What's Wrong With This Image?

Notice anything odd below?

Answer: If you look really carefully, you'll notice that Tom Cruise has only 3 upper incisors. Why is this important, you ask? Because if this guy is to be believed, Cruise's dental oddity (along with his dyslexia, small stature and family history) is an indicator of holoprosencephaly, a genetic disorder which might explain why Nicole Kidman's pregnancies during their marriage ended in stillbirths. If this diagnosis is correct, don't expect the latest news about Tom and Katie to end on a positive note.

What does it say about beauty as a marker of reproductive potential that hardly anyone seems to have noticed Cruise's potentially sterility-denoting genetic anomaly until now? When you also take into account that some of the most strikingly beautiful women are actually genetically male, you have to wonder how much stock to put into the claim that looks tell you anything about reproductive fitness. It isn't exactly as if the typical mother of 10 is or ever was a potential Hollywood starlet either.

Comments

[Andrew]

But surely something as rare as AIS or holoprosencephaly, which have an incidence of 1 in 10,000-20,000, could be regarded as a statistical anomaly to the general rule (if it is actually true) that good looks tend to reflect reproductive potential?

[Factory]

Hmm one of those links seems to imply that Ann Coulter has AIS, well raving left will like that.. :(

IIRC there are such things as 'cheating' traits who's stratgey works only because it's not the common attribute, prolly AIS is one of those traits.

[dof]

A more common reason for having missing incisors is to have had them surgically removed for orthodontic reasons, as in, just not room enough in your jaw for 32 teeth.

[Andrew]

I had teeth (premolars) removed for orthodontry but I don't see why you'd take out the incisors (the front teeth that everyone sees when you smile, and the teeth you use for biting), and especially not why you'd only take out one. Is that really common orthodontic practice?

I wonder if Tom Cruise also has only 3 lower incisors?

[Abiola Lapite]

"just not room enough in your jaw for 32 teeth."

I highly doubt that in this case - this picture was from Cruise's early days in Hollywood, *before* he had the money to get his teeth fixed. Besides, I've seen his paternal cousin on "Lost", and that guy's a giant, so there really is something off about Tom Cruise's small stature.

[Matt Waters]

Wow, so that means Tom Cruise's kid might end up being a cyclops!

[Anita]

This is not about Cruise, but about your other point. I agree with what you said regarding the supposed link between attractiveness and seeming ability to reproduce. Whenver I read one of those comments, I wonder about all the people I know and see and see pictures of that are not particularly attractive or are fat or skinny or for whatever reason don't seem promising from a reproductive angle. But these people find mates alright. Up until recently 96% of people married. Most of these were certainly not beautiful. What really seems to matter is finding someone whose attractiveness is equivalent to your own. The other thing that matters is youth. The scientists are right about that. Otherwise, as you said, people with many children don't seem to be more good looking than people with none

[Peter]

It could have been surgicaly removed, I only have 3 lower incisors... there wasn't enough room in my jaw for all my adult teeth when I was young, so one of my incisor grew behind the other ones. I had 2 options, just get the incisor removed, or remove 2 molars and get braces tomove all my teeth back a little bit and bring the incisor up front so i'd have 4 lower incisors... well, I went with the less painful one...

[Brian Macker]

Great totally unsupported speculation. See my trackback above.

[Abiola Lapite]

Brian,

How very clever of you: perhaps if you'd bothered to hold off on the cheap shot and actually looked carefully at the evidence you'd have noticed that it wasn't just Cruise's fused lateral incisors which indicated something was wrong, but also his abnormally small stature, his self-confessed reading problems *and* his family history of violence from a seemingly retarded father. The very fact that Kidman could be pregnant at all rules out her suffering from AIS right from the start, another fact your race to prove your cleverness must have forced you to overlook.

[Brian Macker]

Abiola,

You're not getting the substance of my position, which is, that there is no substance to my position. That's why I put the smiley faces and made the scientology cracks.

I further extend my theory that if he ever did have holoprosencephaly that he has cured him self with all the vitamins he takes. You can research this at his medical blog, http://drtomcruisemd.blogspot.com

So go ahead, blow holes in my theory. You might just be right. Which means my reputation as a research jokester is destroyed. :(

I don't take this kind of speculation seriously. You know, medical diagnosis from a distance is kind of kooky. Like the "Albert Einstein Has Aspergers Syndrome" sort of kooky.

Nor did I think you were actually taking it seriously till you posted this comment. Lighten up and look on the bright side; if you are wrong you can still have his babies.

I just find it all very funny and I did notice those teeth a long time ago. :)

If you really want to get into serious librarian quality research then do a google search on '"Tom Cruise" "Missing Tooth"' and you will see that others noticed this missing tooth a long time ago. So your sentence, "... that hardly anyone seems to have noticed Cruise's potentially sterility-denoting genetic anomaly until now?", is inaccurate.

Perhaps you can look into Russel Crowes missing tooth while your at it, or Cary Grants. Hey, Cary didn't have any children did he? He wanted them to an offer any woman who would give him one a million bucks. Wasn't he homosexual too, perhaps another symptom? Maybe I'm on to something? Maybe Grant has both holoprosencephaly and Estrogen Insensitivy Syndrome. ;)

[Brian Macker]

... and sorry for all the cheap shots. I just have control issues. ;) Besides I'm pissed your comments section doesn't allow links. How can I annotate my humor?