Video: Which of these women is the most attractive?

When asked to defend a choice, most of us will justify it in great detail – even if our original choice has been covertly exchanged for something else (Image: Peter Cade/Iconica/Getty)

WE HAVE all heard of experts who fail basic tests of sensory discrimination in their own field: wine snobs who can’t tell red from white wine (albeit in blackened cups), or art critics who see deep meaning in random lines drawn by a computer. We delight in such stories since anyone with pretensions to authority is fair game. But what if …