This Doctor Is Using TikTok to Explain Beer Goggles

There's entertaining science behind your tipsy decisions

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki uses TikTok to explain science (and drinking)
Screenshot / TikTok

Australian scientist Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki may not fit the usual TikTok profile — he’s definitely not Gen Z material — but his good-humored nature and knowledge of science has made him an unlikely social media star.

The physicist, TV presenter and author is using his wide range of expertise to talk about music, animals, flat Earth theories (as in why people believe them) and fear. But he also touches quite a bit on alcohol in his brief clips, including beer goggles.

“Alcohol is absolutely amazing; it can strip oil stains from the garage floor, but it can also change the human perception of reality,” as the good doctor notes in one post (h/t The Drinks Business). He cites a 2003 university study of heterosexual students on how alcohol affected their perceptions of attractiveness in other people.

@drkarl

Why are people more attractive when you are (slightly) drunk. #drkarl #drkarlkruszelnicki #science #beer

♬ original sound – Dr Karl

When the students were slightly intoxicated — or “Molly the Monk” — they found wrist watches on people more attractive. More interestingly, while women found men slightly more attractive after a few drinks, tipsy men had a noticeably increased attraction to women as rated on a “Facial Attractiveness Index.”

As Dr. Kruszelnicki notes, “The rest of us call this ‘beer goggles.’”

The doc also explains why you’ll get drunker if you mix your drinks with diet instead of regular soda and the reason your urine is more clear after you drink a six-pack. He also does a lot of dance moves to promote science that are wonderfully awkward.

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