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Evolutionary Psychology:Satoshi Kanazawa Black Women Article Flap
Psychology Article Takedown:After Evolutionary Psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa Writes "Why Black Women Are Less Attractive Than Other Women."
Psychology today quickly moved to quell the storm of outrage after Evoloutionary Psychologist, Satoshi Kanazawa, wrote an article quoting a his study that shows "why black women are less attractive than other women."
The was taken down by Psyhology Today but a cached verison on Google still exists.
Satioshi Kanazawa writes (in what many are saying is faulty and dubious science) that "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.."
Who is Satoshi Kanazawa?
Satoshi Kanazawa is a Evolutionary Psychologist based out of the London School of Economics. He has written such stellar scholarly works like "Why beautiful people have more daughters..." and author of the blog The Scietifc Fundamentalist . The article claims to use scientific methods like "factor analysis." But the charts and so-called evidence Kanazawa presents are problematic and flawed as the website Science 2.0 points out.
Basically, he asked people some questions and then had them rate the attractiveness of someone, but how many? He doesn't say and to do even a modest factor analysis you need 10 subjects per variable and 100 minimum so this may have been junk right out of the gate.
And then there's the core issue of whether or not they are attractive at all. Rating someone 0 to 5 sounds pretty arbitrary but blowing up your career at the London School of Economics over the conclusions he draws from that is downright crazy.
What is Evolutionary Psychology?
Evolutionary psychology (EP) examines psychological traits — such as memory, perception, or language — from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional products of natural selection or sexual selection.
Some say Evolutionary psychology is a pseudoscience and many of theories evolutionary psychology proposes to test are impossible to proove
Evolutionary psychology has often been accused of supporting right wing politics, whereas critics have been accused of being motivated by Marxist view points.[130][131] Critics view evolutionary psychology as a form of genetic reductionism and determinism,[129] a common critique being that evolutionary psychology does not address the complexity of individual development and experience and fails to explain the influence of genes on behavior in individual cases.[132] A frequent critique of the discipline is that the hypotheses of evolutionary psychology are difficult or impossible to adequately test, thus questioning its status as an actual scientific discipline, for example because many current traits probably evolved to serve different functions than they do now.[4] While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that is not impossible.


Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (5)
at 08:32 on May 20th, 2011
Well, yeah, saying that one group of women is "are objectively less physically attractive than other women" is dubious science. I'd not even call it science.
at 09:10 on May 20th, 2011
Pop psyche...Dr. Philesque
"faulty and dubious science"
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Hauteally (not verified)at 14:58 on May 20th, 2011
@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } I am a PhD student and researcher in Southern California. My research focuses on African American women, cosmetic surgery, and beauty. One thing I learned from my experience with the literature is that beauty norms are not simply evolutionary. Considering that Mr. Kanazawa focuses much of his research on evolutionary imperatives, I find that a fundamental flaw of his conceptualization. The way I have conceptualized beauty is through a dual perspective where evolution and societal influences effect current perspectives of beauty. Evolutionary imperatives influence mating patterns but society has a definite impact on what we see as beautiful. For example within the past century American beauty has transitioned from the Gibson girls, to Rosie the Riveter, to heroine chic. Beauty standards are constructed by the ruling class, therefore standards are constantly shifting with changes in aristocracy. It reminds me of the Wiz, as the ruler decides that red is beautiful the people begin wearing red. Also in a study by Langlois he found that the most attractive faces are a composite of other faces ethnically diverse faces, generally stated faces that are closer to the "average" are MORE attractive. So, faces that are extremes, no mater what race, are seen as less attractive, not only African American faces.
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Jack Black the Hack (not verified)at 19:30 on May 20th, 2011
Most evolutionary psychologists dislike Satoshi and have been making fun of him for years, he is a troll.
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TiffGriff (not verified)at 13:03 on May 22nd, 2011
Please consider signing this petition to hold Psychology Today accountable for its content (www.change.org/petitions/hold-psychology-today-accountable). Over and above the content of the recent blog post, which just so happens to be race-related, this is an act of abuse and irresponsibility. This was not "a study." This was not "research." The findings were not "objective." Conjecture is not "proof." And credible research does not use language such as "I think" and "I believe." I am a psychologist and it takes me YEARS to get research published. There is integrity in my work and how I disseminate that work. Kanazawa's rantings were purely editorial, coupled with rather primitive statistics and presented as credible. It was a joke. And it should have never, ever been presented as scientific. Psychology Today should be held accountable.