Teh stupid, it burns!

[torquill]

The fact that an article suggesting that the Democrats might have an edge in the elections, simply because they have prettier candidates, made it onto the front page of the Washington Post is bad enough. But reading the article made it worse.

... [R]esearch has shown that voters who are easily swayed by social trends tend to favor more attractive candidates. Conversely, people who resist social trends prefer unattractive candidates.

Aaaugh.

Could someone with a more formal knowledge of logic please put a name to the fallacy in the second sentence? The sheer idiocy is making my eyes bleed.

The rest of the article is horrifically shallow. Read it at your own risk.

Comments

[foogod.livejournal.com]

It may be clearer from the context, I don't know, but if you're referring to "denying the antecedent" (A->B, therefore !A->!B), I should point out that technically there is nothing in what you quoted to indicate that the second sentence is actually the result of that. It sounded to me like the author was trying to say that the studies showed both cases to be true, and the second happens to be a converse of the first, not necessarily that the second point was derived from the first.

Of course this whole thing does smack of coincidental correlation, which would be a different logical fallacy of its own.

FYI, there's a really rather nice site on logical fallacies I stumbled across a bit ago at http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/welcome.htm

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

I know that, technically, the statement is sound. I just can't bring myself to believe that "people who resist social trends prefer unattractive candidates". That they don't prefer attractive candidates, sure. I strongly suspect the author of the article misread the study results.

I was looking for the mistake of making the second statement the converse of the first, which would be the fallacy you suggested above.

The correlation is confirmed by a study later in the article, though that study does mention that the preference exists in the absence of other information on the candidate.

[foogod.livejournal.com]

I don't know, it seems entirely plausible to me that some people who actively resist social trends might actually prefer unattractive candidates, on the principle that "pretty people" make them uneasy.. Of course I'm assuming that they didn't bother to mention how many of those people there are out there in the world..

Then there's what's in my opinion the biggest question: What about people who neither follow nor resist social trends?

[redrob.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I was wracking my brain trying to remember that one.

I agree, the language does not imply the 2nd statement is a conclusion arrived at from the 1st, but rather an additional finding of the study. However, given the bad science of the rest of the article (which they even admit to, "The list is decidedly unscientific" and a couple other such quotes) and the obvious 'fluff' element the writer was going for, and I think any conclusions either taken directly from the article, or logically extended from it are highly suspect.

Alex

[superlib.livejournal.com]

Actually, it is true that people generally vote for a certain 'look'.

read the book "Blink" by Malcom gladwell. Seriously.

No president of the USA has been under 6 feet tall.
They all have good hair. (or a good wig.)

CEO's, too, generally are tall and attractive, with very few exceptions.

Its all about the instant impression you get of someone from seeing them for the first time. Whether you realize it or not, your brain says, for example, 'That person looks powerful!" or "I can't believe that guy's the CEO of a company!"

...and people who are unaware of this split second decision making process are no more succeptible to it than people who are aware.


The article may be poorly written, but its general thesis is true: People vote for people who LOOK like politicians, and are attractive. Generally speaking.