26 replies to this topic

[baibushe]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but I saw this on another forum and thought it was pretty interesting. I'm not sure of the exact process the guy uses to generate these, but the results are better than other composites I have seen.

Average Mainland Han Chinese

Taiwanese

Tibetan

Korean

Mongolian

[baibushe]

More:

Japanese

Burmese

Thai

Vietnamese


Cambodian

Here is the original link. I only posted the East/Southeast Asian composites, but there are many more on the website. I can't post more without the message board combining my posts and making the last few picture not show up. The average Chinese/Japanese/Korean actors/actresses are pretty interesting. You can definitely see elements from specific celebrities in their faces.
World of Facial Averages

Edited by baibushe, 26 February 2011 - 04:27 AM.

[mohistManiac]

I wonder if there is much validity to this exercise. It is much like taking the average color of a bunch of gems and out you come with is a grayish color and then would the price be average as well?

[William O'Chee]

Is there a composite for Cantonese or HK Chinese as opposed to broad Han Chinese?

[baibushe]

I wonder if there is much validity to this exercise. It is much like taking the average color of a bunch of gems and out you come with is a grayish color and then would the price be average as well?

Rather than looking at several pictures and trying to come up with a generic "look" that an ethnic group has, this lets you see what the average looks like without your mind focusing too much on the differences between individuals. It's more like taking a bunch of rubies and averaging their clarity and color in order to get an idea of what a typical ruby looks like.

Is there a composite for Cantonese or HK Chinese as opposed to broad Han Chinese?

I don't think so. The person who did these is constantly updating the site, so he may eventually do one.

[baybal]

It looks that Koreans wear more glasses on average =D

[LongMa]

LOL it is my site. I'm Dragon Horse (Long Ma). I've been doing this for 2 years for fun. No, no Hong Konger yet, I have a few before I get to that...like Malays, Egyptian woman, Nigerians...etc

I was on Korean television last week.

http://www.dramastyl...2-0/2011-02-25/

start watching about
44:00 minutes into the video.

[mohistManiac]

LOL it is my site. I'm Dragon Horse (Long Ma). I've been doing this for 2 years for fun. No, no Hong Konger yet, I have a few before I get to that...like Malays, Egyptian woman, Nigerians...etc

I was on Korean television last week.

http://www.dramastyl...2-0/2011-02-25/

start watching about
44:00 minutes into the video.

I would like to know how accurate it is though. I mean when it comes down to making an average face isn't that more or less a mental exercise rather than the real result of an actual average? Which faces you go about picking and excluding is based on the personal preferences to begin with and therefore the sampling would affect the result by a lot I imagine otherwise why else would you post a star version of mainland HK and Taiwan stars if not to engage in the curiosity of what might allows a person to think you are a star in those areas.

[LongMa]

I would like to know how accurate it is though. I mean when it comes down to making an average face isn't that more or less a mental exercise rather than the real result of an actual average? Which faces you go about picking and excluding is based on the personal preferences to begin with and therefore the sampling would affect the result by a lot I imagine otherwise why else would you post a star version of mainland HK and Taiwan stars if not to engage in the curiosity of what might allows a person to think you are a star in those areas.

First you are making a lot of assumptions and not asking a lot of questions. Questions might relieve your need to assume.

I have no idea what you are talking about concerning a "star version".

I posted a Mainland Chinese actor (Japanese and Indian too) and normal people, because I wanted to show how big a gap their was between what the average person looked like and what their movie stars looked like.

Obviously the average Indian looks nothing like a Bollywood actor.

The average Chinese is probably closer to a Chinese actor or actress, but there is a difference. What is interesting is that I found Chinese and Japanese (likely Koreans to) have the same taste in women (as far as the look of actors), but the men vary quite a bit. I would imagine (as in every society) there is more selective pressure on women, because female looks are far more scrutinized and seen as important than a mans.

I don't pick faces based on personal preference. I based it on availability...first 15 or 20 I get, is what I get. In a nation like Brazil or Mexico I pay more attention to racial/ethnic demographics and try to balance that, but I don't go about saying "this person looks more Mexican, than this person or something of that nature".

I don't know what the point is for you.

I did this out of my own curiosity. I wanted to see if their were "average" stereotypical features you could see.

