The Unity of a Single Face: NOT

A really bad idea is sometimes too tempting to be rejected. Years ago, in the early days of computer morphing, someone in a Scientific American article claimed to prove that Mona Lisa was a self-portrait by morphing it together with a well-known picture of an old man.

Now we know that a morpher can put any two faces together with computer tricks. But even then we knew that the old man's portrait had been discovered in the 19th century, and only wishful thinking had attributed it to Leonardo, much less as a self portrait. Well, that's an earlier story of self-deception about Mona Lisa and all the legends about the painting. All of which make life interesting.