First Impression Post #1

The Mythbusters experiment “Do Beer Goggles Really Exist” asks three people to rate groups of individuals on physical attractiveness; once sober, once buzzed, and once drunk. The groups of individuals changed after each rating for each contestant. Outside participation allowed for each group as a whole to be judged and considered equally attractive. Two out of the three contestants discovered that they find people less attractive at the buzzed state of drinking. However, all the contestants rated higher in the drunken state compared to the sober state.

This experiment as a whole contains little strengths. One is that Mythbusters gathers results from both the male and female genders. From this they could discover whether “beer goggles” can occur for both genders, and based off of their results, they can. Another strength is the rating system. Each contestant only receives 5 seconds to rate every individual photo, which means every choice is instinctual. On the other hand, this experiment contains many weaknesses. Physical attractiveness differs from person to person. This means that one group judged by one person as equally attractive could be seen as more or less attractive by the contestant. Another weakness comes about in the drinking act. The contestants drank to their own knowledge and each person is a different weight with a different tolerance level. What one contestant considers a buzzed state another may consider their drunken state, and vice versa. The biggest weakness, however, was the use of deductive reasoning. Three contestants receiving positive results to beer goggles in an experiment containing many holes such as this one is not enough to deem the myth plausible.