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IF YOU only watch one Catalyst this fortnight, your selection will say a lot about your dopamine-to-chutzpah ratio. The Science of Success is a two-part dissection of predominant human aspirations that will divide lovers and fighters.
From this testosterone-charged corner (I have the elongated ring finger to prove it), the difference between The Science of Dating: How To Catch a Mate and The Science of Business: How To Make It Big is the difference between a chance encounter with Jennifer Hawkins in a lift and a PowerPoint presentation by Alan Kohler.
Simmering beneath his scientific demeanour, veteran Catalyst/Quantum presenter Paul Willis wears his bias pretty clearly on screen. The twinkle in his eye never dims when asking strangers at a fun park out for a drink in part one, but you could clean his glaze with Windex when he's acting CEO of a computer-generated business in part two. "Let's face it, if it's a choice between sex and work, which one are you gonna enjoy?" he asks.
The answer depends, it would seem, on several more or less quantifiable factors, ranging from the mix of serotonin, dopamine and oestrogen in your brain to your aptitude for something called "argument mapping".
But perhaps wisely, The Science of Success treats love and business as mutually exclusive studies. Tonight's episode is by far the most breezy and voyeuristic deconstruction of modern ambition, as we follow three desperate singles on a deliciously humiliating speed-dating spree.
"It felt so cruel, to be honest," Willis chuckles. "The three people in that episode were really good sports. It took three months to film but the change in them and their fortunes was phenomenal."
The experiment begins, as do many affairs of the heart, over a few drinks and some painfully forced small talk. Thus filmed and surveyed, Catriona, Hwei and Michael have various experts tear apart their hand gestures, conversation skills, wardrobe choices and other subconscious accessories to successful mating.
Then it's a case of Flirt Eye for the Lonely Guy (or Girl), as each Big Loser is assigned a more scientific approach to the art of attraction. Michael cops a pig saliva cologne to better his chances. Hwei is matched with a compatible brain-chemistry personality-type by an online adviser from Rutgers University in New York.
But it's Catriona's lambada training that evinces the most dramatic results: a key that unlocks her body language and turns her into a successful serial flirt overnight.
In spite of his demonstrated Casanova tendencies in episode one and a confessed lack of interest in business, Willis insists he found The Science of Business intriguing, even though he's never related to "corporates".
"I've always avoided people from that kind of sphere, so to meet them on my terms, trying to find out what makes them tick from a science perspective, I found that fascinating."
Catalyst's own Donald Trump is John Ilhan - sole owner of Crazy John's mobile phone business. He's one of the few who has made good on an ambition held by 80 per cent of Australia's male workforce: to become CEO of a company. (The good news is that only 60 per cent of Aussie sheilas are similarly lacking in imagination.)
Crazy John's modest education, his regular-guy IQ, his professed lack of interest in money and poor IT skills would appear to be immaterial to his $300 million fortune, but he does have chutzpah and emotional intelligence bursting from the seams of his immaculate suits.
Maybe it's just my elongated ring finger talking, and maybe The Science of Business is a less focused, less conclusive and less interesting part of The Science of Success than its predecessor. But there's still science involved.
"Something like sex and dating seems to be one of those areas that's just intuitive, but you start to look into it and you find all sorts of interesting brain chemistry going on," Willis says.
"Same with work and business. When you get into it there's actually some real science that can analyse what it is that makes people work in a business and management framework."
Ultimately though, Willis agrees that it's perhaps the woman from Rutgers University, Helen Fisher, who speaks most sagely when she concedes, for all her life's work crunching cerebral love chemicals, that "there will always be magic".
Except in the boardroom, obviously.
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