A new study demonstrates how a daring scientist (or a team of daring scientists) can go about advancing a possibly controversial idea. The study, which contains the possibly daring idea, is:
“Weapons Make the Man (Larger): Formidability Is Represented as Size and Strength in Humans,” Daniel M.T. Fessler [pictured here], Colin Holbrook, Jeffrey K. Snyder, PLoS ONE 7(4): e32751.
The authors are at the Department of Anthropology and Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture, University of California Los Angeles.
They write, daringly (and stylishly):
“we hypothesize that size and strength constitute the conceptual dimensions of a representation used to summarize multiple diverse determinants of a prospective foe’s formidability.”
(HT Mo Costandi)