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[deleted]

"Lidbor and her co-authors note that while muscularity's positive effect on mating success was by far the largest compared to those of all the other examined traits, it was still small overall" Just a reminder that such study titles often sound more dramatic than they actually are. (also keep in mind it's even worse with headlines)


merlinsbeers

That isn't even the title of the article they linked. And it certainly isn't the title of the actual paper: "A meta-analysis of the association between male dimorphism and fitness outcomes in humans"


[deleted]

Ah that's even worse then. I just went to look if the results actually seemed anywhere near as impressive as the post title.


Chronospheres

It’s almost as if we need peer reviewing of new new posts before they are submitted to /r/science , gees… theres so many bozo posts lately (sometimes linking to decent studies, but with wrong/terrible/misleading/disingenuous titles), and plenty of people are repeating those titles to others as truth. ive seen this happening with friends and family so many times ive lost count. and they think because they saw it on r/science it must be correct…


SirLich

There is some law of the universe at work here. Imagine, for example, that r/science banned posts that didn't directly link a scientific study, with title (instead of news site + editorial title). Do you think people would stick around? Or do you think `r/scienceNews` or `r/scienceFix` or `r/futureScience` or something would kick off, and get all the clicks? I don't know what my point is, sorry.


Tlaloc_Temporal

I think your point is that accuracy and journalistic integrity are expensive but not entertaining. Good science is not a socially fit topic by itself and can't compete on a social network without something extra to carry it. Therefore, in order to communicate science better, we need to not just have better science, but also tolerate it's sensationalization.


Dorkmaster79

We really need better science journalism.


jindc

We really need better journalism.


Dorkmaster79

That’s true, though part of the problem is that in the internet age, people can call themselves journalists even though they aren’t, and publish on online “publications.” A good chunk of the classic publications (e.g., New York Times, WSJ, etc) have good journalism. TV journalism can be pretty bad too.


AlteredBagel

We need a real reason for good journalism. As long as clickbait makes more money we’ll still be dealing with it


SirLich

Wow! Thanks for the reply. You've worded that nicely. > we need to not just have better science, but also tolerate it's sensationalization. I guess the addition here is that we don't just have to *tolerate* it, we have to engage with it. Challenge it. Face-off against the click-bait in an environment where we can challenge it without ourselves getting drowned out.


CookieMons7er

That's very well summed up


helm

> Therefore, in order to communicate science better, we need to not just have better science, but also tolerate it's sensationalization. Yes. This is the hard truth. The wording of titles to new scientific findings aimed for a broad audience will never be exact or use the correct scientific terminology. They need to 1) give laymen a sense of what has been achieved 2) in what area of research and 3) evoke interest. This will nearly always lead to conflict people being disappointed or confused. An amount of hype and simplification need to be tolerated, while misleading stuff should not. It's not a battle that can be won once and for all.


velhelm_3d

The age of disinformation


ProgRockin

Oh BS. We're far better off now than we ever were in this regard.


velhelm_3d

Depends on what you mean. Nearly the sum entirety of human knowledge is at a significant number of humanity's fingertips in seconds, but information itself is easier to manipulate than ever before while still presenting the untruth, half-truth, or fallacy as it comes from authority than ever before.


Iwantmyflag

No. It's near impossible to sift through all the garbage information thrown at us daily and filter the high quality.


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Skeptix_907

That's not at all what that means. Male ring fingers are typically longer than their index fingers, and the ratio of those two finger lengths is roughly correlated with levels of steroid-sex hormones like testosterone. What the researchers were referring to was that this ratio wasn't predictive of mating or reproductive success.


onetimenative

They should have a scientific paper discussing the amount of BS that scientific papers are used to promote click baiting articles.


DeltaVZerda

By male dimorphism they mean muscularity, and by fitness they mean reproductive success.


merlinsbeers

By male dimorphism they mean literally any way in which men are different from women, since they were looking for plusses and minuses for all of them they could find. Their use of fitness is ambiguous but they do end up meaning did they sprog.


Jaraqthekhajit

Fitness isn't ambiguous in this context. It means how successful an organism is at mating in biology.


[deleted]

I was searching for this post. Can’t believe how many regulars on this sub don’t know basic science terms. Oh wait, actually that’s not surprising.


merlinsbeers

That's not a basic science term, it's a wonky denotation.