Obviously, in groups that are close in geographical distance there will be overlap.


I became interested in "average images" 2 years ago, after reading online some scientific theories concerning universal beauty, one being that, average facial features were considered beautiful, and the less extreme features a face had, the more attractive. Since different populations have different average features, I wanted to see what the average of different nationalities looked like. Initially, I wanted to see if I fond them all attractive and get an idea of how different populations of people looked from one another. I wanted to test the idea that there is a universal beauty. I have always believed that there is a universal "ugly", but much of what we consider attractive is due to culture and personal preference. Often, the relationship between populations is expressed in nationalities, but in many nations, you have many ethnic groups within one national border, and the relationship between the groups is more political than biological. Still, the easiest way to group people was by nationality, even if within a nation; like in China, there are strong regional differences in appearance of even the Han majority, for example. In some other nations, such as Italy, Spain, and even Germany there are also regional differences in appearance, still I wanted to get an idea of what the overall "average" was. Then I wanted to see if this average matched people's stereotype of that nationality/ethnicity. In reality, neighboring populations do overlap with each other most of the time. It is just that statistically certain features are more common in one group than another, but it does not mean they are absent.


I realized a few things. 1) It is likely that people make an average face in their head based on the people they see everyday, and this is what most find generally attractive, but culture and personal taste are also important, very. I remember living in Japan and hearing that foreign men (Westerns) liked the less attractive women, from a Japanese perspective that was true, but not from a Western perspective. Their ideals of beauty were just different, due to cultural. So I do think the "average face" is attractive, but I do not believe the "average" is beautiful for everyone, there is no universal beauty. 2) This average face we see, becomes a stereotype for how we group people. Sometimes, we might make different stereotypes. For example, if most Swiss people see Italians who mostly come from Northern Italy, but most Americans see Italians that come from Southern Italy, they might have a different image in their mind of what an Italian looks like. Sometimes, as in America, Mexican immigrants who come from poor areas, as compared to the wealthy who live in Mexico City or Guadalajara and do not immigrate abroad for economic reasons. The average look in these sub-populations can be strikingly different.

Also I found that there tends to be more variation in men than women. I talked to an anthropologist about this actually. He believes, it is due to testosterone, men change more in features from childhood than women do, on average (speaking of facial features), men go through a more extreme physical change. He is not sure why this is. I speculated that it could be that certain genes for appearance or that controlled hormones that control gender are on the Y Chromosome or on the X Chromosome.

This might mean that women are less "extreme" because they have two X Chromosomes to balance things out, where as men have one, so the expression is not balanced. It is extreme in one direction or another.

[mariusj]

Yah, my first thought seeing the thread was universal beauty and the symmetry of human beauty.

[mohistManiac]

First you are making a lot of assumptions and not asking a lot of questions. Questions might relieve your need to assume.

I have no idea what you are talking about concerning a "star version".

Your site posts the picture of an averaged out Chinese actor mainland hk taiwan star. My question was basically is it accurate? Someone named Baishe already said it is like taking many rubies and seeing the clarity of each and then averaging them out. Is it as scientifically accurate as this? I don't want to go into thinking that it could be accurate when it isn't. Or put in other words I don't want to say it is inaccurate if it can be proven to be accurate.

I posted a Mainland Chinese actor (Japanese and Indian too) and normal people, because I wanted to show how big a gap their was between what the average person looked like and what their movie stars looked like.

Obviously the average Indian looks nothing like a Bollywood actor.

So it is statements like these that I come upon that make me wonder as to the validity of the exercise. Sounds pretty racial if you think about it. If it is not accurate to within a known measurement which would suggest the accuracy of the test then it all becomes subjective. It could in fact just make be making isolated distinctions and confusing them with average.

The average Chinese is probably closer to a Chinese actor or actress, but there is a difference. What is interesting is that I found Chinese and Japanese (likely Koreans to) have the same taste in women (as far as the look of actors), but the men vary quite a bit. I would imagine (as in every society) there is more selective pressure on women, because female looks are far more scrutinized and seen as important than a mans.

