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Re:Natalie Portman - Scientist by Jun8 on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @12:16PM (#2276246)
"Hedy Lamarr complained bitterly that people would look at her face and assume there was nothing behind it. Perhaps it was a case of projection. “When you see a very beautiful face, it’s stunning, and you yourself become stupefied,” said Lisa Heiserman Perkins, who has completed a documentary about Lamarr. “So you project your own stupidity onto the person you’re looking at.” "

Now, maybe I'm projecting my own stupidity to this remark but it just seems hare-brained. This effect is very easy to understand: many beautiful people you've met before have little/no interest in science, i.e. appear to be stupid, so your subconscious Bayesian learner assigns a low probability to the gorgeous woman you see having invented a new spread spectrum technique.

Re:Natalie Portman - Scientist by btilly on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @12:48PM (#2276383)
And yet, there is actually a positive correlation between physical attractiveness and IQ.
Re:Natalie Portman - Scientist by Jun8 on Tuesday March 01, 2011 @01:19PM (#2276517)
True, but in most cases this IQ may be dormant, since from an early age attractive people learn that they can get what they want without working as hard as other people. It's like weight lifting on the moon!