I have always been confused by the issue of female hair colour. There is no doubt that blondes are more visible than brunettes, and there is no doubt that redheads are the rarest of them all.
Yet, in the face of such evidence, I am nuts about brunettes. So I may not be the best person to handle this topic… but it may have to do something with visibility and availability IF most men prefer blondes, and IF most women would like to be blonde.
Humans have not stopped evolving, I don’t think that anyone has made that claim in this thread yet. We are constantly adapting to the changes in our environment, however, most of the changes in our environment are not natural occurrences.
For example, what would happen if we took a person from the 17th century and put them into our smog infested cities to eat our preservative laden, pesticide sprayed food.
The process of natural selection for humans is at its end though.
Many of those with physical or mental handicaps or defects would not survive if not for medical science taking care of them, especially while young. That negates the process of only the strong surviving. I am not saying that the handicapped are not worthy of life, but that the natural course of evolution would have weeded out those not capable of supporting themselves if not for our intervention.
Human evolution is strange, mainly because we have altered our own environment which most animals do not ( well ok they do but generally not in such a drastic way as we do ok ! ).
Take these things on board.
Without welfare poor people would starve or could not afford housing etc.
Because we have altered the environment you end up with ‘non viable’ people breeding - i am not saying this is a bad thing, its just natural, people adapt.
Good looking rich people have more kids IF you take away welfare ( check out poor countries, the poor often have lots of kids but they die from starvation ).
Not everyone is going to find a good looking rich mate, you may say ‘i want someone pretty,rich,clever,nice’ BUT the option if you can’t find one is to either not breed or take something else.
Or to put it another way ’ if your too fussy you die out’.
Looks are important as they are a general sign of health and lack of medical problems, as we normally do not cover our faces this is the easiest place to check.
Imagine a world without welfare and you see what i mean.
The kind of person your attracted to is not totally genetic, identical twins do not always fancy the same people.
Hair colour actually links to skin sensitivity and how easy it is to spot diseases which show up on the skin.
A brunette would find it easier to hide a problem than a blonde, your taking a bigger risk in other words.
BUT, people do not select mates purely on looks.
i could go on and on and on and on…
VERY TRUE… you could argue that modern humans are breeding into a race of people with bad memory ( did i take the pill or not ) and bad manual dexterity when drunk ( i just can’t get it on !, forget it, lets take a risk ! ).
Its all about living in the niche really, are you adapted for frugal living, welfare housing OR making money etc.
People who get drunk and get pregnant ( or make a girl pregnant ) as a mistake do NOT die out.
Umm…you DO realize that financial security is not an evolutionary/biological trait, right?
Wow.
-L
I haven’t re-posted to this thread after providing the OP because frankly, I posted it to learn. I have no idea about this stuff. It’s been an education, that’s for sure.
In order to preserve my bloodline I’m going to go out, get smashed on Long Islands and bang the first guy I see.
Talk to you later!
jarbaby
A few items to point out:
Natural Selection: it is true that natural selection has dwindled dramatically since humans have become more technologically advanced, but I guarantee you that the moment that we move off planet to live somewhere else or another alien race finds us and is potentially hostile, then that will change really quick. Evolution through natural selection will never just stop, there is also something out there that is bigger and hungrier than we are. Another one to consider is virus’ and diseases in todays day and age. Studies have shown that the average cold virus has mutated and attain more strength then it ever has in past. Same can be applied to AIDS, E. Coli, E. Bola and so forth, all of which is a part of nature which preys on human beings and from the sound of reports today, AIDS is definetely winning.
Healthy Evolution: considering the amount of drugs that are out there and the numerous vaccinations, it will be very unclear exactly what this will do to future children in regards to immune systems and adaptation. It is possible that this may allow humans to breed into a more resiliant individual, due to the chemicals and anti-bodies in our bodies, but it could also regress our immune systems considering that we have become dependant on these drugs to live in this day and age.
The latter will be more possilbe since parents and doctors are pumping children w/ more and more vaccinations and antibiotics, and not allowing the children’s body to rely on it’s own immune system. Eventually, and more than likely, we will be so dependant on these drugs and so forth that our immune systems will become less than what it was 100 years ago.
Technological Evolution: in this regard, I believe that people are getting developement, growth and tolerance mixed with evolution. Yes humans are showing greater signs of intelligence and hand-eye coordination is increasing in children due to games, but this is all growth due to more resources at hand. No one will see mental evolution til the first telepaths and so forth are born.
In order to preserve my bloodline I’m going to go out, get smashed on Long Islands and bang the first guy I see.
jarbaby **
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Alcohol in the first trimester can cause a multitude of problems for fetal development and viability, so procreation under the described circumstances is not a good evolutionary idea.