If you find that somehow Chinese/Japanese/Korean seem to have same tastes in women where is the implication for this other than what you have personally resolved to believe that the variation in women are less than that of the men? Sounds pretty sexist and could in fact again just be dinstinctions which are only rooted in the mentality of the individual.

I don't pick faces based on personal preference. I based it on availability...first 15 or 20 I get, is what I get. In a nation like Brazil or Mexico I pay more attention to racial/ethnic demographics and try to balance that, but I don't go about saying "this person looks more Mexican, than this person or something of that nature".

Assuming these pictures were derived by people randomly emailing you their photos for use but otherwise I doubt I can trust the photogenic types where probably real photographers' photos most generally appear via magazine or some such.

I don't know what the point is for you.

I did this out of my own curiosity. I wanted to see if their were "average" stereotypical features you could see.

Obviously, in groups that are close in geographical distance there will be overlap.

I just wanted to see what accuracy there is but so far I can't find any reason to think there is. I just find it strikes me odd that by seeing averaged pictures I can expect to establishing a guideline in telling who is who.

I became interested in "average images" 2 years ago, after reading online some scientific theories concerning universal beauty, one being that, average facial features were considered beautiful, and the less extreme features a face had, the more attractive. Since different populations have different average features, I wanted to see what the average of different nationalities looked like. Initially, I wanted to see if I fond them all attractive and get an idea of how different populations of people looked from one another. I wanted to test the idea that there is a universal beauty. I have always believed that there is a universal "ugly", but much of what we consider attractive is due to culture and personal preference. Often, the relationship between populations is expressed in nationalities, but in many nations, you have many ethnic groups within one national border, and the relationship between the groups is more political than biological. Still, the easiest way to group people was by nationality, even if within a nation; like in China, there are strong regional differences in appearance of even the Han majority, for example. In some other nations, such as Italy, Spain, and even Germany there are also regional differences in appearance, still I wanted to get an idea of what the overall "average" was. Then I wanted to see if this average matched people's stereotype of that nationality/ethnicity. In reality, neighboring populations do overlap with each other most of the time. It is just that statistically certain features are more common in one group than another, but it does not mean they are absent.

So it is subjective masquerading as objective. I can see how it might be useful for surveying something like average height or average weight because there is accuracy involved and leads to the correction of some very bad mistakes in culture but this exercise is sort of bizarre in trying to see what is perceived as attractive for particular countries. Just my personal take.

I realized a few things. 1) It is likely that people make an average face in their head based on the people they see everyday, and this is what most find generally attractive, but culture and personal taste are also important, very. I remember living in Japan and hearing that foreign men (Westerns) liked the less attractive women, from a Japanese perspective that was true, but not from a Western perspective. Their ideals of beauty were just different, due to cultural. So I do think the "average face" is attractive, but I do not believe the "average" is beautiful for everyone, there is no universal beauty. 2) This average face we see, becomes a stereotype for how we group people. Sometimes, we might make different stereotypes. For example, if most Swiss people see Italians who mostly come from Northern Italy, but most Americans see Italians that come from Southern Italy, they might have a different image in their mind of what an Italian looks like. Sometimes, as in America, Mexican immigrants who come from poor areas, as compared to the wealthy who live in Mexico City or Guadalajara and do not immigrate abroad for economic reasons. The average look in these sub-populations can be strikingly different.

I'm well aware of what you say but logically speaking this would all just be a subjective input output exercise it still doesn't prove anything beyond what has already been widely accepted by people in their everyday pursuits of stereotypes to make life easier for themselves or sometimes harder for that matter.

Also I found that there tends to be more variation in men than women. I talked to an anthropologist about this actually. He believes, it is due to testosterone, men change more in features from childhood than women do, on average (speaking of facial features), men go through a more extreme physical change. He is not sure why this is. I speculated that it could be that certain genes for appearance or that controlled hormones that control gender are on the Y Chromosome or on the X Chromosome.

This might mean that women are less "extreme" because they have two X Chromosomes to balance things out, where as men have one, so the expression is not balanced. It is extreme in one direction or another.

Sounds like a lot of mad science and not enough evidence.

