# What is the scientific explanation for why caucasian features are “objectively” the best looking?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 1, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145 "2014-09-01T13:45:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Gorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorilla)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/1 "2014-09-01T13:45:23Z")
Coming across a webpage titled “[The facial proportions of beautiful people](http://majorityrights.com/weblog/comments/the_facial_proportions_of_beautiful_people)” has made me to finally pose a question that I have often thought about but never asked. The entire tone of the article, the carefully chosen pictures, and most of the subsequent comments were pretty racist. The following quote by one of the commenters pretty much gives the gist of the entire thread:
> [@](#):
>
> all he is saying is that typical european faces are more proportional, and yes, it has been proven that most, not all people, but MOST people find more proportional and symmetric shapes, including faces and bodies, more beautiful, no matter the colour. it just happens to be so that the whites in general have more proportional faces.
>
> so… a european face is in most cases more mathematically “correct”.
Of course, the notion of European – particularly Nordic – supremacy in terms of beauty is a very popular notion and is often repeated in many ways by people all the time, either intentionally or unintentionally. However, one thing that has often struck me about this is the fact that no one ever bothers to even attempt to provide a scientific explanation/justification for it. It is merely taken for granted. No one ever bothers to explain how and why Europeans – particularly Nordics – came to evolve the facial features that are universally the most appealing. Furthermore, no one ever bothers to explain why and how “the best looking group of people” also happens to come to be the one dominating the world in a global sense. Is it just coincidence? Or is there some kind of scientific relationship between beauty and global dominance?
Personally, I think all it simply is is that caucasian features have come to be associated in people’s brains with high social status and prestige as well as prototypicality, as a result of global dominance, and thus instinctively perceived as the most attractive. Thus, if a different group of people had been dominating the world, our perceptions would have been different. While I have heard people of other races make that observation, I have never heard a white person make it. Perhaps because it is convenient for them not to. But if you disagree with that explanation, then please provide a different thesis based on the following three points:
1. Please specify the relevant criteria by which people universally judge facial beauty (such as symmetry, alignment, etc…)
2. Then provide a scientific explanation for why and how caucasians (especially northern Europeans) came to evolve in such a manner as to meet these criteria much more than other groups of people.
3. Finally, please explain why the very group of people having these “objectively best features” came to dominate the whole world. Was it just coincidence? If not, what was the causal relationship?
[Let me briefly play devil’s advocate by giving an example of a type of answer I would expect, though this answer is based on wild assumptions and questionable premises that need to be justified: “_1) It has been hardwired into the brains of homo-erectus to find people with less “ape-like” features more attractive because it indicates greater biological evolution. 2) Due to the very contrasting climate in which they lived during the past 150000 years, Caucasians (especially northern Europeans) evolved physical features that differentiated them from their earlier human ancestors in Africa more than any other group of people. 3) People who lived in climatological conditions that were the least like those of the earlier human ancestors tended to develop survival instincts and drive that caused them to eventually dominate the world._” Of course the last point is particularly outlandish and it ignores the actual facts of how Europe historically came to be in the position that it is. Also, I have not come across any study that supports the first claim (not to mention that it hurts my feelings). Also, note that this explanation ignores the nonsense about “mathematical correctness”. Nevertheless, this gives you an idea of how I would expect someone to try to meet the challenge I am putting forward without simply relying on brute assertions, wild luck and coincidence.]
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### Author:  [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/2 "2014-09-01T13:54:21Z")
I’m not sure Nordic countries are particularly globally dominant.
They are fairly wealthy, though, and have been for a few generations, I suspect that at least helps. Sustained good nutrition and sanitation generally makes each generation smarter and taller then the last (up to a point, obviously). I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s also an effect on other aspects of attractiveness as well.
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### Author:  [@Gorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorilla)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/3 "2014-09-01T14:06:33Z")
> [@Simplicio](#):
>
> I’m not sure Nordic countries are particularly globally dominant.
>
> They are fairly wealthy, though, and have been for a few generations, I suspect that at least helps. Sustained good nutrition and sanitation generally makes each generation smarter and taller then the last (up to a point, obviously). I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s also an effect on other aspects of attractiveness as well.
I was not specifically referring to the so-called “nordic countries” ie: scandinavia. I was speaking more broadly about Germanic peoples, who have been often referred to as “nordic” and share similar traits with scandinavians. Most people in northern european countries (above southern france) would often be described as “nordic”.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/4 "2014-09-01T14:07:07Z")
Did you read the entire webpage? This is a \*debunking \*of Marquardt’s theory, not a support of it.
