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Pretty Women Scramble Men's Sense Of The Future
Adam_Trask writes "Psychologists in Canada have finally proved what women have long suspected - men really are irrational enough to risk entire kingdoms to catch sight of a beautiful face." The methodology is not air-tight, but how many scientists figure out a way to use Am I Hot or Not at work? See also "Women Live Longer Because Men Are Dumb."
Isn't this just millions of years of evolution at play? The only reason we are all here today is because our ancestors were successful in finding a mate and passing on their genetic information... and we simply are the product of that evolutionary background.
The fact that both males and females were tested, and only males showed this behaviour tends to confirm this. For reproduction, females must spend far, far more resources than males do (as my old ecology prof used to say, 'sperm are cheap'). They can therefore afford to be more selective when it comes to mates. Males, on the other hand, aren't assured of passing down their genes, thus the evolution of such behaviour.
What are those? Whats this pretty? Is it like a simple command line or like a Gui..
When a man chooses a partner, he chooses to invest a lot of energy into rearing her offspring. If, however, she is impregnated by another man, all that energy is wasted, from the point of view of his own genes, because the other man's genes are propogated. The woman, however, can still be used to propogate his genes. Overall, the best behaviour for your genes is to get furious at anyone who tries to mate with your woman, not with your woman.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
My wife is a sales associate at a small electronic retail store full of insanely high-priced gadgets. The people she works with are average looking while she is quite stunning. Her sales are more than three times the next highest sales associate. I once witnessed her sell two high end IPaqs and a Tablet PC to the same guy who didn't even know what he was going to do with them.
Until this article I wasn't sure if it was her beauty, or some Jedi mind trick. Now I know.
I would have found it much more interesting
if the study had included the impact of exposure
to statistically attractive males and females
to both male and female subjects.
Clearly the interest of advertisers lies in
gaining a favorable irrational reaction.
But I notice that advertising geared toward
women generally includes images of attractive
females, not of attractive males. Thus I
think the negative results obtained by
exposing females subjects to statistically
attractive males is unsurprising.
I found the reasoning of the sociobiologist
interviewed in New Scientist to be facile.
If this study had been done 50 years ago,
they would have interviewed a psychoanalyst
and obtained a similarly affected "expert"
deep analysis.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
if they'd get the same results if they tested gay men (with the appropriate pictures). Or if they showed pictures of attractive men to straight men.
It would be interesting to see if this breaks down on gender lines or sexual preference lines.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
"Pretty Women Scramble Men's Sense Of The Future"
No where is this more apparent than comparing the work of Noastramus before, and after, he met the fetching Marie Rocque on a trip to Nice.
Previous to this, his qautraines were known for their poetic quality and predictive power.
After Cupid's arrow struck him, his writings were reduced to doggerell of no predictive ability, such as "Purple space alien destroy Russia in 1983", "Small Bears of Shicageau Win World Series 2001", "Cylons Led by Picard Destroy Babylon 4 in 2525", and "Matrix III Better than Matrix I".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
True. However, I do believe this line of reasoning would find its culmination with businessmen throwing their feces at each other during board meetings.
Women, by contrast, made equally rational decisions whether they had been shown pictures of handsome men or those of average attractiveness.
Perhaps this is because women tend to be less aroused by visual stimuli than men are.
No I don't have a source for this except for anecdotal evidence, but that anecdotal evidence is rather persuasive. Visual porn is overwhelmingly designed with the male (gay and straight alike) in mind, while tactile stimuli (sex toys, vibrators, etc.) are marketed primarily to females. I don't think this is by accident.
Perhaps if the women were asked to make those rational decisions while being massaged by a skilled masseur, their decision-making ability would be found to be impaired in a similar way to the males' impairment when confronted with visuals of attractive women.
How 'bout it, researchers? Design me a study!