Science

Erin Strahan, Steven Spencer and Mark Zanna carried out the following 4 studies:^{(1, pdf)}

Swami et al. examined whether feminist identification in women is associated with different body weight preferences.^{(1, pdf)}

Swami et al. showed line drawings of men and women that varied the length of the legs relative to height, and had the figures rated for appeal by men and women.^{(1, pdf)}

Strange study by Rebecca Puhl and Fred Boland:^{(1, pdf)}

Some people have succeeded in teaching a machine (computer) how to judge human beauty to a reasonable extent.  This can only be possible if most people share a similar sense of beauty and the computer picks up the pattern.  I will be addressing the shortcomings of a study in this regard.

In a previously addressed study by Albert Magro, he showed that the widespread appeal of the Barbie doll is best explained by Barbie exaggerating many of the derived features in humans.  Magro followed up this study with a more elaborate one where he used 18 sets of line drawings representing ancestral, intermediate and derived shapes, and had them rated by men, women, children, adults and people of European, sub-Saharan African and East Asian ancestry.^{(1, pdf [6.7 MB])}

A formal criticism of Stephen Marquardt’s Phi (Golden ratio) mask is about to be published.  The electronic version was posted online a few days ago.  Here is the article in its entirety.  It is written for a scientific/medical audience, but its contents have been discussed in a more layperson-friendly manner at this site before.

Another useless study has been published in a peer-reviewed journal, with the title “Body mass index and waist: hip ratio are not enough to characterize female attractiveness.”⁽¹⁾  Duh!  Amazingly, even the editor and peer-reviewers allowed this title.