by Melanie Harris

I’ve noticed an appalling trend on the daily talk shows lately that makes me wonder if we’ve gone back in time a hundred years. “The Morning Show” recently featured an anthropologist discussing her theory that we choose our lovers based on their DNA, that a wide jaw shows masculinity, that a rounder face on a man indicates femininity and a compassionate, verbal nature. A little while back on an episode of “The Tyra Show,” a scientist was talking about his research linking homosexuality with certain physical characteristics like hand shape, deepness of voice, and even the direction in which a person’s hair grows. Um, excuse my sloping forehead and primitive jaw line, but isn’t this a lot like the nastier bits of the centuries old occult “science” of physiognomy?