Ugly Babies, Less Lovable? |
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What kind of love is this anyway?
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June 25, 2009
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Did anyone even consider that the women in the study might click away from the babies with abnormalities because their compassion made them feel bad? Or that they might have felt socially uncomfortable staring at babies with abnormalities? Perhaps this has less to do with beauty than it does with compassion.
Science can only measure externals. It cannot measure what is in the heart. God does that. We err drastically when we decide that externals show us exactly what is in the heart.
Posted by: Dan Gill | June 26, 2009 at 09:08 AM
Dan, I think that was discussed in the article (i.e. the women empathized 'too much').
Though the study was based on ... 27 people, at least they acknowledge:
"More important, the way people of either gender react to a picture of an anonymous child with physical abnormalities is likely to be radically different from the way they would react if that child were their own — something that is readily evident from all the disabled children on whom parents lavish love."
Still, don't you know, according to modern evolutionary psychology, the only reason we don't kill our offspring is because they've been naturally selected to be cute?
(cf. the first google link after searching for "cute babies natural selection": http://therawness.com/cute-baby-gene/ )
Posted by: Steve (SBK) | June 26, 2009 at 10:00 AM