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Opinion & Analysis |
Thursday, December 11th, 2008 |
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It's an unfair world - the reds have itAlso at http://tinyurl.ie/red OPINION: Academics dress up inquiries into winning boxers and ladies in red as scientific research writes Tony Allwright . AMONG THE numerous non-accomplishments of president-elect Barack Obama is his lack of authorship of a single academic work despite having been a law professor. When I pointed this out on September 10th, Daragh McDowell berated me next day saying this was only because he was, in effect, too busy doing other things, as if ordinary professors have too much time on their hands. Yet what other universities appoint professors unless they have already accumulated a body of academic work, to which they are then expected to add? Maybe Prof Obama could simply find nothing interesting to research. For it must sometimes be hard for professors and would-be professors to dream up worthy subjects to publish in academic journals. This might explain research undertaken in recent times by, for example, Russell Hill and Robert Barton of Durham University, Martin Attrill of Plymouth University, Andrew Elliot and Daniela Niesta of New Yorks University of Rochester. What they have in common is that they all conducted research into . . . the colour red. The brainboxes of Durham and Plymouth universities revealed that sportsmen clad in red tend to do better than those in other colours, whether in team sports such as rugby (think Munster) and football or in one-on-one combat sports. The combat theory was tested at the Athens Olympics in 2004. Contestants in four combat sports - boxing, taekwondo, Graeco- Roman wrestling, and freestyle wrestling - were randomly assigned red or blue outfits. In every case, those wearing red won significantly more fights. This academic conclusion enhanced the professorshipism of the authors by getting published in the much respected scientific journal Nature , twice. For team sports, the academics selected professional soccer in England. Over thousands of league matches played from 1947 to 2003 between the country's top 68 clubs, teams with red strips (such as Manchester United or Liverpool) won the league 60 per cent of the time, compared with only 20 per cent for those in blue (such as Chelsea), despite more teams wearing blue. But their advantage would disappear when the red teams wore a different colour, such as for away games. The learned gentlemen who came up with this will score their own professorial goals when their findings get published in the Journal of Sports Sciences . Meanwhile, the Rochester geniuses looked at red from a different angle. How good is it as a man-magnet? Calling it a psychological experiment to make it sound important and scientific, they showed an assortment of lusty men photographs of women framed by a border of either red or white, and of women wearing red clothes and then another colour. In all cases, red did the trick - men love ladies in red. In red, the little minxes were more likely to attract a good-looking guy, to receive an invitation and be treated to a more expensive date. It might have been easier to simply ask Chris de Burgh about ladies in red, but I guess research is more fun if you dress up pretty girls in different colours and invite them on expensive dates. Moreover, a crooner would not have enhanced their careers, whereas their findings were published recently as Romantic Red: Red enhances men's attraction to women in the very impressive-sounding Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . You can make your own judgment about the erudition of this periodical from some gems in the same edition : What happens if we compare chopsticks with forks? , Two ways to be complex and why they matter , and Man, I feel like a woman . So why are men so turned on by red? When humans get angry their skin reddens due to increased blood flow, whereas with fear we blanch. Moreover, animal studies show that red in males is a signal of dominance. Hence in human competitive situations, redness stimulates deep-rooted aggression and dominance, whereas non-red players are pale, trembling and defensive (I exaggerate). As for the ladies, research shows that male primates are more attracted to females who put on a red display (hence those embarrassing rear ends). That's why female baboons and chimpanzees redden when nearing ovulation - to give the boys the come-on. But now that monkeys have evolved into humans, it's sexy red dresses that the girls employ for the same purpose. The research confirms what women have long suspected - in the sexual realm men are not the thoughtful sophisticates that they (we) imagine, but are consumed by primitive animal-like predilections. Since the universities that unearthed all this wealth of information are largely bankrolled or subsidised by public funds, is it not heart-warming to learn in today's straitened times that they are winning such value for taxpayers' money? Thanks to the academics' selfless research, we now know beyond all doubt that wearing red gives any male or female an unsporting opportunity to score, whether in games or love. But this situation, like conservative talk radio in the US, is obviously unfair. The US Democrats are right; we need a "Fairness Doctrine" to cut back on redness. So here is a suggestion for law professor Obama in his spare presidential time in order to plump up his empty professorial credentials. He should research the legal implications of allowing a red elite to continue selfishly to monopolise more than its fair share of red, with a view to spreading the wealth, sorry the redness, around. Munster apart, this is surely hope and change we can all believe in. • Tony Allwright is an engineering and industrial safety consultant, and blogs on www.tallrite.com/blog.htm © 2008 The Irish Times
