The Metropolis blog

In his 2005 book  The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists , Neill Strauss described his experiences with the pickup artist community in Los Angeles. He explained the various techniques they use to pick up women — in particular the Mystery Method , which he apparently used to great success. But do pickup artist playbooks actually work? Neill Strauss says they do, but he had a book to sell. The female perspective A couple of female friends have been on the receiving end of pickup artist attempts, and they described the experience as odd. Normally when a guy tries to chat them up, he plays it by ear. He subconsciously reads her body language, gauges his chances, and cuts his losses if there's no interest. But with pickup artists it was different. It felt as though they were reading from a script — which they probably were — and they didn't pick up on the hints. Because they were executing a playbook rather than relying on their instincts, they didn't pay muc...

Conducting experiments on humans isn't always possible. And even when it is possible, it can be time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with ethical and legal issues. So scientists generally do their experiments on a  model species : a species that's similar enough to a human, but cheap and disposable. Any number of fruit flies, lab rats, and guinea pigs have served in this role. One area where scientists would like to carry out experiments on humans is mate selection. What characteristics do men and women care about? What are the trade-offs between those characteristics? And what happens when there are lots of men and women competing with each other - who ends up with who, and why? The best approach for answering these questions — randomised control trials — is nearly impossible, so this is where a model species might come in handy. It would need to be cheap, readily available, and, most importantly, monogamous. Our feathered friends It turns out that many birds, such as pigeo...