Hurrah! Bad Science exposes that rubbish about blue is for boys and pink for girls

[McEdam]

Irritatingly can't find this in Guardian online but bless Ben Goldacre, he uncovers the truth behind that stupid study claiming evolutionary reasons behind blue is for boys this week. And points out that before the 1940s, it was the other way round - baby boys were dressed in pink, seen as more masculine as a diluted version of red.

He points out the study measured preference, not discriminatory ability - so it didn't show women are any better at finding red berries as the authors claimed. And lots of other goods stuff, too.

[Monkeytrousers]

Say whatever makes you feel better. If you can't understand the difference between arguing for something and simply having an argument that is none of my business and certainly doesn't make me what to engage any further. And simply becasue I said 'you' in that sentence still doesn't make it personal.

This was posted by Goldacre recently;

"Public release date: 20-Aug-2007
[ Print Article | E-mail Article | Close Window ]

Contact: Nancy Wampler
[email protected]
617-386-2121
Cell Press
Girls prefer pink, or at least a redder shade of blue

A study in the August 21st issue of Current Biology, a publication of Cell Press, reports some of the first conclusive evidence in support of the long-held notion that men and women differ when it comes to their favorite colors. Indeed, the researchers found that women really do prefer pink?or at least a redder shade of blue?than men do.

?Although we expected to find sex differences, we were surprised at how robust they were, given the simplicity of our test,? said Anya Hurlbert of Newcastle University, UK. In the test, young adult men and women were asked to select, as rapidly as possible, their preferred color from each of a series of paired, colored rectangles.

The universal favorite color for all people appears to be blue, they found. ?On top of that, females have a preference for the red end of the red-green axis, and this shifts their color preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks and lilacs the most preferred colors in comparison with others,? she said.

Overall, the differences between men and women were clear enough that the seasoned researchers can now usually predict the sex of a participant based on their favorite-color profile.

To begin to address whether sex differences in color preference depend more on biology or culture, the researchers tested a small group of Chinese people amongst the other 171 British Caucasian study participants. The results among the Chinese were similar, Hurlbert said, strengthening the idea that the sex differences might be biological. The explanation might go back to humans? hunter-gatherer days, when women?the primary gatherers?would have benefited from an ability to key in on ripe, red fruits.

?Evolution may have driven females to prefer reddish colors?reddish fruits, healthy, reddish faces,? Hurlbert said. ?Culture may exploit and compound this natural female preference.?

She said another way to separate ?nature versus nurture? when it comes to favorite colors will be to test the preferences of infants. The researchers have plans to modify the color-choice test for use in young babies and hope to have some answers on that front soon.

About the universal preference for blue, ?I can only speculate,? said Hurlbert. ?I would favor evolutionary arguments again here. Going back to our ?savannah? days, we would have a natural preference for a clear blue sky, because it signaled good weather. Clear blue also signals a good water source.?

The researchers include Anya C. Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle Univesity in Newcastle upon Tyne,UK.

Hurlbert and Ling: ?Biological components of sex differences in colour preference.? Publishing in Current Biology, 21 August 2007, R623-625. www.current-biology.com"

End of.

[starfish2]

McEdam, I completely agree with you.
I also agree with you, dundeemarmalade.
I am positive that the 'not personal' thing is not completely true.
And the matter was only deemed settled by 'a professor in ev psych at the uni'. Hm .
Good science needs good statistics, but no amount of good statistics can turn bad science into good science. Or a bad question/premise into a good one.
Nighty night.

[dundeemarmalade]

Hmm. not sure about the 'not personal' thing!
MT- I assure you that I really don't have a limited perspective about what science is, I just think that you should be more specific about what you mean when you use the word 'science'. Science is not, in and of itself, a 'method'. Science is a broad area of study.
It is utterly staggering to have it suggested that there are no other methods that 'matter as much as science' in studying the human mind. Tell that to Plato.

I think you'll find that there is a considerable body of philosophical consideration of the old mind/body debate- although as not been held by 'scientists' it maybe counts for nought. The fact that in your own discipline this debate has been 'settled' doesn't mean it isn't still going on in other areas. This is not the place for an extended discussion of the issue, but if you're interested I can try and dig out some references.

I did read your posts properly, and I'm not putting words into your mouth - I am merely trying to interpret your arguments and explore their implications. I think you'll find that establishing clarity is in fact a fundamental guiding principle of all knowledge-acquisition and not solely the province of 'science'. And we were talking about opinions and the interpretation of their occasionally confusing expression (on all sides), rather than 'facts', were we not?

