{"id":5149,"date":"2008-12-16T02:18:53","date_gmt":"2008-12-16T07:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=5149"},"modified":"2010-11-30T04:38:20","modified_gmt":"2010-11-30T09:38:20","slug":"scientific-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2008\/12\/16\/scientific-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientific Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Kimmel argues that, for contemporary Americans, science is a superstition.\u00a0 Scientific explanations are comforting and\u00a0often\u00a0accepted without critical thought.\u00a0 The word “natural” rolls off our tongue and frequently gets conflated with “good.”\u00a0 We are obsessed with finding the biological origins of sexual orientation, gender difference, political proclivities<\/a>, happiness… everything.\u00a0 Once a biological basis is found, it is considered the whole explanation.\u00a0 It is as if biology is more fundamental and\u00a0more true than things like culture or society.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our “faith” in science, then, is useful to marketers insofar as they can claim that their product is objectively tested, engineered, or otherwise scientifically sound.\u00a0 This brings me to this Marquardt\u00a0Beauty Analysis website<\/a>, sent in\u00a0by Kiran D.\u00a0 The website explains the science behind beauty.\u00a0 The main page includes a woman’s face overlaid with complex geometric shapes:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nHere is part of the\u00a0mission statement (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

MBA\u00a0is dedicated to proactively researching human visual aesthetics, including its biological and mathematical bases, and to utilizing the results of that research to develop and provide information and technology with which to analyze and positively modify (i.e. improve) human visual attractiveness.<\/p>\n

MBA further is dedicated to tailoring and formatting this technology to specific uses for direct applications in the fields where human attractivenss is a factor or parameter (i.e. those fields interested in human visual attractiveness)\u00a0including medicine, dentistry, psychology, anthropology, biology, anthropometry, the arts, cosmetic makeup, and fashion, as well as for direct use by the individual consumer<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notice how they use scientific buzzwords like “bases,” “formatting,” “applications,” and “parameter.”<\/p>\n

Here is a screenshot showing how they have tried to “scientize” beauty and make their endeavor look like legitimate science:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nOn the page below they claim that their formula works across history (elsewhere they also claim it works across race), so they argue that their science is objective and not culturally or historically contingent:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The website, of course, is not really about research on beauty; it’s a mechanism with which to sell make-up, cosmetic surgery, and other products.\u00a0 Here is a screenshot of the first part of the links page:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The page includes links to L’Oreal, Clinique, Cover Girl, Neutrogena, and Revlon; five “aesthetic surgery” links; three “aesthetic dentistry” links; and a handful of academic-y sounding links.<\/p>\n

Thanks Kiran!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Kimmel argues that, for contemporary Americans, science is a superstition.\u00a0 Scientific explanations are comforting and\u00a0often\u00a0accepted without critical thought.\u00a0 The word “natural” rolls off our tongue and frequently gets conflated with “good.”\u00a0 We are obsessed with finding the biological origins of sexual orientation, gender difference, political proclivities, happiness… everything.\u00a0 Once a biological basis is found, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[664,2089,23703,290],"class_list":["post-5149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biology","tag-gender-beauty","tag-marketing","tag-sciencetechnology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5149"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30117,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5149\/revisions\/30117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}