[LongMa]

Your site posts the picture of an averaged out Chinese actor mainland hk taiwan star. My question was basically is it accurate? Someone named Baishe already said it is like taking many rubies and seeing the clarity of each and then averaging them out. Is it as scientifically accurate as this? I don't want to go into thinking that it could be accurate when it isn't. Or put in other words I don't want to say it is inaccurate if it can be proven to be accurate.

It is not meant to be 100% accurate, it is meant to be an approximation.

To say what is "accurate" you first have to define accuracy, which you have not. Accurate according to what measure, established by who, to accomplish what?

There are scientist (real ones, not men) doing this research, the person's who software I used is in Scotland, and she is a Ph.D. working on this as we speak, she believes my approximations are fairly accurate, as she has compared some to her own (which uses many more samples) and many are similar enough where she can see a resemblance, however her definition of accuracy requires a higher threshold, as she is using more images. The conclusion is that using 15-20 random pictures is enough to get a rough approximation of most population, but she questions how accurate it can be in a very phenotypically diverse population (such as Brazil). I share her concerns.

There is also another person currently working on a book, using a similar technique, but he is flying around the world with a team of academic researchers,taking picture at different locations. Surprisingly, ouR "world averages" are very similar. LOL He was shocked by this and is running some numbers to see what the statistical accuracy of mine is compared to him (based on his thresholds) specifically so he can save project money by having to sample less people. LOL

So it is statements like these that I come upon that make me wonder as to the validity of the exercise. Sounds pretty racial if you think about it. If it is not accurate to within a known measurement which would suggest the accuracy of the test then it all becomes subjective. It could in fact just make be making isolated distinctions and confusing them with average.

See above. "racial" as in "ethnic", uhm...is that not the point. LOL The point is to see average national differences in a population, populations that usually correspond with a given ethnic group (at least the way I do it), but common definition it is definitely "racial"/"ethnic". I'm not sure what the issue is, that seems obvious to everyone. If you take objection to this line of research, that is your problem. It is going to happen anyway.

If you find that somehow Chinese/Japanese/Korean seem to have same tastes in women where is the implication for this other than what you have personally resolved to believe that the variation in women are less than that of the men? Sounds pretty sexist and could in fact again just be dinstinctions which are only rooted in the mentality of the individual.

Assuming these pictures were derived by people randomly emailing you their photos for use but otherwise I doubt I can trust the photogenic types where probably real photographers' photos most generally appear via magazine or some such.

I don't "find" anything, that is my opinion based on the fact that a random sample of Chinese and Japanese actresses, produces a composite that looks like sister images, but the actors do not. That is not coincidence. I don't have other samples that look that close together, in my national averages. Not the Chinese and Japanese national (common person) averages, or even the Europeans. The most likely reason (as discussed with experts in this field) is a common and strong preference for female beauty in East Asia, but a much weaker selection pressure for men, or at least a more local preference for males.

I just wanted to see what accuracy there is but so far I can't find any reason to think there is. I just find it strikes me odd that by seeing averaged pictures I can expect to establishing a guideline in telling who is who.


So it is subjective masquerading as objective. I can see how it might be useful for surveying something like average height or average weight because there is accuracy involved and leads to the correction of some very bad mistakes in culture but this exercise is sort of bizarre in trying to see what is perceived as attractive for particular countries. Just my personal take.

Who said I'm trying to tell what is "attractive". I never said that. Where are you getting that from?

That was never the purpose of this. The purpose is specifically to see if there are average differences that can be recognized in different nationalities/ethnic groups. That's it. I don't care who you consider is "more attractive". To me all the faces are attractive to some extent, because the "base" for attractiveness in facial features is symmetry, after that, all else is cultural. What you consider beautiful is not universal, it is first specific to you, and heavily influenced by your cultural background. That being said, I think there is a universal ugly. I have not found anyone to say any of these faces are ugly, and I do not think they are.

I was looking for something else, something I found. In my European averages, many people recognized the French, the Russian (but often confused it with the Ukrainians), they confused the Italian and Greek, but they do looks family similar (because Southern Italy had a heavy Greek input in ancient times), some folks more familiar with anthropology in the region often guessed the Alpine populations (the Austrians and Swiss) but confused them. Many guessed the English and Irish. So I am on to something, even if it is not exact and there is overlap in populations. Many familiar with Africa guessed the Ethiopian immediately as a (African Horner), but one Ethiopian told me they felt it looked a bit more Somali, but definitely close. He didn't think it look like some tribe in Nigerian or Kenya, for example.