I could, of course, say that you have done exactly the same thing to me- I was quoting from another Goldacre article that itself referred to 'races': if you're saying that race is socially constructed, then we do at least agree on that, but I'd be reluctant to put words into your mouth! I mentioned the earlier article because there seemed to be some similarities in the reported process of reasoning- did I say that I thought that the were the SAME? I think not, I was merely pointing out that the direction of causation in BOTH seems to be flawed: setting arguments out in this format is one way of seeing whether an argument stands up. And the whole point about the problems with the colour preference research was NOT that they seem to have found a preference for certain colours in men and women, but that the inferences drawn from these results can be challenged on a number of counts and should not have been presented as the discovery of something new about human evolution - as you noted yesterday evening, more research is needed.

I don't think people have been dissing ev theory per se- at least I haven't tried to, and wouldn't want to- but I do think it's important to establish clarity about what can be hypothesised about and tested and what, as I think has already been concluded, is only speculation.

[McEdam]

The hostility is directed towards crass assumptions and speculation that is not justified by the evidence.

[Monkeytrousers]

It has been a robust debate - a good one - all the better for it not being personal

I have a whisky and lemonade.

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[Monkeytrousers]

Oh god I don't know, Pruners. Shall we retire this debate without prejudice?

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[Monkeytrousers]

Well I just spoke to a professor in ev psych at the uni and he said that he thought the hypotheses weren't 'totally mad' as colour vision is known to be affected by foraging patterns in other species but that it does look like there was some differences in preferences between British and Chinese and "so I guess
you would need more cultures before you could conclude anything firmly."

More study then, as you would expect.

FWIW, I have no idea what all the hostility is to evolutionary theory and not say, homeopathy, the biggest con going.

[Monkeytrousers]

Dear me..

For so many people professing to like Goldacre?s debunking of bad science, it?s quite astonishing that so many, when you get down to it, don?t seem to understand or have any respect it.

Dundeemarmalade ? ?Are you REALLY saying that the scientific method is the ONLY way that the human mind can be studied? This is an awfully limited perspective, isn't it? And doesn't it assume rather a lot about the sameness of mind and brain/body?:

There are other ways of studying the human mind ? but none that matter as much as science. I?m curious, what other methods would you put on the same level as science?

And as for limited perspectives, that seems only be be peoples limited perspective of what science actually is.

What is assuming a lot about ?the sameness of mind and brain/body? ? they are all the ?same? in that they biological systems. Where is the beef there?

As for you assuming and putting words into my mouth about what I think is a valid perspective, you might try reading my posts properly. I was actually going to defend anthropology as a means of gathering data about culture ? the kind that are used in conjunction with evolutionary perspectives. It is not me that cast aspersions on other forms of data collection. Here is another tenet of science ? get you facts right before attempting to ridicule someone.

You seriously think that someone asserting that races (actually races do not exist, a basic problem with the theory) can be placed up and down a scale of retardation, purely because of the physiological expressions of that race might resemble those humans with a chromosomal disorder that gives rise to learning difficulties is the SAME is saying women might like pink as a colour more than men? Please, enlighten me.

If anyone would care to read the paper I posted below, they might stop themselves falling into such fallacious territory.

Niceglasses! Hi. Defo lets meet for a drink ? I need one too after this palarva! And I still have your eyeshadows! (were they pink? ). I did see the piece and it was great ? a real example of bad science.

Anna, thanks for the backup mate. That is exactly what I?m saying.

Aloha, thabnk you for clarifying the argument. The study was called ?Biological components of sex differences in color (sic) preferences?.

People seem to be thinking that I am defending the hypothesis when I have no idea if it is correct or not. What I am defending is the right for this study to take place and defending evolutionary psychology against the charge that it is a pseudoscience.

And people need to realise that this study will be subject to falsification like any other scientific paper ? falsification by experts not laypersons reading all sorts of false political motives into the paper. And it it actully a biology paper, not a psychology one. Very bad form Goldacre!

I?m not sure how a foray into art history is helpful though to be honest ? that is another whole complex area of what colours stood for what because they were expensive to produce and hence status symbols for the portraitee (if such a word exists )

None of us (especially me) are in a position to say it is a purely cultural phenomenon ? thought were such a cultural phenomenon arises is another interesting question and leads further down the line of history ? which is all an evolutionary perspective is ? just a long way down.

Pruners ? genes are affected by environments. Read the Selfish Gene.

?.Evolutionary linguistics...now there's a topic.... (actually pretty interesting but it's never going to be more than just-so stories). Erm, so have you actually read the work of Steven Pinker then? Your assertion that evolutionary science relys on ?just so? stories is just that, an assertion, and opinion, no more.

Starfish ? To say science is right, or the best way, isn?t saying that others aren?t complementary. ALL study is valid as long as at adheres to strict controls and the basic premise of falsification. Just how many logical fallacies do we have to deal with in this debate? What on earth are you getting angry about? Is that going to make the debate more logical, thanks for the contribution? Please everyone pile in with their particular emotion and to hell with it!


Thank you Catissleepy, for that clarification. Not so malign at all, is it?

