There is No Such Thing as a ‘Most Beautiful Person According To Science’

This claim is unwittingly part of an agenda to position Whiteness as the beauty standard

Dr. Furaha Asani
6 min readFeb 19, 2020
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In early February 2020, various news outlets reported that the actor Robert Pattinson is the most beautiful man in the world ‘according to science/scientists’. This claim was brought forward by facial plastic surgeon, Dr. Julian De Silva, who used the “ Greek Golden Ratio of Beauty Phi” to crown Pattinson’s facial features most beautiful/handsome.

Dr. De Silva’s calculations have led to various White people being given the title of ‘most beautiful’ on more than one occasion: in 2016 Yahoo Style crowned Amber Heard the top in a list of 10 White women, with many other platforms echoing this list.

Both in 2016 and 2020, these lists were presented as ‘scientific’ findings. This has had the two-fold effect of positioning Whiteness as the beauty standard (although the 2020 list for men snuck in Idris Elba and Kanye West as numbers 8 and 9 respectively), and inadvertently casting all doubters as questioning science. I should know: despite being a Biochemist (with a PhD in Infection and Immunity), calling out these claims in 2017 landed me an accusation as a ‘lib who hates science’ in an article that further stated:

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Dr. Furaha Asani

Migrant. Postdoctoral researcher. Teacher. Mental Health Advocate. Writer. Professional in the streets, loud on the sheets of paper.