question:  What terms best describes the author's attitude toward hunches of perceived criminality based on one's physical appearance?
context: "He literally couldn't look more like a paedophile," read one post – one of many to state a supposedly incontrovertible truth: that Savile's criminal tendencies could have been detected from the shape of his features, his eyes, his hair. We know that paedophiles, murderers and other violent criminals come in many shapes and sizes. A recent paper, published by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang of Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, claims to be the first to use machine learning and neural networks to attempt a fully automated inference of criminality from facial images, removing prejudice from the equation and testing the validity of our gut feelings. Through a study of 1,856 images ("controlled for race, gender, age and facial expression") they claim to have established the validity of "automated, face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding this line of enquiry." In other words, they believe that they've found a relationship between looking like a criminal and actually being one. Aristotle's pronouncement that "it is possible to infer character from features" led to a number of works relating to 'Physiognomica', a word derived from physis (nature), nomos (law) and (or) gnomon (judge or interpreter). Theories of physiognomy, however, would persist beyond the Renaissance. Della Porta's thinking was based on the 'doctrine of signatures'; the idea that the appearance of plants and animals offers clues to their nature. The theories in della Porta's book were supported by dozens of detailed illustrations which, by comparing human faces to those of animals, suggested that they must surely share similar character traits. Lavater's work was criticised for being ridden with bias (black faces rarely emerged well from his analyses) but he was right in one respect: "Whether they are or are not sensible of it," he wrote, "all men are daily influenced by physiognomy."
output:  skeptical and dismissive
options:  skeptical and dismissive  neutral and hypothetical  incredulous and antagonistic  curious and imaginative