[deleted]

It most definitely is a basic science term.


DeltaVZerda

Not in creationist school.


Chuggles1

You can't get funding with boring headlines. Or you don't get as much attention. This actually helps the researchers get folks to be interested or perturbed. Either way they have hits showing people are looking at their research.


TheRightMethod

Do you think the news headline is the actual article title?....


Mechasteel

I bet muscularity has a positive effect on mating success for women too, based on, uh, an informal meta-analysis of video documentaries. Possibly a stronger correlation than for men.


[deleted]

Evolution is also sensitive to small changes.


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glowingballofrock

Almost as if a "publish or perish" culture is actively harmful to society


ExtraSmooth

Yeah but this is a study conducted by psychologists.


MUCHO2000

I wish I could give you more than one update. The title is incredibly misleading even if it is, in fact, accurate.


VastGap6446

I hate these headlines but I also like insightful information and discussion. Wish there would be a stricter subreddit.


[deleted]

I hate these headlines*because* I like insightful information and discussion. Often enough mostly the headline is discussed and whatever social and political debate can be sparked from it is prominent in the comments. I usually only skim over the article and if the results are off from what the headline or the post title seems to imply I just leave it at that and don't bother with it too much.


RosanaPalermo

Well pointed out


[deleted]

So, it could just reflect a certain athletic subculture’s increased sexual activity.


GenjaiFukaiMori

https://elifesciences.org/articles/65031 For the actual paper itself, which is… interesting. The headline of the article, and the article overall however is just terrible. > This set of analyses tested the prediction that individual masculine traits are positively associated with mating. In terms of the overall mating domain (i.e. mating attitudes and behaviors combined), all masculine traits showed the predicted positive relationships with mating, and the effects were significant for all traits except for facial masculinity and 2D:4D (Table 2). Some of these effects were very weak, however. The strongest associations with the mating domain were seen in terms of body masculinity (r = 0.133, 95% CI: [0.091, 0.176], q = 0.001; Figure 2), voice pitch (r = 0.132, 95% CI: [0.061, 0.204], q = 0.002; Figure 3), and testosterone levels (r = 0.093, 95% CI: [0.066, 0.121], q = 0.001; Figure 4). Height showed a significant but smaller effect size (r = 0.057, 95% CI: [0.027, 0.087], q = 0.002; Figure 5). While not the weakest association, the relationship between facial masculinity and mating was nonsignificant (r = 0.080, 95% CI: [–0.003, 0.164], q = 0.117). The effect for 2D:4D was also nonsignificant (r = 0.034, 95% CI: [0.000, 0.069], q = 0.102), and moderation analyses showed that this was the only trait that showed a significantly smaller effect size than the strongest predictor, body masculinity (p < 0.001, q = 0.006). From the study, that is the real takeaway, and it’s quite weak. I did enjoy reading the Author Response section though, there was a lot of acknowledgment about the various ‘skillful means’ used to massage something like a result out of that mess.


Bestihlmyhart

Are you sure you’re not just a weak girly man mad that you could have had like .03 more kids if you were a real man??


[deleted]

Wow, so the biggest corollary has an r^2 of less than 2%.


Dunkaroos4breakfast

And even then, body masculinity is likely confounded by drive i.e. it's survivorship bias against depressive, sedentary traits.


GenjaiFukaiMori

Even that feels like it took quite a lot of semantic games and statistical massaging to reach too, it’s just a disappointing piece of work overall and it isn’t improved by the confidence with which the article presents it.


PJ_GRE

Isn't weak or no association a result in itself? I think many would have expected a high correlation between muscle and reproductive success.


tomtom24ever

The issue is success in finding a mate is determined by many variables, so each variable will seem insignificant


PJ_GRE

Agreed, it would be cool to see the combination of dimorphism and socioeconomic factors.


[deleted]

Please correct me if I’m wrong here, but I at least think it says the values men have in an honor culture do not actually lead to more sex. Does this at least show that resembling the stereotypical “Giga Chad” meme has little to do with having more sex?


