One of my journalism students pointed out the dangers just last week. I’d hauled a bunch of stuff out of my backpack, arranged it on a table in front of them, left it for half an hour while we talked about other things, and then I put all the stuff away and asked them to write descriptions of the items that had been on the table.
When they finished doing that, I asked them to describe what those items said about me.
One student said, “I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you what I infer from them.”
How’s that for a smart response?

And yet most of us judge books by their covers, don’t we?