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More on this subject in a blog post entitled “Red Turns Men On” |
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Gift Idea |
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Good to report that as at
FREED AT LAST, |
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What I've recently
But it's not
entirely honest in its subtle pro-Palestinian bias, and therefore needs
to be read in conjunction with an antidote, such as See detailed review +++++
BP's ambitious CEO John Browne expanded it through adventurous acquisitions, aggressive offshore exploration, and relentless cost-reduction that trumped everything else, even safety and long-term technical sustainability. Thus mistakes accumulated, leading to terrifying and deadly accidents in refineries, pipelines and offshore operations, and business disaster in Russia. The Macondo blowout was but an inevitable outcome of a BP culture that had become poisonous and incompetent. However the book is gravely compromised by a litany of over 40 technical and stupid errors that display the author's ignorance and carelessness. It would be better to wait for the second (properly edited) edition before buying. As for BP, only a wholesale rebuilding of a new, professional, ethical culture will prevent further such tragedies and the eventual destruction of a once mighty corporation with a long and generally honourable history. Note: I wrote
my own reports on Macondo +++++
A horrific account of:
More details on my blog here. +++++
After recounting a childhood of convention and simple pleasures in working-class Aberdeen, Mr Urquhart is conscripted within days of Chamberlain declaring war on Germany in 1939. From then until the Japanese are deservedly nuked into surrendering six years later, Mr Urquhart’s tale is one of first discomfort but then following the fall of Singapore of ever-increasing, unmitigated horror. After a wretched journey Eastward, he finds himself part of Singapore’s big but useless garrison. Taken prisoner when Singapore falls in 1941, he is, successively,
Chronically ill, distraught and traumatised on return to Aberdeen yet disdained by the British Army, he slowly reconstructs a life. Only in his late 80s is he able finally to recount his dreadful experiences in this unputdownable book. There are very few first-person eye-witness accounts of the the horrors of Japanese brutality during WW2. As such this book is an invaluable historical document. +++++
This is a rattling good tale of the web of corruption within which the American president and his cronies operate. It's written by blogger Michele Malkin who, because she's both a woman and half-Asian, is curiously immune to the charges of racism and sexism this book would provoke if written by a typical Republican WASP. With 75 page of notes to back up - in best blogger tradition - every shocking and in most cases money-grubbing allegation, she excoriates one Obama crony after another, starting with the incumbent himself and his equally tricky wife. Joe Biden, Rahm Emmanuel, Valerie Jarett, Tim Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Steven Rattner, both Clintons, Chris Dodd: they all star as crooks in this venomous but credible book. ACORN, Mr Obama's favourite community organising outfit, is also exposed for the crooked vote-rigging machine it is. +++++
It is really just a collation of amusing little tales about surprising human (and occasionally animal) behaviour and situations. For example:
The book has no real message other than don't be surprised how humans sometimes behave and try to look for simple rather than complex solutions. And with a final anecdote (monkeys, cash and sex), the book suddenly just stops dead in its tracks. Weird. ++++++
It's chapters are organised around provocative questions such as
It's central thesis is that economic development continues to be impeded in different countries for different historical reasons, even when the original rationale for those impediments no longer obtains. For instance:
The author writes in a very chatty, light-hearted matter which makes the book easy to digest. However it would benefit from a few charts to illustrate some of the many quantitative points put forward, as well as sub-chaptering every few pages to provide natural break-points for the reader. +++++
The author was a member of Britain's V Force, a forerunner of the SAS. Its remit was to harass Japanese lines of command, patrol their occupied territory, carryout sabotage and provide intelligence, with the overall objective of keeping the enemy out of India. Irwin is admirably yet brutally frank, in his descriptions of deathly battles with the Japs, his execution of a prisoner, dodging falling bags of rice dropped by the RAF, or collapsing in floods of tears through accumulated stress, fear and loneliness. He also provides some fascinating insights into the mentality of Japanese soldiery and why it failed against the flexibility and devolved authority of the British. The book amounts to a very human and exhilarating tale. Oh, and Irwin describes the death in 1943 of his colleague my uncle, Major PF Brennan. +++++ Other books here |
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After
48
crackling, compelling, captivating games, the new World Champions are,
deservedly,
England get the Silver,
No-one can argue with
Over the competition, |
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