> [@](#):
>
> I have previously pointed out that beautiful people tend to possess multiple population-typical traits, and this has biological significance. Therefore, given the finds in Figures 8-12, which should be mostly known to keen observers anyway, **it is unlikely that one could come up with a beauty mask/archetype that describes the facial proportions of the most beautiful people in all races. There are additional problems with Marquardt’s beauty mask since he claims that his mask applies to the most beautiful people.** As I have alluded to previously, the most beautiful people tend to somewhat deviate from the average with respect to some traits, and there are at least two such types of deviation that are relevant to us: one related to sex hormone profiles and another related to gracility of facial features (details to be posted later). Obviously, different sex hormone profiles in men and women and racial variation in central tendency/gracilization make it impossible to come up with a unisex and cross-racial beauty mask that describes the facial proportions of the most beautiful. **Marquardt’s beauty mask doesn’t do justice to white beauty and it is clearly unfair to non-whites,** which I do not believe to be deliberate on his part but it is something that has apparently resulted from his over-eagerness to describe beauty in simple terms. Beauty has a complex nature. The association of beauty with having multiple population-typical traits, sex hormone profiles, and gracilization suggests that it is not completely subjective, i.e., something that can be dismissed as simply lying in the eye of the beholder, but aesthetic preferences nevertheless vary by race and species, reflecting the fact that population-typical traits vary by race and species; there is also individual variation, but most individuals within a race assess facial beauty in a similar manner.
>
> **Marquardt and Jefferson could make a powerful case for their work if they came up with beauty masks for various animal species and showed how masks for ancestral species could be transformed to that of their different-looking present descendents without seriously undermining the alleged biological significance of the mask among the intermediate types, but I don’t believe they would be able to do this.**
>
> **Further, a great many proportions/patterns in nature undoubtedly have nothing to do with the golden ratio** , i.e., in many cases, it is surely futile to attempt to reduce visual appeal to patterns derived from the golden ratio.
(bolding mine)
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### Author:  [@Gorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorilla)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/5 "2014-09-01T14:37:02Z")
> [@WhyNot](#):
>
> Did you read the entire webpage? This is a \*debunking \*of Marquardt’s theory, not a support of it.
> (bolding mine)
Thanks for the correction. I made a mistake when i said “the entire tone of the article”. Rather, it is the dissertation that the author was criticizing that was racist in its tone. I know the author supports the heterogeneity view of beauty and doesn’t agree with the “mask theory”. However, my question still stands. The article and especially the subsequent comments from the posters, merely reminded me of a general trend i have long noticed in America (and other places) to take for granted the notion of european supremacy in beauty as though it were objective and universal without offering or even considering any underlying explanations. The quote i provided in the OP is a typical example of it.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/6 "2014-09-01T15:01:57Z")
I’ve never heard of an _objective_ study showing Europeans to be more beautiful than anyone else. To the contrary, _objective_ studies show that beauty is measured by local cultural standards. In the modern world Eurocentric culture is prevalent world wide and dominates the global culture as portayed in media. Only in that sense of biased perception can the claim in the OP be made.
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### Author:  [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/7 "2014-09-01T18:01:00Z")
> [@Gorilla](#):
>
> Thanks for the correction. I made a mistake when i said “the entire tone of the article”. Rather, it is the dissertation that the author was criticizing that was racist in its tone. I know the author supports the heterogeneity view of beauty and doesn’t agree with the “mask theory”. However, my question still stands.
Even if claiming to play devils advocate the point of **WhyNot** stands.
Your point does stand, but on quick sand.
Not much of an incentive to counteract an item that was already debunked in the article that was used as a starting point.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/8 "2014-09-01T19:31:25Z")
This thread would be more interesting if it didn’t focus on the ramblings of [majorityrights.com](http://majorityrights.com), which deserve little credence or attention.
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### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/9 "2014-09-01T19:55:16Z")
Proportions aside, I read somewhere that humans tend to consider pale, \*unblemished \*skin as more attractive - basically, because you can see that there aren’t any blemishes, and people are instinctively attracted to visible health. I don’t know how true that is, though.
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/10 "2014-09-01T20:02:40Z")
There’s only two Caucasian-related traits I can think of that might qualify as “objectively” better looking, or at least as close as beauty gets to being “objective”:
The lack of epicanthic folds: The lack of an epicanthic fold makes eyes appear larger, and humans are pretty clearly hardwired to regard big eyes = cute. Something basic enough that we extend it to nonhuman animals, not just other humans. Of course, this also extends to \*non-\*Caucasians who lack epicanthic folds.
Blonde hair & blue eyes: There’s a hypothesis that the common attraction to blonde hair is because pale hair/blue eyes [often](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blond#Relation_to_age) [darken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_color#Changes_in_eye_color) with age, therefore blonde & blue = young/cute (much like the eye thing, actually). Of course, that’s less “Caucasians in general are more attractive” than "blonde hair & blue eyes are ‘cute’, and blondes & blue eyed people are normally Caucasian ".
