It's Science

I think back to the first time I saw my wife. I had this sense that she was it. She was smart, driven, and creative. It only helped that she walked around in clothes that showed off her hip bones and occasionally wore silver necklaces that set off her cleavage in such a way that I spent about nine months trying to make my shower colder (hint: dry ice and a box fan). Eventually, she acquiesced and we became mates for life.

God bless, Science. For, if it had not been for those hip bones and well-accented chest-parts, I probably would've ended up with some By George's bimbo who couldn't diagram a sentence in five seconds. At least, that's what Science tells me.

I gotta hand it to a group of researchers, the Associated Press, and CNN. They have convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that men prefer hot women over chicks with hairy moles and a club foot. One of the hottest stories of the day on CNN is a rip-and-read from the AP which begins, "Science is confirming what most women know: When given the choice for a mate, men go for good looks."

I applaud the scientific effort. If we are to understand how far we have evolved from monkey-types who will hump a lemur if it winks at them right, we must understand what inside us drives us toward our future monkey-business mates. Sure, there are some people who would say that proof that we focus on good looks only goes to deny our consciousness and lumps us with the atavistic chronic masturbators. Thank goodness, Science is around.

I'll admit. I was curious. After all, if there is something in science that can explain to me why I like to look at hot women, I'd like to memorize it so I can recite it verbatim the next time my wife catches me lingering over the pages of Wicked Chops on a Friday night.

"Honey, pay no attention to Jessica Alba or how cold it must be in that room. It's Science. Just ask CNN."

So, verily, I clicked with all speed onto the headline "Men want hot women, study confirms" on CNN, expecting to find a well-documented, well-researched, irrefutable piece of scientific evidence to explain why I have my Netvibes Google Image Search permanently set to Scarlett Johansson. I was not disappointed. The second paragraph read:

Researchers led by Todd report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that their study found humans were similar to most other mammals, "following Darwin's principle of choosy females and competitive males, even if humans say something different."

I rose in a cheer to celebrate the Darwinian defense. Gotta love me some Darwin. Now, I said to myself, just show me the science!

I am no scientist. My education on the scientific method comes from a real bastard named Richard Summers ("Otis, you are a failure and won't achieve anything.") and a few tired teaching assistants at the University of Missouri. And, to be fair, I wasn't listening very hard. However, somewhere in my learning I recall something about control groups, data collection, and representative samples. Which is why, dear friends, I was a little put off by the data points for the assertion that men like hot women.

The study that has made it into a scientific journal, the Associated Press, and CNN consisted of the following: 26 men and 20 women.

In Munich.

Germany.

Apparently, the white coats put a group of men and women ranging in age from the nubile 26-year-olds to the crotchety 40-year-olds into a room and watched them speed date for three to seven minutes at a time.

In Munich.

Germany.

And thus was born the confirmation that men prefer hot women. Or, at least, that 26 men in one European country prefer hot women when they only get to talk to them for five minutes.

I conducted a couple of similar studies recently and found that men like to gamble (study based on survey taken from 30 men at underground card room), women prefer wine to beer (based on survey taken from two women at a recent BBQ), and all South Carolina women look good in bikinis (based on looking out my window at a neighbor doing yard work several years ago). Not content to focus my study on stateside phenomena, I also branched out to Monte Carlo (all people in Monte Carlo are arrogant) and Austria (all the water in Austria smells like rotten eggs). Under the scientific principles outlined by the above-mentioned researchers, it doesn't matter much that my study was based on four bartenders in Monte Carlo and one small river in Baden, Austria.

There is probably some staff writer at the Tonight Show currently sitting in his office and coming up with lines for Leno like "A study out of Germany confirms that men prefer good looking women. (Pregnant pause to allow audience to formulate their own feeble punchline) Well, duh! Kevin, were you part of this study?"

That's what this kind of news is all about. It's a way to keep junk scientists in good grant money, keep the news stations in fluffy kicker pieces, and keep the late night comedians flush with throwaway jokes to fill 20 seconds of a monologue. Beyond that, it's not going to help me explain to my wife why I don't take off my sunglasses when we go to the pool and why I almost rolled the family car over the other day when driving by Bob Jones University (you wanna talk about hot women...). No, my wife will say, "Twenty-six German men prefer hot women and this is how you expect me to accept the $600 pay-per-view bill?"

No, my wife is smarter that that. And that is why I think she's the hottest chick outside of Munich.