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The Economist on using phrenology for hiring and lending decisions: "Some might argue that face-based analysis is more meritocratic" […] "For people without access to credit, that could be a blessing" (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38830374

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economist article

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

excerpts of economist article:

screenshot of text "Imagine appearing for a job interview and, without saying a single word, being told that you are not getting the role because your face didn’t fit. You would assume discrimination, and might even contemplate litigation. But what if bias was not the reason? What if your face gave genuinely useful clues about your probable performance at work? That question is at the heart of a recent research"

[...]

screenshot of text "a shorter one. Some might argue that face-based analysis is more meritocratic than processes which reward, say, educational attainment. Kelly Shue of the Yale School of Management, one of the new paper’s authors, says they are now looking at whether AI facial analysis can give lenders useful clues about a person’s propensity to repay loans. For people without access to credit, that could be a blessing."

screenshot of a tweet from @TheEconomist on Nov 8 2025 with text "What if your face gave genuinely useful clues about your probable performance at work? That question is at the heart of a recent paper"
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[–] 20 points 1 year ago (1 child)

I thought phrenology was still a science at the time of the German Reich, only made defunct later. Now I have my doubts.

Social darwinism was disproven in the 1900s and supply-side economics died in the 19th century so it's not like pseudoscience does not spring up like weeds when rich people want to sponsor it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    That's the thing with science communication. It barely exists.

    There is a bogus theory. Nobody tries replicating it for decades because there's no fame in replication. Then someone finally does and disproves the theory. If the author is lucky, it gets published on the last pages of some low-level journal, because there's even less fame in failed replication. But the general public doesn't read journals. They don't even read science journalism. They might read a short note in a daily newspaper that was twisted into unrecognizability by an underpaid, overworked journalist who didn't understand a word in the article they read in some pop science magazine.

    Science doesn't reach the general public, and if it does against all odds, it's so twisted and corrupted that it frequently says the opposite of what the original paper said.

    People do their general education in school, and once they leave they stop learning general topics.

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