Dog lovers agree: Round and fluffy, wrinkled and snub-nosed, or skinny and sleek, dogs are cute.
The question is, how does a group of canine aficionados come to a fair consensus about which wet nose and wagging tail evokes the loudest “awww!”?
A group of students at Northeastern has spent the semester trying to find out. The Democracy and Social Choice Project, a directed study better known as the Cute Dog Project, began with a simple premise: Determine who in Northeastern’s philosophy and religion department has the cutest dog. And, along the way, work through the challenges of designing a democratic voting system.