A cadre of scientists has determined that evolution is driving women to become more beautiful while "men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors."
Scientists claim that attractive couples (based on ”objective assessments of physical attractiveness”) tend to have more children and those children are more likely to be female. Those adult daughters may marry and mate with attractive men, have lots of daughters . . . and so on and so on. Over generations, the scientists conclude, women have become steadily more aesthetically pleasing.
What do nonscientists think of these findings? If the comments section of this article is any indication — not much! Responding to the claim that women are getting more beautiful, Elizabeth Payne wrote, "Not where I'm living they aint......!!!!" What does Graham Mitchell think? "Women are getting more beautiful? Yes. And alcohol is getting stronger." Ha!
Mulberry
Repetto
John Frieda
So a study somewhere says something.
I think it's totally true, everyone in my own personal life relates perfectly to this, therefor it must be true for everyone!
I think this is BS, this doesn't directly apply to me and it completely invalidates my experience, so I'm gonna comment that it's false for everyone!
1the argument is logical and based on a very strong social scientific background in evolutionary psychology. i mean, makes sense that men would go for the "more beautiful women." lol can't believe ppl researched this stuff... but then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (unless you speak of symmetry and the like... which is how these scientists define beauty). >shrug
2I think that it is easier to be beautiful now. But I don't believe these findings at all-
3There are just as many unattractive people mating as there ever was. Clearly..
So beautiful couples have more girls than boys? Huh? Everything I have ever known about statistics and chance goes against that
4I think the most fascinating part of this study is that physically attractive people are more likely to conceive girls. I am wondering how this is linked to the attractive women, however, since gender is determined by the gamete from the male.
5Wait now...I have three brothers and I am the only girl. Then I got married and I had two sons. What, exactly, does this say about me? Are my husband and sons aesthetically unappealing and I have just never realized it? Will I have granddaughters some day, assuming my cavemen-like sons can ever find a mate and reproduce with an attractive woman? I'm so confused.
6I have 2 brothers and I am the only girl. I guess my mother was not attractive enough to have a lot of daughters and I'm only attractive enough to have sons. I don't like this study. I like to think there is more chance involved.
7I think they are making an incorrect link. I don't think they meant that more attractive couples have more girls, its that more girls are conceived in general. There are more women on the planet than men. This is a stupid study though. What is considered attractive is different in different cultures. Also it is hard to say what women looked like even a couple hundred years ago. There are way too many cultural variables for this study to be valid. What a waste of money.
8Huh. So how are they determining this information and where are they suggesting this is true? Are the IQ's going down or up with this trend? I don't know if I believe it. There's nothing to say that if two people are attractive their daughters will be too. And how what are the chances the children are attractive when the father has average features while the beautiful trophy wife produces children to him? Plus also how many times have I seen two average looking people having children who look better than either one of them put together. PLUS I've seen kids get the absolute worst features of two attractive parents. I did hear something once about Iceland though. I heard there is a large percentage of women who become models there. They say the Vikings took beautiful women from surrounding countries and they somehow produced this supermodel gene pool. I don't know if it's possible to make such assumptions though. Besides not everyone is on the same page with what is beautiful and what is not. My guess is it has to do more with money and technology. Women are paid for looking good these days and technology is able to get their images into your living room.
9For the record, I was joking...
10More women are beautiful to more people now due to plastic surgery. You can get a face lift and attract more men as a women, so there is a totally nonscientific example of this as well.
11This is the most worthless study I've ever heard of.
12I agree with MeiGaku. Markus Jokela and the state of knowledge of evolutionary psychology make a sound argument for the conclusion. It's interesting that a lot of people seem to object to the study's findings despite the methodology remaining ambiguous (at least, after reading the linked Times article).
As far as attractiveness is concerned, of course many factors come into play, but a rule of thumb considered in scientific study is the symmetry of facial characteristics, which suggests genetic traits that promote the perpetuation of a genetic lineage.
I wonder how much the social historical role of women have come into play in the implications of this study, particularly among the lower classes when dowries weren't as significant of an issue in unions. Men held most of the social power throughout history, and so the incentive to be more attractive was not as significant as the incentive to be more socially successful. I imagine the importance of a male's annual income to be a more important factor in mate selection than attractiveness alone.
Just some undeveloped thoughts, probably influenced by reading Pride and Prejudice. Anyway.
Forbes gave a far better summary of the study than the Times: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/27/women-attractiveness-study-markets-face...
13There's no such thing as an objective assessment of physical attractiveness.
BS.
14HAHA! Whether it's true or not, it still made me smile.
15The study saying that attractive couples are more like to have girls came out in 2006! I remember reading about it in, I think, Psychology Today or Newsweek and they cited tots like Suri and Shiloh as examples, lol.
I think there is some truth to this, not that I think I'm very pretty but my Mom and Dad are attractive people and they had four girls. Not the case for everyone but interesting nonetheless.
16Isn't beauty subjective?
17If you look at paintings of women from a few centuries ago, they did look significantly different, and not just because they didn't wear make up. The study may have a point.
18I think this "scientist" who came out with these "facts" when cumming on photo shopped vogue or playboy cover. Great find Mister.
19My family has 4 girls and 1 boy! Yay! I must be beautiful!
Actually, even in my extended family, girls beat out the boys big time, like 2-1! We must be gorgeous!
20weird test...
21So, I guess, Posh and Becks aren't all that attractive after all...
22I don't really think it's the fact that there are more daughter's that come out of attractive couples. I think it's the fact that there's sexual selection. There's this constant pressure for women to be more attractive. And maybe when they become attractive enough, they get what they want: a man and a marriage and children. You know the whole thing that society impounds in our brains. Then their kids inherit a woman's beauty from that.
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