From The Seven Deadly Virtues, Andrew Ferguson’s take on the lack of prudence in New Science, which he defines as “the application of the methodologies of the physical sciences to realms of human behavior— our motives, habits, morality, emotions, instincts, likes, and dislikes.” — [Ed.]
A pile of studies in the New Science has been rising on my desk over the last few months. All of them are certified by scientists at top universities. Here we go:
An online survey of 334 subjects shows that parents accidentally confuse children’s names more often when the names of the children sound alike. MRIs from Western University in Ontario show that students well-trained in arithmetic are “better equipped to score higher on PSAT math.” Economic researchers “applied a Two Stage Least Squares methodology” to a set of real estate listings and discovered that “unattractive real estate agents achieve quicker sales.” A pair of evolutionary psychologists at Bristol University studied the “beer goggle effect”—the reputed tendency of men to find less attractive women more appealing after a few drinks—and discovered that it had evolutionary roots. (In the New Science everything must have evolutionary roots.) It seems that our earliest ancestors learned to value symmetry in facial composition because it is a signal of a healthy reproductive capacity; in time we humans took to calling this “beautiful.” Alcohol blurs our genetically controlled ability to judge symmetry, hence the beer goggle effect. Katy, bar the door!
It’s tough to choose a favorite from my stack, but I’ll do it anyway: It relates to the evolutionary psychology dogma that men prefer a woman who has a waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) of 0.7. According to standard New Science method, this preference has been taken to be a universal impulse bred into our prehistoric ancestors and survives today as an evolutionary adaptation. Now, as it happens, the preference is not universal; men in China seem to favor a WHR of 0.8, for instance. Such an inconvenient fact does not deter the march of evolutionary psychology, however, because its practitioners have already come up with a theory to account for the universally preferred ratio.
So what’s behind the WHR? Women with a 0.7 ratio very often have higher levels of estrogen, indicating fertility and general good health. Evolution thus favored men who favored these women, and a universal fact of human nature, a conception of beauty, was bred into our genes. This is an excellent example of New Science reasoning. Strained logic arises from a shaky factual basis to reach a conclusion that is simply an extension of the premise: Evolutionary psychology assumes that all basic human behavioral traits are adaptive, and therefore the WHR preference must have been adaptive.
But there’s more! To confirm the theory about WHR, two evolutionary psychologists at Maryhurst College came up with another experiment: If the WHR theory is true, then stressful circumstances, which make men less inclined to reproduce, should alter their preference to a less estrogen-friendly ratio. On went the lab coats, out came the spreadsheets, and the two researchers gathered up every cover of Playboy magazine from 1960 to 2000. Yes, they really did. And they discovered that in periods of economic recession, the WHR of the bunnies on the cover rose from the standard 0.7. In times of stress, men liked heavier women, according to the Bunnies. QED, as the Romans used to say; “research reveals,” as we say.
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To read more from Andrew Ferguson and other great conservative writers on why the virtuous life is funny as hell, purchase a copy of The Seven Deadly Virtues on Amazon. Dad doesn’t need another tie; it’s the perfect holiday gift!
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