They act like the photo is all that decides if someone will make contact or not. Is it possible that people that don't look into the camera also haven't put much time into the rest of their profiles, thus lower contact rate?
I do love that they publish this info so openly and in such a readable format.
They do talk about controlling for profile quality.
This isn't the first stats post from OkCupid, they do this every few months approaching a different aspect of the profile. There are previous entries about race, religion, contents of the first message, and so on.
Not to mention the wild assumption of cause-and-effect.
It seems to me that it's just as likely to be true if I say that "someone having other qualities that get them more contacts is more likely to do X in their picture".
I do love that they publish this info so openly and in such a readable format.