is a common theme in Jewish-American novels
The de facto mission of this group in every aspect of aesthetics -- art, music, literature -- has been to defame beauty and to champion ugliness, so it's hardly surprising that they perform the same resentment-based attack on beauty in the realm of female aesthetics.
@Pat Hannagan
ReplyDeleteI'd need to know more about your data before supporting your theory.
What kind of phone lines are you ringing, and what are the ladies on the other end promising that so exceeds the visual reality when you encounter it?
@Pat Hannagan
ReplyDeleteAlso, unfortunately, you'll find that "I'll drink you beautiful"="I'll drink myself flaccid."
I suspect at least two opposing forces are at work.
ReplyDeleteSymmetry is correlated with intelligence, and symmetrical people are generally more attractive; this goes way beyond facial symmetry to include relatively obscure parameters such as left/right finger length.
On the other hand (ahem) beautiful people are often cut a bit of slack if they are not smart, simply because having them around is a dopamine rush. Consequently, the kind of beauty that can dissociate from the determinants of intelligence has become widespread in society; these people don't improve our quality of life by cognitive heavy lifting and problem solving, but by stimulating out aesthetic sensibilities.
I think on the whole, intelligent people do look OK but usually not stunning; whereas stunning people are generally not highly intelligent, more like average to low-average.
But there is so much more to the physicality of attractiveness and reproductive success than facial looks and IQ; as noted above, health, fitness, personality, etc are also crucial.
Anon.
True, and looking intelligent is surely one form of attractiveness.
ReplyDeleteThere are two (and surely, many more) types of beautiful people. Smart-beautiful and dumb-beautiful. The former denotes "class" and intelligence, and the latter does not. Almost all of the beauty found in porn stars is of the latter kind.
Re: "Dumb blonde", could this be the remnant of an older, less PC American stereotype about German and Scandinavian-descended Midwesterners?
ReplyDeleteNaive blonde country girl goes to the big city, gets taken advantage of by swarthier local men, that sort of thing?
"But is anyone with an IQ over 100 better looking than anyone with an IQ under 100?"
ReplyDeleteYes. Exchange under and over, and the answer is still yes. But what of it? Your query is reminiscent of the last part:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/g.htm
"Not, you will note, "Why there a slight but positive correlation between attractiveness and intelligence for the general population"."
haha
"Then how do you explain Ashkenazi Jews who tend to be highly intelligent but not that good-looking? "
Does beauty correlate with intelligence in their own race?
A better question is, do STEM girls have better make-up skills than liberal arts chicks? Do these studies use pics of women at their 6 o' clock in the morning persona?
"But is anyone with an IQ over 100 better looking than anyone with an IQ under 100?"
ReplyDeleteYes.
No.
haha
Hehe.
It's a pop science journal sold at Walmart and CVS, not Physical Review B. Simplistic and exaggerated writing is the coin of the realm there, always has been.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that everyone is aware of how "simplistic and exaggerated" K's writing is, which is why I felt the need to point it out.
"Beauty" is a subjective mind-state that can't be quantified, and no one here is saying that it can be so.
Which is a rather important point in the context of a discussion about the relationship between beauty and intelligence. If we cannot measure beauty then we cannot even discuss the topic in scientific terms.
what can be rigorously measured is the perceived attractiveness of the individual by using a sufficiently large sample of third party observers
Like the Miss World contest?
But I didn't assert that, right?
You didn't, but you should have if you understood and believed your own arguments. If generally speaking higher income Americans are more likely Republican, and if generally speaking higher income Americans are more intelligent, and if generally speaking more intelligent Americans are more beautiful, then it logically follows that Republicans should be, generally speaking, more beautiful.
some small subsets won't follow the broad, macro-scale trend.
Obviously that's true, but Republicans, more attractive than average people, and those with above average incomes are not small subsets.
What I find interesting about this study of the effects of physical attractiveness and possible Harrison Bergeron-like redresses of its accompaying injustice is that it seems to focus only on money despite money not being the main driver of human happiness: it ignores people's sexual/marriage value entirely.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to physical attractiveness and mating value, on the other hand, it's nature red in tooth and claw. Nobody ever proposes tax incentives for marrying (or having sex) with someone who is otherwise a fine person but is very unattractive, or who has a physical handicap, or anything like that.
No modern society would allow someone to go through life with no income, no food, no roof over their head, etc., etc., even if their low IQs prevented them from earning a living. Yet unattractive people (men in particular) might well go to their graves without ever getting sex, let along a marriage partner, and from society the silence is deafening.
Could this be because it's only really a problem for men? Women aren't as affected because they can always go to a bar and count on men's beer goggles to kick in. An ugly man has no such outlet.
How much evidence is required to invalidate the professor's thesis? For example, I'm very good-looking but have been unemployed for years.
@Smead - Shouldn't the Pacific Coast League be giving you a pension for getting 300 hits in a year or whatever it was? ^^;
You can see that Kanazawa is mistaken simply by following beauty pageants. How many of those exceptionally attractive women are enrolled in high IQ pursuits like medicine, math, physics, etcs? Virtually none of them. Yet the theory says that they should be very intelligent.
ReplyDeleteI don't think beauty pageants tell us much of anything about this issue.
How do we know that beauty pageant contestants aren't exceptionally intelligent or smarter than average? I haven't seen any real evidence that they aren't.
