Beauty but No Substance

For those of you who read my blog on the regular, you should have learned a few things about me. First is that my family comes first. Also, that I am an old school Memphis Mac, I love writing and making music, women, got an IQ way over 150, that I’m working with a lot of something (u make the call) and that I am a simple country boy. This past week I was in Bethesda making a presentation to the National Institutes of Health on my infectious disease prevention work in prisons in South Africa. I was there with about 25 or so other scientist from around the world who are doing work in the country and were also funded by NIH.

One of the people there gave a presentation on their work, which was also on correctional populations. His slides were beautiful, the colors were vivid and his statistical presentation of the data seemed appropriate. However, when he neared the end of his presentation, he concluded, “participants with low levels of impulse control were six times more likely to be incarcerated and therefore, impulse control is a major factor in incarceration.” Me being a supposed expert in the area, and concerned regarding his implication that mental deficits account for incarceration more than any other factor, asked him a question at the end of his presentation: “Did you discern how much of the variation in self reported impulse control was a function of education, or race, or proximity to living in urban areas given increased penalty enhancements for conducting a criminal act in a drug free zone for example?”

His answer was “No.”

“Well how can you assert such? Doing such is almost Sir Francis Galton like.”

I was told by my grandmother and have heard other say that “Beauty is only skin deep.” Meaning that what is on the surface is not important, but rather what is on the inside. It is what is on the inside that makes one beautiful. It is what is inside that reflects integrity, responsibility, commitment, value respect and passion. Moreover, it is what is inside that makes one reflect such in acts of kindness and positive unconditional regard to others. Otherwise, one can be the most attractive or beautiful person in looks and external features but uglier than a motherfucker on the inside and reflect such in the way they treat people.

I am glad I had the chance to ask him about his presentation. For if I did not, people would have just said how great it was and how good it looked, and how well put together it was. His findings were useless without the substance attached to plausible explination. Underneath it all, it was ugly for he tried to assert that factors related to ones mental state were the most significant variables of all when it comes to individuals being incarcerated. Again, I say, beauty is only skin-deep; it is what is on the inside that counts, which means beauty is nothing and pointless without substance.