Right, I?ve just printed it up and am off to read it. Sorry about the frigging essay but I have to answer my charges.

[CatIsSleepy]

agree aloha- butthey don't make much of the blue preference in the paper itself

"Thus, while both males and females share a natural preference for ?bluish? contrasts, the female preference for ?reddish? contrasts further shifts her peak towards the reddish region of the hue circle: girls' preference for pink may have evolved on top of a natural, universal preference for blue. We speculate that this sex difference arose from sex-specific functional specializations in the evolutionary division of labour. "


probably because they can't come up with any exciting speculative explanation!

[starfish2]

'The inability to see red is a male-linked genetic disorder'...

When said this way it does make me wonder about red being the Chinese lucky colour...

[aloha]

Yes, you are right cat. Of course.
However, the bit about the preference for blue being universal and overwhelming is interesting, and very under-reported!

[CatIsSleepy]

i agree pruners not much attempt made to look cross-culturally!

[aloha]

The inability to see red is a male-linked genetic disorder though, which does add weigh to theory that the ability to see and a preference for red tones is more important to females than males, I suppose.

[CatIsSleepy]

aloha
"The researchers, Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University, said that despite the evidence for differences between the sexes in terms of visual skills, there was no conclusive proof of sex differences in colour preference. "

this is in the first bit of abstract setting the background for their results.
ie no evidence to date

they then go on to the bit I quoted in my other post

ie 'Here we report a robust, cross-cultural sex difference in color preference'

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[Anna8888]

There was a phrase in the Economist article on this subject (I no longer have it to hand) which said something along the lines of "anatomical gender is binary" ie you are either a man or a woman, but "psychological gender is on a spectrum".

[aloha]

This is from the Independent, and what I find interesting is that BOTH men and women prefer blue to any other colour and that the study does NOT claim to prove a colour based sex difference.

"The researchers, Anya Hurlbert and Yazhu Ling of Newcastle University, said that despite the evidence for differences between the sexes in terms of visual skills, there was no conclusive proof of sex differences in colour preference.

"This fact is perhaps surprising given the prevalence and longevity of the notion that little girls differ from boys in preferring pink," they say in the academic journal Current Biology.

Dr Hurlbert recruited 208 people aged between 20 and 26 for the study and subjected them to a battery of tests to determine their colour preferences. A substantial minority - 37 - of the group were born and raised in China, which allowed the scientists to compare the preferences of people from two different cultures.

As fast as they could, each young man and woman had to choose their preferred colour from a series of paired, coloured rectangles shown on a computer screen. The universally preferred colour for both sexes was blue, but females also showed a distinct preference for reddish colours, Dr Hurlbert said.

"Although we expected to find sex differences, we were surprised at how robust they were, given the simplicity of the test," Dr Hurlbert said.

"On top of the universal preference for blue, females have a preference for the red end of the red-green axis, and this shifts their colour preference slightly away from blue towards red, which tends to make pinks and lilacs the most preferred colours in comparison with others."

When the two scientists compared the colour preferences of the white British participants with the men and women brought up in China, the same sex differences emerged, with Chinese females again showing a clear preference for pink. This suggests that, whatever is the underlying explanation for the differences in colour preferences between men and women, it seems to be biological rather than cultural, Dr Hurlbert said.

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[CatIsSleepy]

from the abstract of the original paper in question

"Here we report a robust, cross-cultural sex difference in color preference, revealed by a rapid paired-comparison task. Individual color preference patterns are summarized by weights on the two fundamental neural dimensions that underlie color coding in the human visual system. We find a consistent sex difference in these weights, which, we suggest, may be linked to the evolution of sex-specific behavioral uses of trichromacy. "

ie they were testing whether colour preference exists
then speculating as to origins of preference

does that help....?

[starfish2]

I professionally and personally object to anyone claiming that they have 'the right perspective to study' anything . From my professional experience (which I understand is rather limited) it is clear that the more different techniques you have to study a particular system, the better picture you can build of it.

I am not a biochemist, I am a physicist.

Pruners nicely put the difference between biology (isn't all biology a consequence of evolution?) and evolutionaly phsychology...

BTW, my personal favourite colour as a child was blue. I am a girl.

[filthymindedvixen]

I am allergic to pink. It makes me puke. I like red lots though. And green. And yellow, but not to wear.

As a little girl my favourite colour was orange. I am sure girls today like pink because they learn very qucikly that pink is defined a 'girly' colour. And that's all there bloody well is avaialable to wear anyway

(Actually my pink aversion has a lot to do with a certain medicine for worms ccalled pripsin, which was mixed with milk and was 'raspberry' flavoured. It was so disgusting I can't tell you. And I used to throw up after having to take it...)

[Pruners]

Message withdrawn

[fortunecookie]

No, no. I am not a pink person. Dd was as likely to wear yellow or blue or white.