People seem to assume that having less interest in or general knowledge about current affairs, politics, news, etc. necessarily signifies less intelligence. Women, especially beautiful women, may simply have less interest. They certainly have less incentive than men do to pursue high IQ fields which don't simply require high IQ but lots of work, commitment, time, other costs, and can coast by in life on their looks.
"Yet unattractive people (men in particular) might well go to their graves without ever getting sex, let along a marriage partner, and from society the silence is deafening.
ReplyDeleteCould this be because it's only really a problem for men? Women aren't as affected because they can always go to a bar and count on men's beer goggles to kick in. An ugly man has no such outlet."
Seriously?
The World's Oldest Profession arose to provide *exactly* such an outlet. All our big-nosed, acne-scarred fella need do is save some money. The more money, the better-looking the hooker.
"The World's Oldest Profession" is outlawed. Or it is for the John's at least. Those John's are also heavily stigmatized, and outside of the legal repercussions they could also lose their jobs.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree that men can't benefit from beer goggles though. Not to the same extent as women, but clearly promiscuous women do wake up to guys that they thought were more attractive the night before from time to time.
Prostitution is sterile sexual intercourse or activity, not sexual reproduction.
ReplyDeleteMen are at greater reproductive risk than women. Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men. That means about 80% of women but only 40% of men ever reproduced. Basically every woman can reproduce. There's always some man willing to impregnate her. This isn't true true in reverse.
I don't think beauty pageants tell us much of anything about this issue.
ReplyDeleteThat's a valid opinion, I guess.
How do we know that beauty pageant contestants aren't exceptionally intelligent or smarter than average? I haven't seen any real evidence that they aren't.
Wait - what happened to the "beauty pageants can tell us nothing much about this issue" views of the previous sentence?
We can infer that they're not exceptionally intelligent because they tell us their occupation and college major, and it's never "quantum mechanic", or even med school.
Um, sure prostitution is illegal, now. Always has been, but that didn't stop the goings-on.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't say make babies. You said go the grave never having had sex.
And, from a woman's perspective, only NOW, for the first time in history, does a woman having sex outside of marriage not lead to utter ruination. Prostitutes have always been at high risk of being murdered. "Easy" girls were always at high risk of social ostracization -- and if she was a schoolteacher, loss of job.
Throughout history, what good did "beer goggles" do a homely woman? A quickie that wasn't going to lead to marriage, if she got pregnant, her life was OVER, and without truly effective forms of birth control, a near certainty.
And today, except for the underclass, who really wants to raise a kid alone? Except for a very few independently wealthy women, it's still a tragedy. An unplanned pregnancy still makes women cry.
The shoe is on the other foot, now, for homely guys, and I *do* sympathize, but to say that women don't care because ugliness isn't a problem for them, is false.
"There's always some man willing to impregnate her."
ReplyDeleteBut not always willing to stick around and help her raise the brat.
One thing I've learned, reading up on evo psych, the old double standard exists because it's a true reflection of each sex's nature.
Which is why I predict the sexual revolution will become just another passing fad.
But not always willing to stick around and help her raise the brat.
ReplyDeleteBut only in certain environments is the exclusive support of a male an absolute necessity to successfully reproduce, and it's a requirement for the individual male to reproduce as well. So it's not like more men are reproducing and being able to get away with less investment in these environments.
Prostitution hasn't always been illegal. Certainly not in the fashion that it is currently enforced either.
ReplyDeleteKyle, I have every sympathy for the plight of young, straight, White men. You guys are getting, totally undeserved, the **** end of the stick.
ReplyDeleteBut prostitution historically has always been a cause for opprobrium for the unwed woman just trying to keep body and soul together. And in places where it wasn't technically illegal, like the Wild Wild West, it soon became so when the shopkeepers' wives moved to town. Irregardless, it has existed everywhere and everywhen, because young men require their services.
This time in history is really unique in that unmarried women are allowed by society to have sex without life-ruining consequences, at the same time a Lady of the Evening's customers are facing such ruination.
But historical oddities always snap back. And the snapback usually overshoots to the other extreme. As the economy degenerates (because women and NAMs can't do the building and engineering required) White women WILL come home to a provider-fella. And the daughters of those marriages will NOT get away with flaunting Daddy.
Your sons, if you can find a good girl to marry and raise some, will have many more options.
A better question is, do STEM girls have better make-up skills than liberal arts chicks? Do these studies use pics of women at their 6 o' clock in the morning persona?
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. I have sometimes not immediately recognized women I knew after they did their hair and makeup and dressed up. (Men have less to work with in this regard) But doesn't that undermine the whole concept behind these "we asked a sample group of 3000 people to look at photographs of ten different women and then..." studies?
If 55% of a sample group say that Ann is better looking than Claire based on examining one close-up photo of each woman, this is not an immutable finding along the lines of discovering the atomic weight of lead. Show the same people different photo's of the two women and the results will almost certainly change.
And that's just photo's. I've found that my opinion of a persons attractiveness often changes drastically when going from pictures to film. With film you get much more information on the person - the sound of their voice, they way they walk, the way the muscles of their face move. That's all important information too, even more important than how perfectly symmetrical their faces are.
Although the good looking may be smarter, there is likely to be an even stronger correlation between looks and physical health. I wonder if anyone has done a study comparing looks with number of sick days per year. Physical health is also likely to be a big factor in how successful someone is professionally.
ReplyDelete