By Mark G. Zellmer

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INTRODUCTION

In late 2010, Jonah Lehrer told a rather astonishing story of science, or more accurately, error in the scientific method. According to Lehrer, in 1991, Danish zoologist Anders Moller discovered that female barn swallows were more likely to mate with males with symmetrical feathers. In theory, females used symmetrical feathers as a proxy for better male genes. Over the next years, study of symmetrical features became the rage. Not only did further studies of barn swallows confirm the importance of symmetrical features, but the principle was also …