hot and sexy evolution

Great Debates
21

Wrong. Some humans reproduce more than others. Whatever human traits are associated with that propensity will be naturally selected for. Those that are reproduced less, will be selected against. Not to mention the fact that we do not have 100% control over the environment so we are still subject to competition and assaults (e.g., pathogens) from other species. People with better harmony or resistence to those other species will tend to produce more offspring.

Humans are also subject to other “forces” of evolution…sexual selection, genetic drift, mutation, recombination, gene flow.

22

You need to read up to really understand what I was getting at - its simple when you understand but not when you don’t, if you see what i mean.

Pretty people have advantages because, wait for it !, people WANT to mate with them.

The more people who want you then more choice you have therefore its a big advantage.

Being the same on the left and right side has been proven to be an indicator of attractiveness, there are many theories of why this is so… mainly that it shows a good ability to copy genes - its still up in the air really.

Looks are important to sexual selection.

OR to be simple about it - ask a girl what kind of man she wants and she says ’ good looking, nice, rich etc.’ no one ever says ‘I want someone ugly !’

23

I say think traits instead of genes as its easier to visualise, genes interact with each other and then you get an outcome but what we see is a trait.

For example…

Saying someone is tall, handsome, clever is easier than thinking that they have 29 genes for leg length, 123 for facial features etc.

If you read up on wildlife it makes more sense, lions that are slow don’t catch the meat etc…

BUT there is a trade off with being fast and other features.

Bugger, its sooo complex when you get into it.

Read 'selfish gene by dawkins or ‘almost like a whale’, actually almost like a whale is best as its an update on darwins origin of the species.

Don’t think ‘I fancy pretty people’, think WHY do i fancy pretty people !

24

I’m still waiting for someone to tell me why the pretty people get sick less often and shorter men live longer and are healthier.

I need to know if I should make an appointment for that femur reduction surgery.

25

There was some research on this in the 80s, i can’t find a link but i do remember reading about it.

The theory was that ‘beauty’ was somehow linked to good genes either through meaning you were either so good in one area you could carry around a load of ‘spare’ ones to make you pretty or something like that.

From what I remember, no one really knew WHY it was so, it just was.

I read it in a medical journal while waiting at the doctors so who knows what happened to the research, but i assure you it ain’t no BS.

To be honest I think it was an offshoot of doing some research on how fat effected health i.e. they were measuring fat versus thin people and health and then a side program noticed that looks had an effect as well.

26

Reminds me of a study I heard that the average American woman’s breasts have been getting bigger the last 30 yrs or so. Also reminds me of a Johny Carson skit about life in the future–it shows women with 3 breasts, due to ‘sexual’ evolution.

I’ve noticed how women are blond a lot more than men. To me this is natural selection or evolution just like men being taller. Obviously, gentlemen prefer blondes, and women prefer tall, dark handsome men. Look around America, that’s what you see. I know some women bleach their hair, but most blonds are natural. There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for these hair color differences other than sexual.

27

:slight_smile: Perhaps because I’m already married, DB. :slight_smile:

I, too, have said on more than one occasion that these stick-figure Callista Flockhart-type women that Hollywood seems to love look sick to me, and any fantasies I might have entertained about them always are interrupted by the thought that I might accidentally break them.

  • Rick
28

Originally posted by Cheese Head

I would beg to differ; being a veteran hair dyer, with lots of female friends…most blondes come out of a bottle, as do most redheads, as far as I can tell. Does anyone know if hair color is sex-related, if it was then I could believe a higher natural occurrence of blonde hair in women than men. (Seems to me you see a LOT more blonde women than men)

Also, regarding man’s “evolutionary perfection”, in a least one instance, we encourage a negative trait=poor vision. Personally, in a hunter-gatherer society, I probably wouldn’t have made it with my 20/400 vision. But that’s no barrier to me today, even the social stigmata of wearing glasses is disappearing. Therefore, we get to pass our bad vision genes on, breeding that weakness back into the race.

