You are ugly! Science says so....

There has been a major blow-up in the secular media over a post in Psychology Today. Dr. Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist, is under fire for writing that black women are seen as less attractive that other women.

In an interesting rebuttal that also appeared in Psychology Today, Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman and Jelte Wicherts claim to have refuted Dr. Kanazawa's statistical analysis. Unfortunately, they also write this disturbing statement:

It is our view though that such research should be held to a higher standard than other research topics both in scientific rigor and presentation (see here for a similar argument). This should be so especially for topics that could potentially cause harm and suffering to individuals within a particular group. Science doesn't operate in a vacuum. Rigorous science collection and responsible science reporting is essential not just for the progress of science but also for the betterment of society (isn't that the point of psychology?).

There are some obvious questions in response to this statement: (1) Should all groups (what Dr. Kaufman means by a "group" is not clear) be protected, or just certain ones? (2) Who decides what constitutes "harm and suffering to individuals within a particular group"?

It is also interesting that Dr. Kaufman admits that Dr. Kanazawa might have reached a valid conclusion, even though he takes issue with the analysis used to reach it. This leads to a third question: (3) what is the highest priority of science - the betterment of society, or a fearless pursuit of the truth? The fact is that these two values can and sometimes do collide.

I am a mathematician, a white American who is married to a beautiful black African woman, so I find the idea that "attractiveness" is a quantity that can be measured objectively a bit of a crackpot notion. Beauty, as Dr. Kaufman notes, is mostly in the eye of the beholder. The images in the secular media of what constitutes female beauty come from a relatively tiny minority that happen to work in Hollywood and the fashion industry. Fashions change from year to year, and the images we see likewise vary. Trying to measure something as ephemeral as "attractiveness" is like trying to measure starlight by pouring it into a measuring cup.

Even so, I am not really in sympathy with Dr. Kaufman's concerns. He may be on solid ground with his analysis of Dr. Kanazawa's work, but it seems Dr. Kanazawa's real sin was in offending the wrong people. Let me ask a hypothetical question: what if Dr. Kanazawa had performed a similar analysis using similar data and concluded that Christian women were seen as less attractive than other women? Or Republican women? Or traditional women (meaning stay-at-home mothers)? Would Dr. Kaufman and others attempt to debunk that research with the same vigor they are showing now?

If one takes the writings of Richard Dawkins seriously, then religious belivers in general - and Christians in particular - are perhaps the most evil people in history. If there has been any backlash against Dr. Dawkins from the scientific community for his many popular bestsellers advancing such claims, then I have missed it.

Let Dawkins be Dawkins - and let Kanazawa be Kanazawa. If Dr. Kanazawa gets fired for this article don't pretend that political pressure had nothing to do with it. If you sow the wind (in pushing edgy topics in science) do not complain when you reap the whirlwind.