The Nominal Determinism theory of science vindicated again

Heavily pigmented subjects for twin study

In important recent research not from the Riddled Research Laboratory, it emerges that when Scottish people consume a few extra pieces of fruit or vegetable per day to break the monotony of their usual porridge-and-deep-fried-Mars-bars diet, then other Scottish people can detect the slightly less anemic, slightly yellower appearance of their skin, due to the carotene and such as. The effect is subtle but detectable as long as subjects do not include Scotspeople who spend time in the sunlight, of whom there are so many. This is good news for colour scientists looking for twin studies; not so good for the proprietors of tanning parlours. The first author's name is predictable:

The authors further claim that the vegetable eaters were also seen as healthier and more attractive. News reports have been focusing on this part of the study. Sadly, it turns out in the small print of the Methods section that Whitehead et al. built the assumption that yellower = sexier into their staircase scaling procedure, which would have gone all cattywumpus for subjects who leaned the other way and found albinism more of a turn-on.

Better mating potential

Needless to say there is an Evolutionary Psychology angle here, with the usual plonkers arguing that humans have evolved to detect slight differences in skin yellowness so we can see which members of the tribe have been eating more fruit & veges and are therefore more desirable as mates.

Decisions, decisions.

If the authors had done their job without the pre-assumed conclusions, and found (say) that yellower = less sexy, the same nimrods would have found a Evo-Psych just-so story for that instead (e.g. a less plant-based diet indicated better hunting skills or higher social status; while surviving despite the self-imposed health handicap of eating fewer vegetables was a sign of general fitness). If they had found no association between yellowness and TEH HAWT, this would once again have vindicated the premises of Evo-Psych (what with the bulk of human evolution taking place in Africa among ancestors with melanised skin -- yellowness not an issue -- before the recent mutation that turned some of us into partial albinos).

Potatoes were not counted as a vegetable.
Researchers were sponsored by the Unilever Corporation, manufacturers of fine ketchup-based products, which may or may not be a vegetable.