# Evolutionary fitness and attractiveness **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [August 3, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296 "2012-08-03T14:22:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/42 "2012-08-16T20:24:40Z")
BTW, human females tend to choose mates based on health and STATUS. When she cheats, it’s usually with a male of higher status than her mate. Males tend to choose mates based on availability. After all, what do we have to lose, other than a little time and a little sperm? (Ahem, not speaking personally, of course. This is a scientific discussion!) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/43 "2012-08-16T21:19:19Z")
> [@Freakenstein](#): > > Yes, I am only guessing, but I didn’t mean just skin deep but all that You can see, like muscles and overall symmetry. Seemingly well built is likely more functional than something that looks like trash. And after all We are all just guessing who would be the one, usually based on something We can evaluate with Our eyes. It still sounds like baseless speculation to me. I mean, we’re all familiar with the jock stereotype of all brawn and no brains, and while taking stereotypes seriously is fraught with risk, there’s nevertheless some expectation that is at odds. Counter examples to your claim: [Marie Curie](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Curie) [Abraham Lincoln](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln) Again, I realize cherry-picking a few counter examples hardly refutes a claim, but I am not convinced the premise has any merit. > [@](#): > > As for Ms, I’m not native English speaker and in school We were taught that Ms stands for Miss Ms. stands for Mizz and is specifically created to eliminate the marrital status of the woman. Ms. refers to unmarried and married women equally. The objection being that Mister (Mr.) does not convey the marital status, where as Mrs. and Miss are de facto linking the woman’s status to her husband. > [@Freakenstein](#): > > Thank You, ignorance fought. > I’ve seen missus used in comics but mostly by uneducated blacks, uneducated whites say missis, which I guess is better, but it really doesn’t look like an English word to Me. There’s no formal word “missus” or “missis”. Those are attempts to write out how the vowels are typically pronounced by various subsets. Vowels are funky things that get pronounced differently by different dialects, so there’s bound to be variation when the “word” is derived from a pronunciation rather than the other way around. > [@](#): > > Connections with looks and health and sanity aren’t My idea. Ancient Romans had a saying ‘mens sana in corpore sano’, that I think in English would be ‘healthy mind in healthy body’. Exercise is easier if You are not malformed and it is well known that it helps Your overall health, body and mind. It improves blood circulation to brains and every other part, it helps for depression etc - all this makes it easier to learn and with that to survive and help others to survive. You have a little bit better grounds to stand on here. However, this speaks not to an inherent relationship between an orderly body equalling an orderly mind, but rather to the benefits of good health vs bad health. That’s hardly controversial, but you’re not going to get Einstein by merely giving a chimp\* good health, but you might end up with a chimp by giving Einstein bad health (via deficient diet, for instance). > [@](#): > > If You compare Quasimodo-type person with a hero-type, I think you would expect the hero-type to be smarter, stronger, healthier, living longer, more hard-working, more durable, braver, more friendly and considerate, nicer to kids and old, happier and funnier, more honest, more generous, better for teamwork, Straight Dope member, more docile, neater and cleaner, handier, more artistic, not drunkard, not ruthless, not unfair, not ungrateful and whatever… Problem there: isn’t that assuming the consequent? Isn’t that the definition of “hero-type”? I certainly wouldn’t assume a good physical specimen is necessarily going to be nicer to kids and old, happier and funnier, etc. Just because someone eats lean grilled chicken and lots of veggies vs. deep-fried pork, pork, and mork pork, I’d hardly expect that to make them more honest, more generous, etc. I like me some potato chips, and sugar is my vice, but I hardly think that affects my friendliness or considerateness. > [@Freakenstein](#): > > People are greedy. If You want Your mate to be perfect in all ways, You don’t start Your search among the ugly ones. I’m sure You don’t go to a bar with test tubes, microscopes and some papers to do a survey of family illnesses. You pick the one that pleases Your eye and work from there. Hardly the same thing. There is a set of exclusion criteria. They include a certain level of beauty, a certain level of intelligence, a certain level of considerateness, a certain level of social grace, etc. Any one of those criteria is going to be an exclusion, but it’s far easier to gauge the beauty from across the room than the person’s lack of obnoxiousness, for instance. Why start the filtering with the harder to access factors first? > [@Mijin](#): > > And I would expect there to be a correlation between physical health and mental health. We still often think of a big divide between body and mind but they are of course integrated and things like, say, malnutrition, have been shown to impair brain function, sometimes irreparably, as well as the body. ## I agree, and these are valid points. But that doesn’t go as far as **Freakenstein** is suggesting, that the physical put togetherness itself is correlated between body layout and brain function. Like a person born with a cleft palate must inherently be less intelligent, because they are deformed. Or a person born without legs through some congenital defect must therefore be slow witted. - I’m horrible with analogies. Preposterous on the face, chimps aren’t humans, etc. No offense intended, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/44 "2012-08-17T08:00:31Z")
