Erroneous Evaluation! Kanazawa’s Kokujin Cock-Up

The most common false conclusions of men are these:…if an opinion makes us glad, it must be true; if its effect is good, it in itself must be good and true… contrary deductions, which are in general naturally just as false:…if an opinion troubles and disturbs, it must be true.

–Friedrich Nietzsche

My Heaven is your Hell

-Lordi

So it turns out that another bomb went off near the centre of London last fortnight, tearing through the London School of Economics and sending shockwaves surging across the world’s media outlets. Expectedly, much outrage, umbrage, and gnashing of teeth ensued.

The culprit: not a Muslim terrorist, this time, but a Japanese evolutionary psychologist.

The explosive: not Semtex or organic peroxide, but rather a website blog article.

Yup, Satoshi Kanazawa, already a contentious name in evo-psych circles, set off a firestorm with his studies and scribblings on the subject of racial aesthetics.

There are marked race differences in physical attractiveness among women, but not among men. Why?

Recall that women on average are more physically attractive than men. So women of all races are on average more physically attractive than the”average” Add Health respondent, except for black women.

As the following graph shows, black women are statistically no different from the”average” Add Health respondent, and far less attractive than white, Asian,and Native American women.

The race differences in the level of testosterone can therefore potentially explain why black women are less physically attractive than women of other races, while (net of intelligence) black men are more physically attractive than men of other races.

Now, I must say, I’ve nothing against honest, scientific inquiry on the subject of race. The premise behind biological, statistical racial differences—different peoples evolving, over thousands of years, in differing environments, under different pressures—strikes me as a plausible-enough springboard. Admittedly, I’m wary (to say the least!) of the folk who would latch onto such research to advance their own fucked-up agendas; but dodgy associations, per se, no longer strike me as good grounds to dismiss discomforting data.

All that said, Kanazawa comes across as a sloppy fucker, at best. The backlash he garnered over the past fortnight (leading to the removal of his article from its original host, Psychology Today) strikes me as him reaping what he sowed: not because he dared to raise race, but rather for his buffoonery regarding beauty…

Add Health measures the physical attractiveness of its respondents both objectively and subjectively. At the end of each interview, the interviewer rates the physical attractiveness of the respondent objectively on the following five-point scale: 1= very unattractive, 2 = unattractive, 3 = about average, 4 =attractive, 5 = very attractive. The physical attractiveness of each Add Health respondent is measured three times by three different interviewers over seven years.

From these three scores, I can compute the latent “physical attractiveness factor” by a statistical procedure called factor analysis. Factor analysis has the added advantage of eliminating all random measurement errors that are inherent in any scientific measurement. The latent physical attractiveness factor has a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1.

It is very interesting to note that, even though black women are objectively less physically attractive than other women, black women (and men) subjectively consider themselves to be far more physically attractive than others.

Now, I don’t deny that certain faces ‘n’ figures elicit more—sometimes many more—raised cocks and/or moistened cunts than others; neither will I contest that some folks inspire forlorn gazes and filthy fantasies wherever on the globe they go.

However such popularity, even on a universal scale, differs considerably from the chimerical “objectivity” Kanazawa pulls out of his arse.

Does the overwhelming popularity of chart-oriented pop across age groups and nations render it “objectively” superior to heavy metal? The blues? Opera? Classical?

As far as the printed page goes, do the superior sales of Heat magazine, tabloids, Twilight novels, and Dan Brown books make them  more “objectively” pleasurable and worthwhile reads than the works of Stirner, Nietzsche, the Marquis De Sade, and Robert Anton Wilson?

I expect a connoisseur of said popular tastes would take issue with my choices, substituting “critical acclaim” and “influence” for “popularity” and “sales” in their counterarguments.

As the old adage goes: there’s no accounting for taste.

However, from reading his article, I see Kanazawa repeating the same error/deception with aesthetics that religious and secular moralists love to indulge in the ethical realm: asserting taste as Truth.

Granted, one can talk of quantifiable, objective traits and how they play into overall appearance…

Africans on average have higher levels of testosterone than other races, and testosterone, being an androgen (male hormone), affects the physical attractiveness of men and women differently. Men with higher levels of testosterone have more masculine features and are therefore more physically attractive. In contrast, women with higher levels of testosterone also have more masculine features and are therefore less physically attractive.

…yet, ultimately, what does Kanazawa say here, other than he (and his Add Health crew) doesn’t get a hard-on for birds with noticeably androgenetic traits? Speaking for myself, whilst female facial fuzz rates as an abject turn-off, I lack the same aversion to, say, angular jawlines; in fact, to my eye,  they can be rather fetching;

…and, speaking  of my tastes more broadly, all the airbrushed Megan Foxes of the world fail to match the ample charms of a Yuna Kawase…

…or a Maryou Chouzuki…

As I said elsewhere, one man’s ‘tubby’ can give another man a chubby!

Returning to the subject of race, it seems that Kanazawa and co.’s preferences align with those of Western mass society: as far as sex symbols go, females of my race tend to be at a deficit. When women with sub-Saharan lineage do make such an intersubjective impression, they tend to be biracial (Leona Lewis, Angela Griffin, Halle Berry,etc).

Whilst I ain’t got a problem with that, I’d personally appreciate seeing more in the way of darkness on display…

Maybe then, some melanin-heavy women might actually put down the skin bleach and take pleasure in their pigmentation.

But, hey—that’s my taste!

Perhaps if Kanazawa and his crew didn’t confuse theirs for objective research, this whole sorry shitstorm could’ve been avoided…

~MRDA~

[Entry completed and posted 31/5/2011]