All is revealed: trustworthiness is in the beard. Rate yourself on the scale:
I’m all the way to the left, under “Very Trustworthy”, and just ahead of Dan Dennett.
Ladies, I’m sorry you’re left out. This is also an illustration of why you are so mysterious to the clueless male — you aren’t on the scale!
Well, apparently I’m threatening. Maybe I should just trim it some more, to make it look more trustworthy.
Good advice, I’d say. At the very least, I’ll try to avoid Werewolf without overcompensating to Hitler. Or any of the Pencil Thins, for that matter.
I’m just a bit less trustworthy than PZ based on the facial hair, but the fact that I shave my head probably knocks me down a few points.
Yup, nothing like evil Spock’s goatee.
A trustworthy beard is perfect for spreading the soul-destroying theory of evolution.
And now we know why ID isn’t science–no beards and the wrong ones.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
I used to have a curly moustache, which put me, apparently, in the Questionable category. These days, I have an unkempt moustache and something vaguely resembling a goatee (thanks to finals, I’ve largely given up caring about my appearance), which, ironically, apparently makes me much more trustworthy.
And I wonder if there’s any intended political symbolism in the fact that the “Trustworthy” category are on the left of the page…
Third from the left. Any more and I’d feel like I’m wearing a Santa mask.
I applaud their assessments. My daddy’s had a full beard for most of my life and my brother’s had either a full beard or a goatee and mustache for most of the last several years.
Also, I think it’s hilarious that they have “werewolf” in that scale.
Where’s the Fu Manchu? Too disastrous to even be on the list?
Four steps below the Hogan??? I’m miffed!
I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.
Did some one ask for Fu Manchu?
Well, depending on what is meant by kempt, I’m either way over at the left in poopyhead territory (very trustworthy), or else threatening.
What about the clean shaven?
So I’m between questionable and unsavory. Need to start growing a mustache for my goatee.
Third from left as well.
My beard is also maximally trustworthy. So I guess if you are able to reach an agreement with my beard, you can be confident it will never let you down. However, I can in no circumstances be held liable.
I did consider switching to a handlebar moustache and side whiskers when I reached 50, so I could upset expectations by looking like an old fogey then spouting socialism – but it would have been too much trouble to keep up; the real reason for my “trustworthy” beard is that’s it’s minimum maintenance: no shaving, trimming once a month or so. Maybe I’ll do it as a holiday experiment sometime.
Far left. But only until the playoffs are over.
Women aren’t on the scale? My mother in law is somewhere around “werewolf”. Baa-ZING!
/I’m not actually married
//Obviously I post on Fark
Sometimes, I cannot help myself.
Tryin’ To Grow A Chin
I’m all the way at the right… Is that bad?
I always thought the secret to your success was cephalopods. Delicious cephalopods.
I have a goatee, which makes me unsavoury.
It also means I am the evil twin.
Wonder where my goody-two-shoes doppelganger is hiding.
Women’s beards are…elsewhere…and are all very, very trustworthy, just like us. Please email me your bank account number so I can demonstrate how perfectly trustworthy women are.
PZed is next to Osama Bin Laden? I want to see the research on this one.
Pretty good chart, although Friendly Chops should also include “a.k.a. The Lemmy.”
tsg –
ahh… the playoff beard… growing it myself. This is for NHL playoffs, I assume?
Your team of choice?
Since I have a beard similar to PZ’s and Knockgoat’s, I’m equally as trustworthy.
OT, I have some beachfront property in Wyoming that some of you Europeans might be interest in buying. I offer it first to Europeans because Americans and Canadians don’t appreciate the glory that is Wyoming beaches.
Hrm. My beard may be trustworthy, but it doesn’t seem to reflect on me as a person. I guess it has its own life.
Joel W, the clean-shaven cannot be trusted at all. You can’t tell a trustworthy clean-shaven type from one who has been compromised by social and biz pressures. ;)
Often unkempt beard, but then I can be like Bam! Goatee with Moustache (= pretty trustworthy) in a blink of an eye.
“This is also an illustration of why you are so mysterious to the clueless male — you aren’t on the scale!”
A little excess body hair never got in the way of a woman’s success:
http://drvitelli.typepad.com/providentia/2009/10/the-missing-link.html
Mildy (sic) Trustworthy Wilford Brimley type.
But Lenin had a beard…Lincoln had “whiskers.”
As someone who is clean shaven because his beard is eye-burning ugly, I just have to say:
Why cultivate on your face what grows wild on your ass?
So, ummmm…
Ken Ham = trustworthy?
“Based on absolutely no scientific evidence.”
Kudos for honesty…
Randomfactor@28: Marx had a beard. Lenin had a beard. Gabby Hayes(sp?) had whiskers.