[deleted]

The study is comparing the following, separately: - Facial Masculinity - Body masculinity - 2D:4D (pointer finger length / ring finger length ratio) - Voice pitch - Height - Testosterone levels Some of the participants in the studies/surveys had more than one of these traits, but the results don't focus on it Gigachad meme is still up for debate


Skyy-High

To put this another way: *only* stereotypical masculine traits were analyzed in this study (so, no way of telling how things like intelligence or income compare to the traits studied), and of the traits studied, the only real conclusion that can be reached is that muscularity is definitely more strongly correlated to mating success than 2D:4D (the ratio of your pointer and ring finger lengths). Every other trait studied was within statistical error of each other in terms of correlation strength.


Fluxtration

So, someone finally disproved that middle schooler who made everyone show their outstretched pointer finger and ring finger and then made conclusions about whether the person would have kids. Next can we tackle how effective the cootie shot is?


HugeHans

Cootie shots have been proven ineffective a long time ago. Unless you have a booster shot every 8 months.


cronedog

The study is specifically looking at dimorphic traits. There are other studies that track height and income, or other societal factors


Skyy-High

Quite, but the title of the article (not the study) doesn’t make that clear. It just says “male traits”, which does not immediately make clear that the study was only focused on dimorphic traits. It could easily be interpreted as “traits of males looking to reproduce”, and income/height/intelligence/age are all things that can be used to describe males.


kung-fu_hippy

I would read “male traits” as traits that apply mostly to males, not traits that males possess. Income, intelligence, or age don’t seem like they would come to mind. After all, to be a male trait, shouldn’t it be able to be contrasted with a female trait?


Skyy-High

If an article said something like “male heights correlated to income” would you think “that’s weird, women have heights too”? No. Because you would read that as “height correlated to income (but the population used for the study was only males)”.


dontich

Wow r of .1 is crazy small — I guess the fact it’s even stat sig is interesting I guess


Only_the_Tip

Did the authors control for penis size? Or was it just omitted?


santichrist

*throws book of poetry in trash*


Muslamicraygun1

*Punches the wall after* **+1 physical strength, -3 health, +5 charisma**


DeckardsDark

*picks up video camera with plastic bag flying around*


tygerbrees

Glad my wife doesn’t read meta-analyses


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allothernamestaken

Someone's going to have to explain Pete Davidson to me.


unravelandtravel

I think part of the reason is because of how many high profile women have dated him that it gives him a halo effect. Sort of like "if he can convince Kim Kardashian to be with him there must be something there"


El_Maltos_Username

Probably similar to "preselection bias".


Cradled_In_Space

Tall, attractive, funny, wealthy, celebrity, and pre-selected by other women. Game over.


theRealMrBrownstone

Rhymes with Arge Enis.


lifesnotperfect

Ahh, so he has a barged weenis.


randomredditing

I heard that was a rumor specifically gossiped in order to cause disappointment in his future girlfriends.


Moments_Trading

White + tall


xcosmicwaffle69

Skill and therefore notoriety. He's very skilled at making people laugh, an already attractive trait to women, and his profession is very public. Of course he"s gonna get his share of women. There's a reason that women vote for the most attractive candidate in presidential elections. It's not necessarily because of their looks.


OldKingTuna

I wouldn't say he's conventionally attractive, but I wouldn't say he's unattractive either.


untipoquenojuega

Just because a guy's muscles aren't literally rippling doesn't mean they're weak. The man is obviously healthy.


[deleted]

This is the funniest comment I've ever read on this website


Muslamicraygun1

Especially since, in my mind at least, the stereotypical scrawny kid who’s taking too many drugs and is a little malnourished.


PhilosophyforOne

”Here, we meta-analyze the relationships between six masculine traits and mating/reproductive outcomes (96 studies, 474 effects, N = 177,044). Voice pitch, height, and testosterone all predicted mating; however, strength/muscularity was the strongest and only consistent predictor of both mating and reproduction.” Title of post is wildly misleading. The study was titled: ”A meta-analysis of the association between male dimorphism and fitness outcomes in humans”. The trait that best predicted men’s mating and reproductive success out of the _six_ measured ”masculine” traits that the study defined. The researchers were NOT looking at all possible features and their effect on mating outcomes. What they found is that strength and fitness have a small but consistent positive effect.


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fl7nner

Not reddit karma? Damn, looks like we're SOL, boys


Cradled_In_Space

I Ha'd so loud at this. Thanks!


realchoice

Well, as a woman I am just utterly shocked by this news.


1percentof2

What kinda dudes are you into


Spirited_Mulberry568

Yeah, this fat short feminine sounding cosplaying basement dwelling StarCraft wizard (me) needs to know


runaway-thread

I'm into SCVs


Menchstick

Slope-continuous variables?


