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Beauty and Darwin
A Darwinian interpretation of beauty

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Beauty and Darwin

Arkady
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Posted 09/12/09 - 03:07 PM:	#11
unenlightened wrote: I've got this awful feeling that my genes don't much care what a woman looks like, they'd happily screw anything that moves on the off-chance - sperm being cheap to produce. It is generally true that natural selection would favor male promiscuity because sperm are cheap and plentiful, and women would be more selective because eggs are large and metabolically expensive (not to mention the huge investment of females who carry their young to term or sit on eggs, then provide post-natal care). However, natural selection would likely place some constraints on male desire. For one, if we found very old (i.e. post-menopausal) women attractive it would be a waste of time and energy to mate with them (ditto for finding very young, i.e. pre-pubescent, girls attractive). Edited by Arkady on 09/12/09 - 04:35 PM
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

unenlightened
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Posted 09/12/09 - 05:11 PM:	#12
Arkady wrote: However, natural selection would likely place some constraints on male desire. For one, if we found very old (i.e. post-menopausal) women attractive it would be a waste of time and energy to mate with them (ditto for finding very young, i.e. pre-pubescent, girls attractive). I'm glad to see that despite your tag-line, you don't allow the facts to get in the way of a good theory. However, Mrs unenlightened (58) would not be impressed. I think it is just possible that with typical economy, natural selection uses sexual inclinations for social bonding as well as for reproduction.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Arkady
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Posted 09/12/09 - 05:17 PM:	#13
unenlightened wrote: I'm glad to see that despite your tag-line, you don't allow the facts to get in the way of a good theory. However, Mrs unenlightened (58) would not be impressed. I think it is just possible that with typical economy, natural selection uses sexual inclinations for social bonding as well as for reproduction. If you're going to be snarky, at least have a good argument. That fact that you love your 58-year-old wife does nothing to undermine the notion that sexual preferences could be shaped by natural selection. Do men or do not men (on average) prefer to mate with nubile, fertile women?
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

unenlightened
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Posted 09/12/09 - 06:02 PM:	#14
Arkady wrote: Do men or do not men (on average) prefer to mate with nubile, fertile women? On average, they prefer to masturbate.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Arkady
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Posted 09/12/09 - 06:04 PM:	#15
unenlightened wrote: On average, they prefer to masturbate. What I do when Sarah Palin is on TV is none of your business.
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

unenlightened
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Posted 09/12/09 - 06:16 PM:	#16
Excuse me, I am teasing you. But seriously, evolutionary explanations are not straightforward, even in matters of sex, and I question their value as explanations of something as abstract and cerebral as beauty.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Arkady
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Posted 09/12/09 - 06:22 PM:	#17
unenlightened wrote: Excuse me, I am teasing you. But seriously, evolutionary explanations are not straightforward, even in matters of sex, and I question their value as explanations of something as abstract and cerebral as beauty. Yes, I was being equally facetious...I will go on record to say I don't masturbate to Sarah Palin. (Being from Wales, you may not know who Sarah Palin is...she was the most recent Republican VP candidate and one of the US's more loathsome right-wingers. She is, however, fairly decent-looking as far as politicians go.)
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

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Posted 09/12/09 - 07:09 PM:	#18
I followed your election almost as avidly as America's got Talent, but I have a bit of a fetish for intelligent women, so she didn't exactly rock my world either. But now we're completely off topic... Is beauty in the genes of the beholder? I think not in any usefully predictable, or even explanatory way. I propose that nurture radically modifies nature in this regard.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Arkady
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Posted 09/12/09 - 07:24 PM:	#19
unenlightened wrote: Is beauty in the genes of the beholder? I think not in any usefully predictable, or even explanatory way. I propose that nurture radically modifies nature in this regard. I think that beauty is partly in the genes of the beholder (or, to be more precise, in the genes of the population of which the beholder is a part). While nurture can modify nature in this regard (perhaps even more so than most other traits), I think this is not without limits. Steven Pinker once wrote that if birth control pills grew on trees in our ancestral environment, we'd be terrified of them (or at least the females among us would be). I happen to find glasses sexy on a woman, but if you think about it, glasses would almost certainly be construed as distasteful if we evolved in an environment in which people wore glasses. Why? Because it's essentially advertising a physical and oft-genetically inherited limitation (i.e. myopia) right on our faces! Mating with myopic people would be disfavored by natural selection relative to mating with non-myopic individuals, and thus any visible signals of myopia would be a turn-off.
"Sit down before fact like a little child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing." -T.H. Huxley

unenlightened
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Posted 09/12/09 - 08:49 PM:	#20
Steven is mistaken. It might be a useful defense for bananas, say, to evolve birth control chemicals, but the response would be far more likely for females to evolve a distaste for them, than a fear. As to glasses - given glasses, myopia is not much of a limitation. For sure there are limitations, and built-in likes and dislikes, but if a sword-swallower can overcome the gagging reflex, I think ideas of beauty are likewise susceptible to modification - there is certainly no gene for a shoe-fetish or a taste for Salvador Dali's paintings.
...most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

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