FOR the female half of the population, it may bring a satisfied smile. Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece
Really! I didn't know that the most reproductive assests of a person will make them more likely to succeed.
Daniel Florien
Administrator
I often think that when I see old photographs of women. I saw one of a beauty pageant from the 20's... and thought if those are the winners, I'd hate to see the losers!
Ummmm.... I hate to break up the cro-magnon-fest, but are you all saying that the most attractive attribute a woman has is her physical appearance? Do brains, sense of humor, confidence, etc. not count? And have you all considered that attractiveness is culturally constructed? Just a few hundred years ago, overweight women were the bomb because it equated them with excess food... a sign of wealth.
C'mon.
phrankygee
Member
When I first met my wife, she was 17, and, unbeknownst to me, fresh out of chemotherapy. She was not really very externally beautiful, but she was super intelligent, tons of fun to be around, and, strangest of all, she seemed to be attracted to me, which was a damn rare thing to encounter.
Over the next 13 years her health steadily improved, and she became more and more attractive. Now, I am married to a freakin' hottie, and people can't figure out how the hell that happened. (Insluding me.)
So no, LRA, looks ain't everything, for guys OR gals. But they are awfully nice if ya' got 'em!
Aw! Thank you, phrankygee, for that great story! :) I also agree that looks are great, but it's the compatibility that really counts. Hence, this whole premise that "women are evolving to be more beautiful" is completely silly IMO. We are products of our culture and that involves standards of beauty as well.
Daniel Florien
Administrator
LRA, I think we were speaking of what is perceived as physical beauty. Of course those other things blend it to be a person's character and can change the attractiveness of a person. But let's be honest, men and women are wired to find certain physical attributes sexually attractive. Some people are different, but there are many people who find the same types of people physically attractive — and the same types of people not physically attractive.
It seems only natural to me that women who are found more sexually attractive than others will get more attention, and thus probably have more children.
Tis the truth, even if it's not politically correct.
vorjack
Moderator
There is one consistent standard of beauty that has existed since the beginning of time.
Well, except during the twenties, when the boyish "flapper" look was in fashion.
I'm tempted to say that we have hardwiring, but that out software can occasionally perform an override.
I agree, all you need to do though is look at pictures from the 50's, 60's 70's and so on though. Look at a pic of a girl in her teens, or mid 20's from all time periods and see the difference. Girls in their teens now days look so much better than girls in their teens did in the past decades.
I have to express a dissenting opinion here. I've been going through Star Trek: TOS on Netflix, and the likes of Nichelle Nichols, Grace Lee Whitney, Majel Barrett, Marianna Hill, Susan Oliver, Laurel Goodwin and ESPECIALLY Sherry Jackson (to name a few) have conspired to demonstrate a definite superiority in the physical appearance of women in the 60s.
Also, Jenny Agutter makes a strong case for the 70s.
Two interesting articles from the fantastic blog "Life Without A Net":
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/639/
What science can say about what men and women generally find attractive across cultures.
There are only "two standards" of beauty that I know of: one is, as Ty mentioned, the hip to waist ratio. The other is the "golden ratio" of the space between your eyes, nose, and face. Everything else, from what I understand, is subjective. This means that it changes over time and with cultures. So what does this study say about "objective" standards of beauty (or a beauty paradigm)? Such a thing sounds questionable to me. That was the point I was trying to make.
Daniel Florien
Administrator
Yeah, I suppose scorpions are attractive to other scorpions... ;)
Ty
Moderator
They've actually been able to trick male fruit flies into trying to mate with other males by spraying the chemical marker on them.
The plumbing of the two parties matters far less than the chemicals.
I was merely pointing out that I have at least one more data point in my mating decisions than a fruit fly. At least one. :)
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