29

Phobos:

I’m afraid I’ll have to go to the mat with you on this one, Phobos. I never said humans weren’t still changing genetically; I said we weren’t still evolving as a response to natural selection.

For speciation via natural selection to occur, three things are necessary: isolation of a population, environmental change, and given conditions persisting for a long period of time.

So say, for example, you’ve got a species of ground monkey that lives on berries growing on low bushes. An earthquake opens an impassable fissure, trapping a portion of the monkeys on one side.

On this side of the fissure, the berries grow on trees. All the monkeys can still reach the berries, but the ones with longer necks or better climbing claws or what-have-you can reach them more easily, so are more prosperous and have more offspring.

Time passes…

…Much later, you now have two species: ground monkeys and tree monkeys. If the fissure closes again, they won’t interbreed.

You knew all that, of course. Now tell me how any of it can apply to humans? Isolation doesn’t happen anymore on the scale required for evolution; an Eskimo and a Kalahari Bushman can make a love connection in Toronto; there’s been genetic flow all over the globe at least since Columbus.

Environmental change isn’t putting any pressure on us; ladders permit any of us to get the high-hanging fruit. We don’t need longer necks or climbing claws.

And I’m not even accounting for the ability to modify our genome at will, which will certainly be a reality within a century or two.

30

But of course, this doesn’t mean they take them up on it. I mean, statistically speaking, more people mate with the hooker on the corner than they do with your average attractive woman. How much sex she has the opportunity to have has no bearing on her reproductive capacity. Nor does it bear on her likelihood of surviving long enough to procreate. Therefore, in this day and age, being attractive really DOESN’T give you an advantage to pass on your genes.

“Spare genes”? Dude, unless you can say that genes that make someone match our currently acceptable idea of “attractive” are specifically linked to other genes that give them a survival advantage (i.e., the genes that dictate a pleasantly shaped face are linked with disease resistance genes) then your argument makes no sense at all.

And as long as I’m up here on my soap box, there are very few natural blondes. Most of them color. And it’s a myth that men, in general, prefer blondes over brunettes.

-L

31

tracer said:

You have some interesting facts and figures on these issues. Might politely I inquire as to a cite? I’m quite interested and I’d like to do some further reading if possible. Thanks in advance.

32

You might go to the mat with Phobos, but I’m afraid you would lose this round. Humans are still evolving, just like all creatures, by the mechanism of natural selection. Remember that sexual selection is also a component of this, and I doubt it will cease anytime soon. But if you don’t believe us, perhaps you will trust the scientists at Scientific American.

Now speciation is another issue entirely. But keep in mind that isolation isn’t strictly necessary. The entire Homo Sapiens population may gradually change over the course of time until our distant-future descendants would no longer be able to interbreed with us. However, I agree that our technology will likely overtake any changes that would have resulted in the genome without technological intervention.

33

Because you haven’t asked me yet, silly! :wink:

34

How evolution continues to be a factor in the species homosapien

We still choose our mate based on whatever internal criteria tells us this person is someone we wish to mix our genetic material with. As long as members of a species continue to reproduce, evolution will continue.

**How homospiens are messing with “pure” evolution **
In my view, if every human being were to produce as many children as they are able to scrounge resources to rise to reproduce and continue the chain, which would be pure evolution.

That’s not what we do, and there are reasons for that. We can think. We can realize there are already more of us on this planet than the planet itself could provide for if we weren’t smart enough to have come up with lots of advances to produce more food in less space.

Now, there are people who choose not to have children, or to have fewer children than they are capable of producing, because they want to raise the quality of their lives, and the lives of the children they choose to have rather than stretching their resources further.

Now there are people who run governments that penalize their citizens for having more than x many children.

Now there are some negative stereotypes associated with having large families, more than occasionally implying that there is something wrong with the parents for having so many children.

