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Baskerville Is the Greatest Font, Statistically, Says Filmmaker Errol Morris

Posted by timothy on from the your-brain-is-vulnerable dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A survey of unsuspecting New York Times readers implicitly answered the question: Does a certain font make you agree or disagree more often than another font? It turns out Baskerville confers a 1.5% advantage towards agreement on a survey question, compared to an average of six fonts. They were asked to agree or disagree to a passage from physicist David Deutsch's book The Beginning of Infinity, and were found to have an optimistic, if Baskerville-favoring, outlook on life. David Dunning, a psychologist awarded a Nobel prize and, separately, an IgNobel prize (for the eponymous Dunning-Kruger Effect), called Baskerville 'the king of fonts.' Sadly, Comic Sans — notable for its appearance in the Higgs Boson announcement — seems to be the weakest font. And why did Lisa Randall, the Harvard physicist responsible for that Higgs announcement use Comic Sans? According to the article, 'Because I like it.'"

7 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I read the article... by edsousa · · Score: 4, Funny

    and I should start to login before posting... Now that I think of, the submitter probably used Baskerville in his submission to fool the editors-

  2. Testing... by jones_supa · · Score: 5, Funny

    You should send 10M€ to my bank account.

  3. Re:Dunning doesn't have a Nobel Prize by badfish99 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm really fond of the Dunning-Kruger effect to the point where I mention it almost daily

    So: would you say that you have an expert level of skill and knowledge on this particular topic?

  4. Re:Compensatory depletion by thegarbz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Having met Lisa Randall at a conference down under I can say fortunately she not only showered that day but also looked quite hot. Mind you this was several years ago and I was single so admittedly so did Margaret Thatcher

  5. Re:Comic sans is likely the most divisive font by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Damnit! I knew Obama shouldn't have written the Affordable Care Act in Comic Sans!

  6. Helvetica FTW by Reasonable+Facsimile · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Yo, Baskerville, I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but I just got to say Helvetica is one of the best fonts of all time."

  7. Re:Compensatory depletion by gdr · · Score: 4, Funny

    Every time I ever get an email or printout using Comic Sans it's from a woman. I got a name sign for my cubical in Comic Sans and I had to print myself a new one because I don't work in a f***ing kindergarten.