Ken Ham has the Amish beard. “Questionable”.
Humm.
I’m a combination of the Colonel Sanders and the Hogan.
So I’m Questionably Unsavory
T. Bruce McNeely #29
Just because you can’t grow a decent beard doesn’t mean every other male has similar failings.
Gay and bald? Evo Morales thinks you ate too much chicken:
The article then goes on to point out the use of hormones in poultry was banned several decades ago.
PZ –
Good point… forgot he lacked the ‘stache.
Part of my failure in crystallography may be down to my lack of a beard to carry around seeds in.
I’m happy to see I come in 3rd from the Trustworthy end.
It’s a pity there is no such scale for females. Unfortunately the only way to learn the true female nature is to marry ’em (which kinda’ defeats the purpose, eh?).
Heathens and infidels. Worse than the wimmen, at least they have an excuse.
Why sez it grows wild?
“This is also an illustration of why you are so mysterious to the clueless male.”
Right there with ya, PZ. It is scary how similar our beards are. I have more hair though.
JC
What causes raving dumbfuckery?
I recently grew a beard, for the second time in my life. It was the full set, well-trimmed… all the way to the left.
I shaved it off. I’m not sure I like being seen as trustworthy. It makes me uneasy. I had fun shaving it off, mind. I did it in stages and included the goatee, the Anton La Vey, the Zappa/Nick Cave, the “Is he gay, conservative or a cop?” and, yes, the Hitler.
I do not look trustworthy with the Hitler. Oh dear me no. But it had to go.
Aw shucks, I’m threatening/dangerous. In my estimate I’m able to grow a much more convincing playoff beard than Sidney Crosby but I’m still in the “patchy” -category. I guess I could point to the fact that I’m still in my early twenties, but too many of my peers are already beard legends for me to draw the age card.
Curse my incompetent follicles, I’m never going to raise to the ranks of Darwin and Bin Laden… oh wait.
-Watoosh
Chicken, also…
I call shenanigans. Jamie Hyneman is in no way unsavory.
(Considering that he works out, there are doubtless times when he’s quite savory indeed. Yum.)
Well… there is, although it focuses on a region slightly further south…
Topic for another day…
Neutral, and makes a decent fried chicken.
Crap, I’m in between the unkempt beard going on werewolf. But at least I don’t have the Hilter going.
Virgin Birth
Isn’t pattern baldness also *positively* correlated with male hormone levels?
Y’ain’t never heard of bearded clams?
I have the third most trustworthy beard on the scale. All right!
Apparently I’m skimming the border of Very Trustworthy and Mildly Trustworthy. Is this something you can put on a CV? Citing the picture of course!
WTF. “Friendly chops”?!? That’s the Imperial And Royal beard of Francis Joseph the First And Last!
And funnily enough, the development of your beard mirrors the development of your brain…
Me, I always wanted to have a full beard, like Daddy and PZ, when I grow up (and yes, laziness is one reason). The “growing up” part just hasn’t happened yet.
Aaaah… the Cretaceous beaches of Wyoming… :-)
I went from all the way on the left to the third spot from the left due to too much trouble coloring all that gray.
Testosterone, yes. No idea about the other androgens.
Is there another kind?
NJ Devils. Although they’ve been playing like they’ve got early tee times tomorrow. They’re down to having to win three in a row to move on against a team that pretty well dominated them in the regular season.
So, at best I can be mildly-trustworthy…
Damn rules about no hair where masks seal, although without those I’d be neutral with a set of friendly chops anyway.
I recently grew a beard – jack.rawlinson
S’funny – I don’t need to grow a beard – I stopped shaving and it grew all by itself!
I’m currently not on the scale, but a fair amount of the time I’m just to the right of Dan Dennett. I can settle for that.
That’s my line:
“Are you growing a beard?”
“No, I’m just not shaving.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One implies effort.”
I’m still working on my Burt Reynolds-moustache. If I only had the facial hair growth I’d go for Lemmy – which should, of course, be off the charts here, ‘coz so is Lemmy. Friendly chops, my arse.
8th from the left, but the site is blocked from work so I can’t tell what they call it and it’s too small to read on PZ’s site.
I guess I’m solidly in the normal trustworthiness level, but I’d recommend taking what I say with grain of salt.
What I do know is that I see very few burnsides around.
Having facial hair is cumbersome–in my opinion–so I just shave everything.
Yeah I’m trustworthy!!!
but how come I don’t have the chest hair to accompany it?
Eating chicken is easier.
OTOH, my maternal grandfather had “The Handlebar” and he was far better than “questionable,” so the chart has its limits. :p
My “truthworthy” beard can be used to mislead….
Same here, except I trim a bit more often.
Oh, and it also feeds me by collecting crumbs from previous meals.
