I know everyone's obsessed with the primaries right now, but I believe this is important. This adds more credence to the growing belief that CNN is quickly becoming nothing more than a Faux News Yellow Journalism wannabe.
Today they reported on a subject called "Personology." From Wikipedia:
the field was developed in the 1930s by Edward Vincent Jones, a Los Angeles Circuit Court judge, who took notes on the behavioral patterns of those who appeared in his courtroom, and eventually "proved" that he could predict people's behavior by observing their facial features and other physical attributes.
Sounds awfully similar to a couple other junk sciences, notably the practices of craniometry and phrenology:
Phrenology, which focuses on personality and character, should be distinguished from craniometry, which is the study of skull size, weight and shape, and physiognomy, the study of facial features. However, these disciplines have claimed the ability to predict personality traits or intelligence (in fields such as anthropology/ethnology), and were sometimes posed to scientifically justify racism.
(also from Wikipedia)
So, a credible news organization like CNN would make sure to note this when reporting on personology, right? Wrong. CNN begins its report:
It's all in your face. Your personality, that is. At least, if you're a believer in personology. That's the belief that there's a relationship between your facial structure and your personality.
CNN then interviews Naomi Tickle, President of "Face Language International", who bloviates:
A judge in the 1920s developed the system used today, and he initially came up with about 200 traits, and narrowed it down to 68 traits, with a 92% accuracy, and it does go across all cultures.
Are you laughing yet? This is absurd. The study has been utterly discredited for failing to properly follow the scientific method (see The Skeptics Dictionary or A Beginner's Guide to the Scientific Method). Does CNN mention this? No. CNN uncritically continues their coverage:
CNN Correspondent: So what exactly are these traits? To figure that out, we need to do the numbers.
Naomi Tickle: We measure the hair, the width of the face, the length of the ears, the position of the ears, whether they're forward or backward on the head, the shape of the forehead.
CNN Correspondent: Okay, so now, what do those numbers mean?
Tickle: For example, somebody who has very close-set eyes is very good with detail, they don't like interrupting, they don't like being late. A wide-set eyed person is much more laid back, they're the multi-task people, they oftentimes run late.
CNN Correspondent: But enough about the eyes. The shape of our head can also suggest certain personality traits.
Tickle: The narrow face versus the wide face. The narrow faced individual builds their confidence through knowledge. So when they get into a new situation, there's a lot of hesitancy, ah... but once they know what they're doing, they're off and running. Whereas the wide-faced person will be much more... uhh... will wing it. And they make it up as they go and it doesn't phase them.
Hmmm... making it up as they go, huh? That's not something you'd be familiar with, is it, Naomi?
After going on about how your nose reveals your aggressiveness, CNN moves onto your hair, in an effort to leave no cranial feature un-stereotyped:
CNN Correspondent: It's all in your face. Even the hair on top of our heads seems to be some sort of tattle-tale trait teller. [who is writing this?]
Tickle: The finer the hair, the more sensitive the person is to smell, taste, touch, sand. [no, that's not a typo] Whereas the coarse-haired person, it takes a lot more to get under their skin.
CNN Correspondent: So first impressions really can count, as long as you know what you're looking for when you're reading those facial clues. Judie Fortan, CNN, Atlanta.
You might be thinking, this is just harmless fun, right? Like horoscoping. Well, maybe it would be, if being stereotyped based on your physical looks wasn't already such a dreadful problem in our society. Maybe if racism wasn't such a serious problem. Maybe if this phenomenon wasn't used for centuries to justify racism in the name of science. Maybe if CNN had mentioned the "this is 92% accurate" statement has been thoroughly debunked, or had mentioned the close parallels to the debunked theories of phrenology and craniometry.