# What is Beauty?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [November 1, 1999, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911 "1999-11-01T09:26:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [November 3, 1999, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/21 "1999-11-03T22:58:00Z")
Naw, some of the “plain” women were made up in quite striking colors, too.
And babies’ eyesight gets pretty sharp after they’re a few months old. These tots were probably around a year old or so.
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### Author:  [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/22 "1999-11-04T05:36:00Z")
I have seen that study on babies’ attention to “attractive” faces more than once. The best explanatory principal I heard associated with it related back to the study that “attractive” faces are the ones with the most normative characteristics. Thus, the babies attention span was reflective of an evolutionary conservatism/preference for the mean, where the mean is equated with a healthy “normality”.
* * *
_The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity_
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### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/23 "1999-11-04T16:35:00Z")
‘Probably the reason babies were attracted to the supermodels was
because of the bright colors…’
No, for the boobs! =food
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### Author:  [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/24 "1999-11-04T16:41:00Z")
Beauty = the second heaviest quark. It outranks strangeness and charm but is superseded by truth. This is both accurate atomic physics and a pretty good statement of human nature.
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### Author:  [@pashley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pashley)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/25 "1999-11-04T17:22:00Z")
Beauty and Ugliness are just like Good and Evil…
Beauty and Good are what we like; Ugliness and Evil are what we don’t like. Simple.
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### Author:  [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/26 "1999-11-04T22:31:00Z")
Some of us like to _be_ evil… 😉
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### Author:  [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)
#### Post date: [November 4, 1999, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-beauty/16911/27 "1999-11-04T22:48:00Z")
Related, I think, is the odd use of the word “aesthetic” by many as synonymous with “beauty”. A philosphy teacher in college, though, pointed out to us that in terms of word roots, “anaesthetic,” something which keeps you from feeling, is the opposite. So perhaps something “aesthetic” isn’t neccessarily something which produces a “good” feeling at all.
Personally, I find grey days very nice, though. I’m sure people in some parts of the world find the too-uncommon rain cloud a beautiful sight. Are there universals as far as beauty is concerned? How much of those do you think are based in biochemistry or survival issues, in some loose way? And, hell, while I’m getting off subject, is cooking, where we manipulate materials to achieve a pleasing effect to the senses, “art”?
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