This software, to me, allows, us to form stereotypes. We already have stereotypes in our minds about what various nationalities look like, some are more perceptive and realistic than others. We might have a stereotypical Italian look in our minds, because of our experience.

I'm American but I live in Switzerland. In Switzerland most people tend to think of Italians as looking not much different from them, because most of the Italian immigrants came from Northern Italy, right across the border. However, in America many people have the stereotype that Italians look like the mafia TV show Sopranos or like the MTV show "Jersey Shore". Why? Because most Italians that came to the United States were from SOUTHERN Italy. There is definitely a cline in appearance from North to South (on average Northern look more fair in complexion and taller than Southerns). Italians admit this and some Northern Italians say things like "African starts at Naples" LOL To insult the Southern appearance and culture. So this software forms a stereotype, and I think often this stereotype fits with what people think, sometimes it is not. My Swiss friends did not guess the Italian, I'm guessing as it is too 'dark" and Southern looking, but my American friends tended to guess the Italian or Greek composites as "Italian". No surprises there.


Actually, maybe you are not very perceptive, some of us are not, but my Mainland Chinese friends could immediately identify the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese averages (not the actors, but the normal people), every single one of my friends, which equals about 10 people. My Japanese friends (about 5 people), but one person could tell them all apart. It got tricky with the Southeast Asians, but many of them could tell the Vietnamese, but the others, not so much, but I think that has to do with exposure. Often people cannot identify ethnically different people with great accuracy that they did not grow up around (maybe a Afrikaner who grew up in South African can tell local blacks apart, even by tribe, easily, but a person in the Netherlands, thinks all blacks look the same, whereas the black minority in the Netherlands does not think all whites look the same, it has to do with what you are used to seeing. There is research to support this).

I'm well aware of what you say but logically speaking this would all just be a subjective input output exercise it still doesn't prove anything beyond what has already been widely accepted by people in their everyday pursuits of stereotypes to make life easier for themselves or sometimes harder for that matter.

Sounds like a lot of mad science and not enough evidence.

You seem to be "stuck on proof", but there is no "proof". Not really, how to you quantify a stereotype? By what criteria, it will always be subjective. You can get a statistically accurate as possible, that's it. Even if you took sample pictures of every single male in Korea or China between the age of 18-40 and averaged them, you would still need to examine and question the accuracy of the software algorithm, assuming you can find a software with a buffer big enough to process that many datapoints (doubtful). In the end there will still be room for skepticism.

As far as my "genetic argument" I said it was my opinion or theory, I never said there was any proof behind it. No one knows why there is more variation in male appearance than female, but I know I"m not t he only person to notice it, as I've said. Experts in this field, have already seen it, and they can't explain it. There are only so many possibilities though.

I correspond with experts on this, who have also been interviewed for various news outlets a long with me, and they believe my work is "rough" but there is something to it.

Most science does not "prove" anything. Absolute proof in science is called a 'scientific law', there are very few "laws" in science, there are a lot of "theories" which are basically statistical proofs. For example, there is no scientific law that says photons act as waves and fixed particles. However that is the current most excepted theory. Most of quantum mechanics is theory, string theory is almost all untested theory. That is in fact the nature of science.

I did not do this as a scientific exercise, I did this out of curiosity, but experts in this field believe I have mistakenly wondered into some scientific truth, and further research is being done (and has been done, even before I started this). My belief is, to be more accurate, for a given population of 10 million, you need at least 100 random pictures that specifically check the background of the subjects (at least makes sure all 4 of their grandparents are of the ethnicity you are surveying). I don't have anywhere close to that number of pictures or biological accuracy. So take it for what it's worth.

[William O'Chee]

Yah, my first thought seeing the thread was universal beauty and the symmetry of human beauty.

Well perceptions of beauty have long been based on facial symmetry. It is suggested that the basis of this is that impaired genes are often expressed in some form of asymmetry.

[LongMa]

Well perceptions of beauty have long been based on facial symmetry. It is suggested that the basis of this is that impaired genes are often expressed in some form of asymmetry.

