Structure-Function
• Pseudoscience
Mark Ainley gives face reading the highfalutin title - Structure-Function:
But Barry Beyerstein, a psychology professor at Simon Fraser University, says Mr. Ainley is just giving ancient superstition a New Age spin. He says face reading falls under the rubric of “sympathetic magic,” which also includes astrology, handwriting analysis, palmistry and homeopathy.
“That’s the belief that like begets like. So if you have a piggish face, you are a slovenly, brutish person,” Prof. Beyerstein says. “If you have forward-slanting writing, you’re a forward-thinking person. It’s all based on superstition, and it simply doesn’t work.”
Mr. Ainley took a one-week face-reading course at Three in One Concepts in Burbank, Calif. …
One week to master all of human psychology. What a bargain.