Using data from the person-to-person lend­ing com­pany Propser.com, research is start­ing to show that—when it comes to analysing creditworthyness—the once dis­cred­ited sci­ence of phys­iog­nomy may be valid.

In other words, peo­ple may be able to tell if we are actu­ally trust­wor­thy just from look­ing at our facial features.

Sci­ence pro­ceeds by trial and error. The suc­cesses are trum­peted. The errors are often regarded with embar­rass­ment by sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tions, and locked away in attic rooms of the subject’s man­sion like mad rel­a­tives in a Vic­to­rian novel. Usu­ally, they stay there. Cran­iol­ogy, phrenol­ogy and eugen­ics, once-respectable fields of endeav­our that are now regarded with a shud­der, may shriek from time to time, but few sane peo­ple pay atten­tion to them. One, how­ever, has escaped recently, and is try­ing to reha­bil­i­tate itself. For years physiognomy—the idea that a person’s face is a reflec­tion of his character—was sneered at. Now, it is mak­ing a come back.