Now that Maureen Dowd has attached her column to it, there can be no doubt that the New York Times most recent attempt to bring evolutionary psychology into the public fold has been a disaster. Yesterday, Nicholas Bakalar reported on a new study that found that ugly kids spent less time being taken care of in the supermarket than good-looking ones. The study itself reads like a high-school sociology project—400 kids were watched at four different shopping malls—and the conlusions that the lead scientist draws are misleading.

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Dr. W. Andrew Harrell, executive director of the Population Research Laboratory at the University of Alberta and the leader of the research team, sees an evolutionary reason for the findings: pretty children, he says, represent the best genetic legacy, and therefore they get more care.

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There's a reason that Frans de Wall, a respected psychology professor who specializes in evolutionary theory, and other researchers who understand evolution doubt that this study has any basis in genetic selection, and instead may have something to do with the fact that attractiveness, as the scientists measured it (sitting in aisles with clipboards and white coats, one presumes), measures nothing more than a combination of wealth and neuroticism. But instead of understanding this, Bakalar gave equal respect to both sides, ending his article with:

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But Dr. Harrell said the importance of physical attractiveness "cuts across social class, income and education."

"Like lots of animals, we tend to parcel out our resources on the basis of value," he said. "Maybe we can't always articulate that, but in fact we do it. There are a lot of things that make a person more valuable, and physical attractiveness may be one of them."
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Which leaves the question open for interpretation by trawling idiot columnists like Dowd, who ends her despicable puff pop-psychology piece with, "But one thing's for sure: it's hard to develop self-esteem when you're hurtling out of the supermarket cart toward the rotisserie oven." And it's hard to understand real, potentially important issues, while our heads are in the sand.