Recreation under the described circumstances, however, sounds like a wild weekend—yee haw!
Abe wrote:
There is one mating-related characteristic that may be exhibited by a thin woman: her flat stomach. It indicates that she is not pregnant. A woman with a rounded stomach MIGHT be pregnant – she can hide it better during the early months. Mating with a flat-stomached woman would therefore give the male much better odds of impregnating her than would mating with a rounded-stomached (and therefore possibly pregnant) woman.
There is an argument that says we now ‘hunt’ for money instead of food and ‘fight’ with money for shelter instead of with clubs.
If you take that on board you could say that lions who are bad at hunting die out, as do humans who are bad at getting enough money to survive and reproduce.
Money is not a biological trait BUT iq, being practical and workaholic traits could be.
Although environment does have a huge effect, why are identical twins who have been seperated so similiar !
Alcohol in the first trimester can cause a multitude of problems for fetal development and viability, so procreation under the described circumstances is not a good evolutionary idea.
Recreation under the described circumstances, however, sounds like a wild weekend—yee haw! **
[/QUOTE]
BUT if you don’t go out at all or don’t ‘go for it’ while sober you will have no baby therefore no chance of reproduction at all !
This is fun !
People who like to stay in and not date die out !
People who are bad at seduction die out !
Lets not forget that being a ‘die out’ is not really a bad thing, if everyone did have kids then there wouldn’t be a lot of room !
Natural selection…
Natural selection means the selection mechanism which controls how many children someone has.
‘natural’ is misleading, darwin used to so as to show a difference between intential selection and that which happens without intervention.
Specifically a cite with pictures!
**
Pictures! Pictures! Give me cites with pictures!!! JDM
All right, JDM, you asked for it:
Presenting my favorite Evolutionary Psychology website, with pictures:
http://www.king.igs.net/~rogersk/mono.htm
(Mind you., I didn’t say these were good pictures.)
“Pretty people get sick less.”
If you want to know something, ask an expert.
L’Oreal. “The Psychosocial Role of Cosmetics”.
http://www.loreal.com/us/research/orientations/role.asp
They don’t have any cites, but it’s fascinating nonetheless. Go have a look, there’s more than this.
I’ll take a stab at this one.
I think what dude is trying to say is this:
Financial security obviously is not a biological trait. However, one can argue that society rewards people that show “good” biological traits for evolution. **Warning: Broad generalization follows. ** Intelligence, strength, and looks tend to be rewarded in society with wealth and financial security. People with a lot of money tend to be a combination of the three. I know this is not true in all cases, but looking at the richest people in society, they’re either great athletes, wily capitalists, or handsome/beautiful actors.
And here’s the generalization about broads: Women, it has been argued, value security over looks. There’s a lot of average or below-average looking men with beautiful women because they have financial security. And, as I stated before, men with financial security usually have biological traits that would be considered advantageous in an evolutionary context.
I hope that makes some sense. I am not saying I agree with this from anything other than a base animal level. It’s simply how I interpret dude’s statement, and I think he’s making some sense. (In his own enigmatic manner. 
)
yup, thats it
I think ‘broads’ ( do people still say that, i though it was just a 40s film thing, cor ) who marry old / ugly rich men would prefer a good looking rich man BUT supply and demand etc. compromise etc.
You do realise that the sexy girls with unattractive rich men could actually be playing about and betting on getting pregnant by someone else but having mr rich raise the kids.
oooooooo
sneaky
I remember reading in a friends psychology text book once that they did an experiment where they gave people one set of photos of husbands and another of wives and they had to rank them in order of looks.
They did this and the husband and wife matched to a fairly accurate level in there ranking.
Therefore people do (if not on purpose) select someone of the same level of attractiveness as themselves.
They also did research into couples and found that ‘birds of a feather ’ did flock together and therefore people who are more similar are more likely to marry etc.
I am not sure if people choose similar people on purpose (we get on) or because competition means they can not move up to someone they feel has superior genes.
This means that the original basis for this thread is totally wrong.
Pretty people marry pretty people BUT normal people marry normal people, as well hence there is no evolutionary bent towards looks.
Perhaps a more accurate program would say that ‘evolution favours people who have large families’, this may be cultural more than genetic as, for example, here in the UK, the Asian population has grown rapidly due to this cultural bias for large families.
This also means I have been talking a load of rubbish as usual, beauty may be a factor in detecting health BUT as non pretty people have kids too its not an evolutionary factor.
You can theorise all you want but facts is facts !