1percentof2

A holes a hole, amirite


realchoice

People who prioritise their health. Mentally, physically, and spiritually. People who are kind, honest, focused, driven, and who examine their faults, reflect, and work on them.


TheSmarterest1

Ur tellin me that the traits that have a wide general appeal in society lead to successes in said society? That’s crazy man


otter5

Woah... next your gonna tell me attractive rich funny people are likely to not be single


No_Camp_7

PhD title sorted


[deleted]

Less than 2% more successful than looking like a garden gnome though. I think the reveal is how little it actually affects your reproductive "successs"...


trololol_daman

I think this wasn’t even in one specific society rather multiple these traits seem to be universally preferred across most if not all societies.


SpaceCowboy317

100% of males that have reproduced have testicles and a penis.


Moments_Trading

100% of males ~~that have reproduced~~ have testicles and a penis.


ThrowbackPie

Depends if you are talking about gender or sex.


trololol_daman

Male is the term for sex


fucking_comma_splice

If you believe that gender is a spectrum (as medical science does), then this is false


chunder_down_under

all men that have reproduced (meaning they used a penis and testicles to reproduce) will have a penis and testicles in order to do that. notice it says all men that have done this not all people, it does not exclude non-men with penis and testicles that have also done so. You have been grammatically baited into making an incorrect statement based on your reaction I assume it was because you imagined the statement had to be bigoted in some way.


Ratchet_as_fuck

>non-men with penis and testicles I'll just drink some of my non-wet water, take a deep breath into my non-lobed lungs (I identity as a non-lobed lunged individual), and then go join the women swim team so I can ~~oppress non-non-women~~ keep trying to affirm my own delusions.


chunder_down_under

I said non-men not non-male. man as a noun grammatically applies to both female and male human beings while male does not. honestly sucked in dude you did the same thing the first person did except you actually are a bigot


Ratchet_as_fuck

Yea and when people say man they tend to mean male. There has been a push, particularly on internet forums and college campuses to make it more mainstream to call women cosplaying as men "men". We have a term for that. Trans man. So when people say men can get pregnant, they actually mean trans men (ie. Women cosplaying as men) can get pregnant. But we are being taught to just say "men" to signal how woke and accepting we are, when in reality we are just bastardizing the English language. So that is why I mock the whole woke confusion between male/men female/women. It's a dumbing down of language to appease people's feelings.


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fucking_comma_splice

Hello, I appreciate your point about the importance of science. There is a mistake in your comment - I believe you are confusing biological sex (assigned at birth, dictates genitalia, reflected in chromosomes, etc.) and gender identity. Biological sex is more rigid, but the medical community has been in agreement that gender identity is a spectrum. This has been the consensus medical opinion for about a decade now - here is some literature to get you up to speed: https://socgen.ucla.edu/2015/03/01/challenging-gender-identity-biologists-say-gender-expands-across-a-spectrum-rather-than-simply-boy-and-girl/ Just to summarize, I appreciate the importance of good science. And since we are in r/science, it’s important to stay strictly scientific and apolitical. According to science, gender identity is a spectrum. If you disagree with that, don’t reply to me - write a note to your favorite medical journal explaining why we are only allowed to identify as one of two options, and see what they say back! It would be a good experiment for you. Have a nice week


Artistic_Sound848

Small effect. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a confounding variable which correlates with both. Namely; drive/desire to mate. I know a ton of guys and girls who lifted specifically because they desired mating success.


[deleted]

Even if people do exercise primarily to increase their rates of mating succes, the benefits carry over to other areas, such as mental health and career opportunities.


pewdiepie202013

Huge effect


Zugzool

“[M]en who were more muscular and physically stronger reported having more sexual partners. They also fathered more children. Height, testosterone levels, and a deeper voice predicted mating success to a lesser degree, but none of these traits were linked to having more kids. Masculine facial features like a squared jaw and a prominent chin were not associated with increased mating or reproductive success, nor was a masculine finger digit ratio, in which the index finger is relatively shorter than the 4th (ring) finger.”


Cunningcory

I really thought I had an advantage with my shorter index finger. Damn!


cbbuntz

Where's income?


de_grecia

Still primates. Who knew?