Burt Reynolds is more trustworthy than Abe Lincoln, and Colonel Sanders is above Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (aka Amish Al)?
I jus’ dunno ’bout this…
i always thought i was pretty trustworthy, but i guess i need to upgrade from my patchy scruffy monthly beard to a burt reynolds for at least a few days…
but really, i don’t see why shaving my chin and cheeks should invert my trustworthiness…
I bounce between “Very Trustworthy” and “Unsavory” on a regular basis. I can’t grow a decent beard, but I can grow a goatstache/vandyke… but sometimes I just want a chin tuft instead.
(In case you’re wondering: compare this with this.)
So Dennett = Darwin. That is standard beard lore.
But may I suggest that the late philosopher David Lewis ought to be considered the academic Gandalf. His beard looks remarkably like Gandalf the Grey’s beard. And since he is a modal realist, his white-bearded counterpart can be put through a modal black hole to play Gandalf the White. (Sorry, I’ll try to keep my metaphysics jokes to myself in future.)
Don’t believe me? Lewis’ beard is mighty:
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pictures/l-r/lewis,david/lewisportrait.jpg
There is of course the issue of programmers:
http://www.codethinked.com/post/2007/12/06/The-Programmer-Dress-Code.aspx
I have a rough hypothesis: strictness of type system is correlated to beard length.
Notice how Guido van Rossum, creator of Python, has no beard at all. Nor does Larry Wall, creator of Perl. Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of Ruby, has a wispy little beard. Gerald Jay Sussman – co-inventor of Scheme – no beard. Hal Abelson – of Abelson & Sussman SICP fame, Logo – no beard. PHP has a type system that makes me rage and Rasmus Lerdorf has barely any beard at all.
Compare that to Dennis Ritchie, K&R, James Gosling (Java), Bjarne Strostrup (C++), Robin Milner and Roger Hindley (of Hindley-Milner type inference fame) and Philip Wadler (one of the designers of Haskell).
There are two annoying exceptions I’ve found thus far: Simon Peyton Jones (Haskell, developer of GHC) and Martin Odersky (Scala, Pizza, GJ, javac).
I’d grow a beard, except that it would pretty much render my chromatophores useless.
And in reverse.
I’m third most trustworthy. Not bad.
The whole thing must change over time, though. Oliver Hardy had the Hitler ‘stache and he was thought of as rather trustworthy. And, say, fifteen years ago, the circle beard (goatee + mustache) was the hight of evil.
I am all the way over to the left, but then I read the footnote that this is not based on science, so I may not be as trustworthy as the chart would indicate.
Since it’s not based on science, does that mean it’s based on religion?
MikeM
I don’t know where I rank. I have a full beard and mustache, but I keep the sides and mustache trimmed somewhat short with a philosopher length goatee on the chin. So.. pretty trustworthy. But my head hair falls below the shoulder blades. So.. not so trustworthy?
And I have Andy Rooney eyebrows.
I have beard ADD.
http://arthropoda.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/where-do-you-fall-on-the-beard-spectrum/
MikeM: Could be politics. They have Hitler at the far right. And PZ at the far left, so . . .
I’m also totally trustworthy. And clean-shaven dudes are clearly so untrustworthy that they’re off the scale.
Aww, apparently my boyfriend is threatening with his unkempt homeless guy beard.
(Though he did go clean-shaven last Halloween to dress up as Daria. Which was awesome.)
I’m in at No. 3, with the standard moustache-goatee configuration.
Although I wonder if it’s the same with a shaved head…
I tried a handlebar design
My Fu Manchu was real fine
My Ronald Colman made ’em blink
My Pancho Villa made ’em think
But when I trimmed ’em real small
My Jewish friends would never call
I guess #3 is the closest match for my beard, tho I do not take responsibility for the consequences if you describe me as having a “goatee” within my hearing distance.
I had to magnify the page to see what was third from the right and only found a werewolf. I guess that’s the right place for one.
I first thought it was a cat, in which case it should have been in a separate category, far to the right of Hitler.
And the Osama beard is in the correct place for trustworthiness. You can trust him to make the wrong choice.
I’m a bit surprised that the “cop mustache” is considered trustworthy.
“And I wonder if there’s any intended political symbolism in the fact that the “Trustworthy” category are on the left of the page…”
No, it’s because we read from left to right, and you can’t start with Hitler. It would be like eating desert first. If the desert was habanero cheesecake.
Meanwhile, if I were to let my facial hair grow, I would end up with a combination patchy/molester mustache/neck beard. And one rather hirsute mole to the right of my mouth. On the whole, I think I’d be better off with the Hitler toothbrush.
Beardy cuttlefish?
