As someone who enjoys watching politics (maybe in the same way that people enjoy watching car wrecks or the show Cops). I have to admit I’m annoyed with the finding discussed in a recent Science Friday piece that quick (in the ms) views of politician’s faces can enable people to predict the winner with 70% accuracy. The accuracy goes down dramatically once people know anything about the candidate.

Thought 1: Does simple face based judgement lead actually do a good job in selecting people for office?
Thought 2: If not, what sort of simple or bizarre rules could one introduce to minimize or eliminate this effect? 🙂