HOW DO YOU MEASURE UP?

Evidently CNN feels that people who measure peoples facial features and predict personality characteristics is both legitimate science and worth reporting to the unknowing populace. This is some of the most ridiculous and irresponsible reporting I have ever seen. It's nearly as bad as a reporter writing that mercury in vaccines causes Autism.

Here's the basic gist:

If the "personology" believers had their way, they'd want you to judge every book by its cover. Well, actually, they'd want you to judge every person by his or her facial features. Because practitioners of personology, which is a form of face reading, believe the features on our face tell, literally, the inside story of what kind of person we are.

The theory of reading personality traits in facial features dates back to Aristotle.

Nobody is more passionate about this facial fact-finding than the president of Face Language International, Naomi Tickle (her real name). Tickle has devoted her life to the study of personology, and she informs us in a lovely British accent that this is no fleeting New-Age fad.

Ms. Tickle is correct that this is no new age fad. It is a full blown scam that has persisted since the beginning of recorded history. It is as bad as phrenology, hand writing analysis, or anything that measures body features that have no direct influence on personality. Of course if you're morbidly obese and/or horrendously ugly that is going to affect your personality because of the way the public will treat you... but give me a break! This stuff needs to go the way of phrenology and die...quickly. CNN should be ashamed to report this kind of crap.

Well wait up ... let's see whether her constructs make any sense. Maybe she has something going?

So what are there traits that Tickle is talking about?

Well, for example, she says "Somebody who has very close-set eyes is very good with detail. They don't like being interrupted, and they don't like people being late. They like people to be on time.

"The flip side of that," she adds, "is they can focus on things that aren't working till it becomes bigger than life.

A person with wide-set eyes is much more laid back, she continued. "They are the multi-task people. They're the ones that say, 'Oh I can do this and I can do that and I can do that as well,' and because of this behavior, they have a tendency to run late."

Nope. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. What kind of mechanism could possibly link these things? On the other hand maybe there actually is some evidence.

...the theory goes back much further than the 1920s. In fact, it dates back to Aristotle, who wrote a treatise on physiognomy, or the idea that one's temperament can be discerned from his or her outward features.
This later morphed into an odder head-reading trend known as the criminal head bump indicator, or phrenology. But don't lump (ahem) these items in with personology.

Tickle says her method goes by the numbers. "We actually measure the eye to determine the distance," she says. "We measure the width of the eye, and we measure the space between them to see which is the bigger of the two. And so if the eye is bigger than the space between the eyes, this person is very tolerant and very good with details."

She asserts that "thousands and thousands of people" report 100 percent accuracy on the personology analysis.

100% Accuracy and a long history!? Wow! She must be totally right then. Alright first lets throw out the history thing. There was a long history of slave trade and lynching - that's certainly not legitimate. And now for that 100% accuracy. Have any of you scientists encountered any sort of manipulation at all that has given rise to 100% success rate? My toilet doesn't even flush at 100%

So Ms. Tickle and CNN... go away and stop leading poor people on.