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/11 "2014-09-01T20:02:52Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Proportions aside, I read somewhere that humans tend to consider pale, \*unblemished \*skin as more attractive - basically, because you can see that there aren’t any blemishes, and people are instinctively attracted to visible health. I don’t know how true that is, though.
It is probably true, for the types of people that were polled for whatever magazine published said poll.
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### Author:  [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/12 "2014-09-01T20:22:28Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Proportions aside, I read somewhere that humans tend to consider pale, \*unblemished \*skin as more attractive - basically, because you can see that there aren’t any blemishes, and people are instinctively attracted to visible health. I don’t know how true that is, though.
It’s not that, so much. There is a cross-cultural preference for lighter skin _in women_, and darker skin _in men_.
The explanation I’ve heard is that, within a particular genetically related group, women are going to look a bit ‘lighter’ in complexion than men, because they have more subcutaneous fat, which makes the skin look lighter in color, more ‘pearly’, etc… Lighter skin thereby serves as an indicator that ‘this person is female’, so men are attracted to it, and women who have unusually lighter skin trigger that response even more strongly than women who don’t, so they’re considered even more attractive. Vice versa for men. I forget what the term for this is, but I learned it years ago in a behavioural ecology class: maybe ‘supernormal stimulus’ or something like that, but I’m probably wrong.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/13 "2014-09-01T20:41:47Z")
As an Asian who’s lived in Asia for a long time, I think many people, regardless of race, consider lighter skin more attractive. Some Asian women carried parasols and wore special arm sleeves designed to prevent suntan. Some Asians undergo skin-lightening cosmetic procedures. I think many black people in Haiti also undergo skin-lightening cosmetic procedures.
It’s rather upsetting.
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### Author:  [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2014, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/14 "2014-09-01T23:29:21Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> I’ve never heard of an _objective_ study showing Europeans to be more beautiful than anyone else. To the contrary, _objective_ studies show that beauty is measured by local cultural standards. In the modern world Eurocentric culture is prevalent world wide and dominates the global culture as portayed in media. Only in that sense of biased perception can the claim in the OP be made.
There have also been some interesting studies showing that blends of features are highly attractive. They used image processing technology to “morph” between faces, interpolating mixed features, and such blends were judged more attractive than the “pure” racial images.
We would seem to like the subtlety of a delicate mix of features.
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### Author:  [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/15 "2014-09-02T01:21:44Z")
What in the world does it mean to be “more proportional”?
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### Author:  [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/16 "2014-09-02T01:34:26Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> I’ve never heard of an _objective_ study showing Europeans to be more beautiful than anyone else. To the contrary, _objective_ studies show that beauty is measured by local cultural standards. In the modern world Eurocentric culture is prevalent world wide and dominates the global culture as portayed in media. Only in that sense of biased perception can the claim in the OP be made.
That’s true to a point, but certain things are universal- symmetrical features, youth, health, being relatively average (i.e. not extreme looking) etc…
So with the exception of extreme situations like Khoisan women’s buttocks, it’s likely that most women considered attractive in one place would be attractive, or pretty close to it elsewhere.
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### Author:  [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/17 "2014-09-02T02:29:36Z")
> [@Napier](#):
>
> What in the world does it mean to be “more proportional”?
This. I haven’t read the article but straight away there seems to be a massive problem here. “more proportional” is whargarble.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/18 "2014-09-02T02:53:54Z")
> [@bump](#):
>
> That’s true to a point, but certain things are universal- symmetrical features, youth, health, being relatively average (i.e. not extreme looking) etc…
>
> So with the exception of extreme situations like Khoisan women’s buttocks, it’s likely that most women considered attractive in one place would be attractive, or pretty close to it elsewhere.
This is certainly so, but Europeans don’t have an a monopoly on symetry, youth, health, or averageness.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/19 "2014-09-02T02:59:38Z")
> [@Napier](#):
>
> What in the world does it mean to be “more proportional”?
Well, you take proportion, see, and you ain’t got less what there.
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### Author:  [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-scientific-explanation-for-why-caucasian-features-are-objectively-the-best-looking/697145/20 "2014-09-02T04:12:40Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> As an Asian who’s lived in Asia for a long time, I think many people, regardless of race, consider lighter skin more attractive. Some Asian women carried parasols and wore special arm sleeves designed to prevent suntan. Some Asians undergo skin-lightening cosmetic procedures. I think many black people in Haiti also undergo skin-lightening cosmetic procedures.
> It’s rather upsetting.
The holding parasol thing used to bother me but then I thought about how popular it is for white people to want to get sun tans (either naturally or by using a sun bed). I thought about why I should automatically assume that lightening skin is a race thing, but darkening it is not.
Cosmetic procedures OTOH could be a worrying, depending on what procedures we’re talking about and how common they are. But the word “procedure” might imply something done in a clinic, say, laser treatments, but these are still very rarely performed and expensive.
The use of creams to reduce melanin production may well be more common; I haven’t been able to find good cites either way.
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