On second thoughts, it would
Be most endearing
Another Nr. 3
I rank somewhere between ‘questionable’ and ‘unsavory’ what with my goatee and all. :(
KJ
Interesting scale, except that there’s a very fine difference between the Wilford Brimley and the Handlebar, and they’re separated by half the chart. One is considered mildly trustworthy, and the other questionable. Where does Sam Elliot fall on this scale?
I do not have a beard. However, Mr. ODS does have the unsavory “chin tuft” which I absolutely hate.
It looks like sculpted pubes, is what I’m saying. YOUR FACE IS NOT A PORN STAR!
I’m currently growing a goatee for the next play I’m in (The Tempest; while I’m technically old enough to be the father to the character playing my son, I don’t look it. Sadly, my facial hair is mostly translucent so I’ve actually got to dye it so that anyone more than three free away thinks I’ve got more than a second-rate soul patch.
Oh, and the author of the article obviously isn’t a Douglas Adams fan, since if he was he’d know that the technical name for the ‘Amish beard’ is a scethrog, as noted in The Deeper Meaning of Liff*.
*And possibly the earlier The Meaning of Liff; I wouldn’t know ’cause I’ve only ever read Deeper.
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=258
Bottom strip.
Never found a yardstick that could accurately measure a woman anyways.
tommorris #75,
John Backus seems to have been beardless as well.
I don’t like beards of any kind, or stubble. I’m squeamish about chest hair too.
I’d rather date a man who can’t grow facial hair at all.
PZ boasts, “I’m all the way to the left, under “Very Trustworthy”.”
Judging by the graphics and your mug shot you appear to be correct. By similar judgment (eyes left!)* it also appears as though you are my right hand man. Thanks, pardner.
What a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup we all live in.
*since the beard to the right of you looks more like mine than any of the others. what? no, your other left
Knockgoats @ 14:
You could always go for the Isaac Asimov look. Like you, I have a very trustworthy beard as well. IIRC, the cop moustache was know as the porn star special at one time as well. The whole shaving thing seems, well, barber-ous.
They’ve got to be joking — neck beard is not a sign of trustworthiness/lack thereof. It’s the sign of dementia, the inability to shave low enough to actually shave your face clean.
I was full beard (trustworthy) for years, then I shaved for a girlfriend, and have stayed mostly clean shaven since then, although I always have sideburns (neutral) and occasionally mutton chops (almost questionable), but sometimes I might qualify for a full beard again if I’m just lazy and haven’t shaved for awhile.
Eating chicken is easier.
Shaving chicken is ridiculous.
That explains why nobody reads my blog: I’m not even on the scale, with a mo and a soul patch. Nobody trusts me…
Has anyone noticed that the very trustworthy philosopher’s beard bears a striking resemblance to Osama bin Laden’s?
Worse still if you leave it too long between a trip to the barber your very trustworthy full beard becomes an unkempt threatening beard.
Sobering to think the only thing between your freedom and going to Guantanamo is a good haircut.
That’s broadly what happens to me, except I leave out the barber—unless a trip once every c.20 years counts. (Seriously! I was last at a barber in c.2000 to raise money for Amnesty International, and that was the first time I was at a barber since the early 1980s, which was at my parent’s insistence before interviewing for a job.)
I’m another one for “mustache & goatee”, i.e. between “Mildy” (sic) and Very Trustworthy… but what’s questionable about the handlebar!? And while “clean shaven” is understandably not under consideration in the chart, why is “five o’clock shadow” omitted?
More research required, methinx. (At least the author concedes it’s based on no evidence whatsoever.)
I come out as very trustworthy too.
Someone asked about the clean shaven. Where do you think the term “bare-faced liar” comes from?
I think the chart is pretty much right on, except I find goatees less trustworthy than it does. Also, I don’t think there would be anything wrong with mutton chops–they’re out of style this century, but they’ll be back any time now–and I think an unkept beard can look cool.
I love beards on men and wonder why so many women make their partners shave. My dad and my husband have beards (full beard). Also, so does Lieutenant Riker on Star Trek. Need I say more?
Well I will: if your dad doesn’t have a beard, you’ve got two mums.
Hm. I’m usually the third one from the end, but sometimes I’m the third one from the end.
I’ve had pretty much the same ‘full beard’ for 37 years with a couple of brief tries at the Col. Sanders and the Hogan look. I don’t know if people think I look trustworthy but the Evolve fish and the FSM insignia on my car probably make me a bit less trustworthy in the eyes of the local biblecrats.
I’m not on the scale. I have a standard mustache (full well trimmed) and a small soul patch. Oh woe is me, uncategorised. Never mind, at least I have some facial hair.
Full beard and handlebar moustache – I’m very trustworthy and questionable. I guess it’s questionable how much you should trust me…