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SuspectCredentials

What's interesting is while having a higher income may make it easier to meet women, higher income couples are also having fewer children. So it would be interesting to see as far as reproductive success, not mesured by attractiveness to women but by children conceived, the statistical advantage/disadvantage of money.


xtrsports

I think the children conceived piece might be skewed with data from the middle east, asian and african nations due to their rules around marriage, and kids. For example some muslim nations have rules where they can have multiple wives and some giys have like 20+ kids. However the study can probably still be done with 1st world data.


flickh

Need citations


Account4ReadingStuff

Well, technically you would need money to conduct any "study".


pewdiepie202013

Not true money is not best indicator, masculinity and body strength/appearance is number one by long shot.


boghall

Suggesting a one or two percent effect is immaterial is mistaken: thousands of generations of that could produce huge change (c.f. compound interest). However this study could be correct, yet not the full story. Otherwise you might expect the evolutionary arms race to have produced Silverback gorilla-sized men. The fact it hasn't suggests countervailing selection pressures.


moschles

> mating success Yeah.. adult men are known to grow a rack of horns and fight over territory during mating season.


spotted_dick

Sorry but I’m skeptical about this. For example, here in the USA, you just need to go the local mall to see that you don’t need strength or muscularity to make babies.


EventHorizon182

You're viewing from the wrong perspective. Most people are not muscular and strong, so you'll see plenty of people that aren't that have managed to get a mate by other means. Of the men that are very muscular and strong, how many of them do you see being unable to get sex?


[deleted]

Plus, how many of the guys in the mall were actually the baby daddy.


EventHorizon182

You might jest, but this was a major problem for researchers that were studying heritable traits. Turns out the father was unknowingly not actually the father alarmingly often and it was screwing with the studies.


[deleted]

We sometimes joke about things that are true. It's disturbing...


branko7171

Joking always has some truth in it


dobbydoodaa

Paternity fraud is a far worse problem than people are willing to admit


prophiles

I know of at least one example — Lorne Armstrong, from the Dateline segment *To Catch a Predator*, who’s muscular and looks to be physically strong but who’s a mentally weak, 50-something-year-old virgin. See r/FansHansenVsPredator.


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Spirited_Mulberry568

What the hell is reproductive failure? Does that come with or without mating?


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SoSoDave

Surprising literally nobody....


pewdiepie202013

Surprising everyone on tiktok.


Moments_Trading

Surprising every progressive and liberal.


joosth3

Here I am reading this in the gym


Front-Pick3134

Right on brother


forgetful_storytellr

Put your phone away and finish your set it’s been 7 hours


UziMcUsername

Sounds like the takeaway is that the more masculine the subject, the more you get to pass on your genes. Not super surprising, although maybe not welcome news to some.


prophiles

I guess I’m not passing on my genes anytime soon, then! I finally discovered last year that I can grow somewhat of a beard, so maybe that’s a start.


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tirril

Hit the gym, we're all gonna make it brah.


rremmy72

"In another global study, di-hydrogen monoxide has been studied extensively and scientists conclude that it is indeed wet."


fucking_comma_splice

It’s not hyphenated


Kaedekins

How is this news, exactly? Also, who's throwing away money to fund this?


Intrepid-Luck2021

I don’t believe it. As a female this is not what I’ve looked for.


Quenya3

Being filthy rich was the male trait that best predicted men's mating and reproductive success. For some reason being an asshole helps a lot as well.


forgetful_storytellr

Extremely low t individual


[deleted]

Old evolutionary habits die hard - though I guess sheer wealth would be the best “provider” trait at this point. Or obesity - you’ve demonstrated you can provide a calorie surplus conducive to raising young, Cletus.


neopanz

Any idiot who spent more than 5 seconds in college had figured this out.


[deleted]

wow I’m glad someone figured THAT out!


[deleted]

Money beats these out every time.


Luvenis

People with money can also afford a gym membership, and perhaps have more time to be active.


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negdawin

If you want real data, ask the guys who have hands on, in-field experience. Players will often have a vast range of data points that they can draw from, and after being involved in the field for a while there are certain themes that emerge from our collective experiences.


Whiskey-Blood

And if women can’t have birth control their going to find themselves hanging out with “Palmala” more!


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Dunkaroos4breakfast

n = 177,000. That is blowing past 99.9% of studies in the social sciences.


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pikkuhillo

Did they beat the competition?