I think that is a bit broad.

You are correct about genes, also bad childhood diseases are also thought to cause asymmetry.

I would not use the word "beauty" as much as "attractive" or "not ugly".

For example, Tom Cruise and Denzel Washington have both been found to be very symmetric. Is Denzel Washington going to be considered as "sexy" to the AVERAGE white Australian female as Tom Cruise? I doubt it.

http://www.post-gaze...1108079-115.stm

That has to do with culture. The same thing goes for women. You might have a very symmetrical woman in China who would be considered fairly unattractive by Chinese standards for weighing too much and being too dark.

The point of this exercise was not to determine what nationality/ethnic group was "more beautiful", definitely not. That is another topic really...I simply commented on what I noticed other sayings and what I thought about that in reference to my pictures.

[mohistManiac]

It is not meant to be 100% accurate, it is meant to be an approximation.

To say what is "accurate" you first have to define accuracy, which you have not. Accurate according to what measure, established by who, to accomplish what?

There are scientist (real ones, not men) doing this research, the person's who software I used is in Scotland, and she is a Ph.D. working on this as we speak, she believes my approximations are fairly accurate, as she has compared some to her own (which uses many more samples) and many are similar enough where she can see a resemblance, however her definition of accuracy requires a higher threshold, as she is using more images. The conclusion is that using 15-20 random pictures is enough to get a rough approximation of most population, but she questions how accurate it can be in a very phenotypically diverse population (such as Brazil). I share her concerns.

There is also another person currently working on a book, using a similar technique, but he is flying around the world with a team of academic researchers,taking picture at different locations. Surprisingly, ouR "world averages" are very similar. LOL He was shocked by this and is running some numbers to see what the statistical accuracy of mine is compared to him (based on his thresholds) specifically so he can save project money by having to sample less people. LOL



See above. "racial" as in "ethnic", uhm...is that not the point. LOL The point is to see average national differences in a population, populations that usually correspond with a given ethnic group (at least the way I do it), but common definition it is definitely "racial"/"ethnic". I'm not sure what the issue is, that seems obvious to everyone. If you take objection to this line of research, that is your problem. It is going to happen anyway.



I don't "find" anything, that is my opinion based on the fact that a random sample of Chinese and Japanese actresses, produces a composite that looks like sister images, but the actors do not. That is not coincidence. I don't have other samples that look that close together, in my national averages. Not the Chinese and Japanese national (common person) averages, or even the Europeans. The most likely reason (as discussed with experts in this field) is a common and strong preference for female beauty in East Asia, but a much weaker selection pressure for men, or at least a more local preference for males.





Who said I'm trying to tell what is "attractive". I never said that. Where are you getting that from?

That was never the purpose of this. The purpose is specifically to see if there are average differences that can be recognized in different nationalities/ethnic groups. That's it. I don't care who you consider is "more attractive". To me all the faces are attractive to some extent, because the "base" for attractiveness in facial features is symmetry, after that, all else is cultural. What you consider beautiful is not universal, it is first specific to you, and heavily influenced by your cultural background. That being said, I think there is a universal ugly. I have not found anyone to say any of these faces are ugly, and I do not think they are.

I was looking for something else, something I found. In my European averages, many people recognized the French, the Russian (but often confused it with the Ukrainians), they confused the Italian and Greek, but they do looks family similar (because Southern Italy had a heavy Greek input in ancient times), some folks more familiar with anthropology in the region often guessed the Alpine populations (the Austrians and Swiss) but confused them. Many guessed the English and Irish. So I am on to something, even if it is not exact and there is overlap in populations. Many familiar with Africa guessed the Ethiopian immediately as a (African Horner), but one Ethiopian told me they felt it looked a bit more Somali, but definitely close. He didn't think it look like some tribe in Nigerian or Kenya, for example.

This software, to me, allows, us to form stereotypes. We already have stereotypes in our minds about what various nationalities look like, some are more perceptive and realistic than others. We might have a stereotypical Italian look in our minds, because of our experience.