Personally, I prefer it the way it is now, though I could do without the need to dun those who have large families if they are capable and loving parents who can provide for a family that large.

I personally find those males who’s main objective in life seems to be to impregnate as many women as possible, while a genetically laudable goal, to be less worthy (yep, my own moral judgment) contributors to the gene pool than those who form “permanent” relationships, and stay around to raise and provide for those children they help create.

And of course this message isn’t intended to be a comprehensive list of what factors move us away from what I would consider to be acting solely under evolutionary impetus. This is just a list of what elements that came to mind to spur this debate in yet another direction.

-Doug

35

stolichnaya wrote:

From a bibliography I picked up at http://www.uniroma3.it/kant/field/epbiblio.htm:

"Symons, Donald (1995). Beauty is in the Adaptations of the Beholder: The Evolutionary Psychology of Human Female Sexual Attractiveness In Paul R. Abramson & Steven D. Pinkerton (eds.), Sexual Nature, Sexual Culture (pp. 80-118). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Summarizes the standard Evolutionary Psychological line about male mate preference. Symons argues that males have evolved preferences for females with smooth skin, lighter-than-the-local-average skin, and a waist-to-hip ratio around .75, since all of these are indicators of nubility, hence indicators that a woman is at her peak reproductive capacity."

36

Natural selection is so called as to be different than ‘artificial selection’.

Think of it like a farmer breeding cattle, he is the selector, the term natural selection means that nature selects.

Actually its the environment that selects.

If we invent spectacles then that is part of the environment etc.

I advise if your not sure then read lots of books, evolution appears simple but isn’t, there are lots of factors involved. In general you never see it except as a general trend.

For example - you could say that good looking men with a high income are more likely to have children then ugly ones with a low income - see.

37

You could also say that those with a low income are more likely to be without the means to gain access to birth control. Therefore, it is possible that an ugly guy with a low income is MORE likely to have children. Which is what a quick look around my neighborhood would indicate.

Your argument still holds no water.

-L

38

:confused: Wait a minute… if the good-looking guys with the high incomes get wives, and the ugly guys with no money for birth control get wives…

:eek: what about us moderately cute guy with moderate income?

Help! I’m being bred out of existence!! :frowning:

39

I have a feeling that the argument dude is making would make a lot more sense if he were to try posting while sober. :wink:

40

Regarding sex, evolution, and beauty, I think we have a problem in that standards of beauty vary greatly not just all over the planet, but also in the same regions from generation to generation!

There are, however, some standards that do not seem to change. I am drawing on references by Desmond Morris for a lot of this material.

Female waist to hip ratio: as mentioned this is one of the greatest attractions for men. All over the planet this appears to remain constant, for reasons explained in earlier posts.

Smooth clear skin for both sexes: the attraction here is that the subject is vermin-free, well-fed, and generally healthy!

The following standards may not be universal, but they are extremely popular around the world.

Long female legs: to paraphrase Desmond Morris, female legs start their growth at puberty, when girls become technically able to reproduce. Long legs are therefore a sexual signal that says “choose me, I can reproduce!”. Extremely long legs are simply a super signal.

broad square male shoulders: a sign of physical power and therefore ability to protect (the same goes for height, I believe–as long as the height is not too disproportionate to the weight).

Rounded, luscious-looking female shoulders, breasts, buttocks: sexual mimicry at work. Whatever the size of these items, they have to be rounded and soft in order to be attractive. I subscribe to the belief that female breasts and shoulders are secondary sexual characteristics that have developed to imitate and amplify a primary female sexual signal: the buttocks. Consider that in some cultures the size of the buttocks is important (the bigger the better) while in others the size of the breasts are important, and in some both. But it seems that everyone everywhere appreciates female ass!

It’s a fairly mechanic way of thinking about our bodies, but I do see sense in it. What this does not explain is how horrors such as Callista Flockhart are considered attractive by anyone at all–I suppose it could be a modern perversion and not at all indicative of any evolutionary trait.