Sunday, January 08, 2006

Cute

Yes, she is.
And, of course, scientists have something to say about why we think so.

... As a species whose youngest members are so pathetically helpless they cannot lift their heads to suckle without adult supervision, human beings must be wired to respond quickly and gamely to any and all signs of infantile desire...

Also interesting (but not related to Molly!):

...The human cuteness detector is set so low, researchers said, that it deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby or a part thereof, and so it ends up including the young of almost every mammalian species; fuzzy-headed birds like Japanese cranes; woolly bear caterpillars; a bobbing balloon; even a colon, hyphen and closed parenthesis typed in succession...

...At the same time ... the rapidity and promiscuity of the cute response makes the impulse suspect, readily overridden by the angry sense that one is being exploited or deceived. "Cute cuts through all layers of meaning and says, Let's not worry about complexities, just love me," said Dutton, who is writing a book about Darwinian aesthetics. "That's where the sense of cheapness can come from, and the feeling of being manipulated or taken for a sucker that leads many to reject cuteness as low or shallow.".

Molly, don't worry, no one feels exploited or deceived by your extreme cuteness.

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