I'm American but I live in Switzerland. In Switzerland most people tend to think of Italians as looking not much different from them, because most of the Italian immigrants came from Northern Italy, right across the border. However, in America many people have the stereotype that Italians look like the mafia TV show Sopranos or like the MTV show "Jersey Shore". Why? Because most Italians that came to the United States were from SOUTHERN Italy. There is definitely a cline in appearance from North to South (on average Northern look more fair in complexion and taller than Southerns). Italians admit this and some Northern Italians say things like "African starts at Naples" LOL To insult the Southern appearance and culture. So this software forms a stereotype, and I think often this stereotype fits with what people think, sometimes it is not. My Swiss friends did not guess the Italian, I'm guessing as it is too 'dark" and Southern looking, but my American friends tended to guess the Italian or Greek composites as "Italian". No surprises there.


Actually, maybe you are not very perceptive, some of us are not, but my Mainland Chinese friends could immediately identify the Japanese, Korean, and Chinese averages (not the actors, but the normal people), every single one of my friends, which equals about 10 people. My Japanese friends (about 5 people), but one person could tell them all apart. It got tricky with the Southeast Asians, but many of them could tell the Vietnamese, but the others, not so much, but I think that has to do with exposure. Often people cannot identify ethnically different people with great accuracy that they did not grow up around (maybe a Afrikaner who grew up in South African can tell local blacks apart, even by tribe, easily, but a person in the Netherlands, thinks all blacks look the same, whereas the black minority in the Netherlands does not think all whites look the same, it has to do with what you are used to seeing. There is research to support this).




You seem to be "stuck on proof", but there is no "proof". Not really, how to you quantify a stereotype? By what criteria, it will always be subjective. You can get a statistically accurate as possible, that's it. Even if you took sample pictures of every single male in Korea or China between the age of 18-40 and averaged them, you would still need to examine and question the accuracy of the software algorithm, assuming you can find a software with a buffer big enough to process that many datapoints (doubtful). In the end there will still be room for skepticism.

As far as my "genetic argument" I said it was my opinion or theory, I never said there was any proof behind it. No one knows why there is more variation in male appearance than female, but I know I"m not t he only person to notice it, as I've said. Experts in this field, have already seen it, and they can't explain it. There are only so many possibilities though.

I correspond with experts on this, who have also been interviewed for various news outlets a long with me, and they believe my work is "rough" but there is something to it.

Most science does not "prove" anything. Absolute proof in science is called a 'scientific law', there are very few "laws" in science, there are a lot of "theories" which are basically statistical proofs. For example, there is no scientific law that says photons act as waves and fixed particles. However that is the current most excepted theory. Most of quantum mechanics is theory, string theory is almost all untested theory. That is in fact the nature of science.

I did not do this as a scientific exercise, I did this out of curiosity, but experts in this field believe I have mistakenly wondered into some scientific truth, and further research is being done (and has been done, even before I started this). My belief is, to be more accurate, for a given population of 10 million, you need at least 100 random pictures that specifically check the background of the subjects (at least makes sure all 4 of their grandparents are of the ethnicity you are surveying). I don't have anywhere close to that number of pictures or biological accuracy. So take it for what it's worth.

I am just going to generally address the response. I just don't feel that an exercise of this sort for lack of better words constitutes much of being informative even as approximation. Can you imagine if you were to want to find the average of 20 rear ends photographed them and stiched them together it would still simply look like just yet another unique rear end! On many levels you have said that it even serves to overturn people's stereotypes that they have already formed in their minds using true to scale randomness since it is reality which informs real stereotypes and photos on magazines and such do so much to contort the issue of a person's innate subjectivity by masquerading it as some form of objectivity. The critical point you bring up is that even in pursuing stereotypes people do far better in judging for themselves but actually score inefficiently when they are presented with the average faces. Unless you can take a person's dna and create a map which shows just exactly which part of the dna will construct which part of the anatomy and then proceed to tally up the most common ones there is absolutely no way that this kind of theorization about the average of faces can actually work in producing a clear analysis of who from where looks like what which I believe you brought up repeatedly in saying that the algorithms used to process the faces are in question. The most obvious sorts of errors in the data sampling are implied by the way the photo was taken at what angle and with what lighting involved in the set up of the photo the cosmetics involved in relation to the individuals their hair blocking their forehead etc etc. I just think this sort of thing is better left to the antics of showing what kind of babies you and someone else could possibly make.