{"id":2721,"date":"2009-09-24T11:34:44","date_gmt":"2009-09-24T18:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2009-09-24T11:34:44","modified_gmt":"2009-09-24T18:34:44","slug":"atheism-bringing-the-sexy-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/24\/atheism-bringing-the-sexy-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheism:  Bringing the Sexy Back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It would be amusing to just have a contest asking people to guess what the vertical axis on this chart is supposed to represent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.okcupid.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/14\/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/files\/2009\/09\/god-chart.png\" alt=\"god-chart\" width=\"439\" height=\"419\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2722\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The answer is, &#8220;reply rate to first-contact messages on an online dating site, as a function of words appearing in the message.&#8221;  In particular, the site OkCupid, which has a handy rundown of <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.okcupid.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/14\/online-dating-advice-exactly-what-to-say-in-a-first-message\/\">which words and phrases are most likely to garner a reply to an initial contact<\/a>.  (Via <a href=\"http:\/\/flowingdata.com\/2009\/09\/24\/online-dating-service-analyzes-intro-messages-how-to-get-a-response\/\">FlowingData<\/a>.)  The average response rate is 32%, so you can see how using some specific word increases or decreases your chances of success.  Apparently mentioning &#8220;God&#8221; is a big turn-off, although calling Him by a proper name is slightly helpful.  But nothing works at turning a stranger&#8217;s head quite like bringing up His complete lack of existence.<\/p>\n<p>Other useful hints:  real words good, fake internet words bad.  Complimenting personality\/intellect good, complimenting looks bad.  Being specific is good, especially if it involves physics, heavy metal, vegetarianism, or zombies.  Hey, I&#8217;m just the messenger here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It would be amusing to just have a contest asking people to guess what the vertical axis on this chart is supposed to represent. The answer is, &#8220;reply rate to first-contact messages on an online dating site, as a function of words appearing in the message.&#8221; In particular, the site OkCupid, which has a handy [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}