**Irishman** I am hardly claiming anything. The keyword ( that’s probably been in all My posts ) is guessing. I am guessing, people in the bars are guessing, that’s all. Am I going too far with it? Sure, but some see what others don’t, some see differently, other don’t see at all. ( Saw My comment on that pic in the Wiki-page? Also I don’t think young Marie Curie was that bad ). So it really isn’t that universal. For example to Me Angelina Jolie resembles a frog, but I’m sure others have some equally nasty remarks for Isabelle Huppert. ( and I have been called handsome and even pretty, same time others think I’m a balding skeleton. ) ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/45 "2012-08-17T08:18:56Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > It’s a bias as a generalization, but not a correlation. In which case there’s the problem of overwhelming exceptions and it can’t be proposed seriously. Especially not with a factor propounded as causal (such as innate cellular health), due to mentioned confounds (poverty for instance). > [@Learjeff](#): > > Darwinian apologists who can’t think straight object. They have good reason to do so. If a statement is undisprovable, it fails the test of falsifiability and cannot be accepted as a scientific proposition. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/46 "2012-08-17T10:31:26Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > In which case there’s the problem of overwhelming exceptions and it can’t be proposed seriously. Especially not with a factor propounded as causal (such as innate cellular health), due to mentioned confounds (poverty for instance). My point was that we should expect a correlation between attractiveness and physical health, and a correlation between physical health and mental health. Now if there’s a correlation but with “overwhelming exceptions”, that’s still a correlation, so I have no reason not to propose it seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/47 "2012-08-17T16:33:23Z")
> [@gamerunknown](#): > > > [@Learjeff](#): > > > > Darwinian apologists who can’t think straight object. > > They have good reason to do so. If a statement is undisprovable, it fails the test of falsifiability and cannot be accepted as a scientific proposition. Miscommunication, I believe. I admit I had a confusing number of reversals in my original statement: > [@](#): > > Creationists like to criticize the phrase “survival of the fittest” as a tautology. Darwinian apologists who can’t think straight object. The objections are wrong: it _is_ a tautology. So what? It means you can’t use it as an argument. It’s not an argument; it’s a catch-phrase that helps focus thought in a useful direction. (BTW, “1+1 = 2” is a tautology, but that doesn’t mean it’s useles.) Let me clarify. 1. Creationists claim that “survival of the fittest” is a tautology. 2. Darwinian apologists who can’t think straight disagree with this claim. Darwinians who CAN think straight shouldn’t object to the claim, they should simply say “Right – so what?” Just to be clear, I believe in evolution, and think Creationism is bunk, but we shouldn’t use bad arguments against it. Likewise, we shouldn’t disagree when they say that science has a methodological bias (towards “scientific naturalism”, versus … um … well, whatever screwball theory Creationists are trying to push. Oops, I mean, the possibility of miracles.) Instead, we should agree that science has a blind spot, but like any blind spot, it can be worked around – if there’s actually something to see. Quantum mechanics is a great example of Science working around a number of methodological blind spots! ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2012, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/48 "2012-08-17T20:26:31Z")
> [@Freakenstein](#): > > **Irishman** > I am hardly claiming anything. The keyword ( that’s probably been in all My posts ) is guessing. Meh, guessing is just a weak form of claiming. In fact, that you aren’t willing to support it should show you just how weak your “guess” is. > [@Mijin](#): > > My point was that we should expect a correlation between attractiveness and physical health, and a correlation between physical health and mental health. Sure, we can accept a correlation, but that’s not the same thing as the proposed _causal relation_ of good cellular health, or whatever it is that **Freakonomics** is “guessing”. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/49 "2012-08-18T01:08:44Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > My point was that we should expect a correlation between attractiveness and physical health. .. Of course there are. Ever notice that people look a LOT better when they’re not sick? Also, looks can help identify good genes. Symmetry is the common example. There are certainly aspects of attractiveness that relate to robustness, just as there are a lot that don’t. > [@](#): > > , and a correlation between physical health and mental health I question this, except to the extent that people who aren’t totally whacked out take better care of their appearance, and your more general point that malnourished people who aren’t physically healthy can often have concomitant mental health issues. ---
**Author:** ![Freakenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b782af/32.png) [@Freakenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freakenstein)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/50 "2012-08-18T03:30:16Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > In fact, that you aren’t willing to support it should show you just how weak your “guess” is. It’s not that I am not willing to support, it’s that I can’t, because I am just - You know - guessing. And guesses can go wrong, here and in the bar - has happened, will happen. And I don’t think that My previous list of good qualities is going to be labeled exclusively to the one You’re attracted to, just more than an average would get. I’m new here and just wanted to participate, I had some answers and got carried away. It’s been fun ( still is ), but now it’s going to be out of My league. You people are going to be all scientific about this, so My education and My English are not going to be adequate ( I had to check out that last word from a dictionary and many more on this thread… ) ---
**Author:** ![gamerunknown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6bbea6/32.png) [@gamerunknown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gamerunknown)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2012, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296/51 "2012-08-18T08:20:50Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > Now if there’s a correlation but with “overwhelming exceptions”, that’s still a correlation, so I have no reason not to propose it seriously. “[Overwhelming exceptions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwhelming_exception)” is a logical fallacy. In scientific terms, that means such a correlation wouldn’t meet statistical significance. I can only claim agnosticism without any data though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/evolutionary-fitness-and-attractiveness/630296.md?page=2)