It is not just ordinary humans who want to believe in the power of body language. The New York Times just posted John Tierney’s article, “At airports, a misplaced faith in body language.” Tierney notes that the federal government poured about $1 billion into training airport personnel to tell if you might be a terrorist just by looking at your nonverbal behaviors as you stand in line waiting to get screened. (I discussed the program here previously.)

Nicholas Epley, author of Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want, put it beautifully when he told Tierney, “Body language speaks to us, but only in whispers.”