Dear Don:

I spent the last hour thinking how to comment your post. I completly agree
with the last part. Science truth is only timely valid. I totally agree
with phsichology methodology as a science. (the 2what" and "why" stuff is
brilliant). But, sorry, I think that Design is inside what we could call
cultural studies, so "folk science" could be more important than "real"
science. What some of us have been (lay) discussing is the cultural power
of science defined concepts. Sorry, but some of us just believe that
science is just a discourse, part of the multiple human discourses and if
we overlap this assertion we will be at risk of leaving pertinent stuff
out. I sympathise with your position. A trained phsychologist must feel
some bone twists while watching discussions by lay persons about
cognition. I feel the same when phsychologists argue about drawing and,
more generally, about pictures. The problem is that humans are compeled,
at a certain level, to try to understand or argue about something more
that science has defined. In fact, like Kant would have said, we are just
trying to create problems whithout solutions.

The arguments about beauty and attraction and your findings are just
confirming the Origin of Venus's Myth: Time killed the Sky (his father) by
cutting of his testicules and, for one last time, Sky sperm fecundated the
Earth, and out of the sea (the origin of every living thing) come out
Venus. You can conduct milions of experiments about beauty and attraction
and all of them will confirm that myth: Beauty sense is something
originated in timeless wholeness but is only "visible" on the empire of
time above the earth. When Jove (humans) killed his father (Time, who had
the nasty habit of eating his children), Venus endured as one of the pre-
Olimpic divinities. So, Attraction, originated from the brutal last
relation of earth and sky, is, only, manifested during the empire of Time
and everlasts during the empire of humans as an index of pre-human world.
Uncontrolable, or scientificly defiantly definable, attraction or
emotional sense of beauty is really a realm of study but, I must state
this, is a field of not Human studies. Something that you clearly pointed
out on your post. Attraction is just something that moves things, from
amoebas to astronomers. Humans, however, developed Apolonian and Athenian
senses of of beauty, just to be outside that unexplicable sense of beauty
based on attraction. Both originated of Zeus(Jove), they are just stating
that, on the multiple human cultures (past and coming), beauty will be
founded. Venus will still have her role, explained or unexplained, but
intrinsically trans-human.

There is another thing. You must think of us, Design researchers,
designers, Design academics, as predators.
Terry and I were discussing this two days ago. Terry draw me a model of
research from basic Sciences to Design driven research. We both agreed
that Design researchers will, in a state of need, prey on basic science
research. Dont worry, our bites won't hurt. We are just glad that you are
providing us with such suculent sirloins.
But, and I must stress this, studying humans in the most certified
scientific way does not not certify conclusions as specificaly human.
What I find to be specifically human is Culture and, mostly, Culture that
try to escape from scientifically well defined explanations.

Well, as you see, I agree with most of what you have stated, provided that
non-scientific discourse is also allowed.

Best,

Eduardo