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Are Women Getting More Beautiful?
FelxH writes "Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.
The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female. Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern." I just thought my
standards were changing as I got older, but it turns out it's just science!
Women get more attractive. Men develop bigger wallets.
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If more attractive parents have more daughters and if physical attractiveness is heritable, it logically follows that women over many generations gradually become more physically attractive on average than men.
Except that the standard for "beauty" changes over time. I'm not sure I'm buying this.
Proverbs 21:19
As a male, let me just say that it is sometimes good to be in the minority. The downside is that unless you are a dirty old man, there is no way to take advantage of the beautification of the female portion of the human race.
Rich. Not dirty, rich.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
If anything the reasons a woman has a baby has nothing to do with her looks and everything to do with her sense of well being, security along with cultural beliefs. Women are plenty attractive enough to get some sort of a sex partner and I'm trying to identify a time when that has not been the case.
In today's day and age, culture matters for birth more than looks. There are some women out there having nearly 10 children simply because they feel it is a christian thing to do. How does evolution account for that, unless it accounts for obvious social influences. On the opposite end of the scale, you have some green women who are deeply concerned that bringing too many children into the world might somehow compromise the planet.
It's almost like environment plus culture need to be considered as a holistic system in order to really understand human evolution.
This is my sig.
now that's a rejoinder that you could only find on slashdot...
This thread is useless without pics
They used old photographs in the study of people from past generations and their method of "objective" measurement of beauty were to have modern-day people judge them.
It seems almost a foregone conclusion that people in modern times would find the women of modern times more attractive; standards of beauty change.
Analog photoshup is an airbrush. Beer is more like chemical photoshop.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"Gee, more women appear to conform to modern standards of beauty, than at any time in the past!"
Mid 19th century beauty can be deduced by portraiture. The pre-raphaelite stuff from Rosetti does a pretty good job of this:
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/s356.repro.jpg
http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/s536.repro.jpg
They'd have seen Jessica Simpson as a freakishly stretched elf - on the verge of starvation.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
It is not only attractive women. What you are saying here is actually known as a social disease. Urban centers, overpopulation etc will have the effect of making woman want to have less kids. If you get those same woman and leave them on less populated places for a few years (6+), they will start wanting to have kids again.
As a father, I can say this doesn't happen only to women. Having a child will actually completes you and make you happy. It is natural for men and women to want to have kids. All the other "career" bullshit (given as a reason for men/women not having kids) is a symptom of a social disease.
morcego
Except that has more to do with diet and nutrition.
Either that or evolution happens *much* faster than I thought given that a single generation sees a 4" change reasonably often.
That's true.
What I don't understand is why evolution would self-select for prettier women, but not prettier men. A man who is ugly is not going to get any play or opportunity to pass his ugly genes to the next generation. Right? So then men should be becoming more attractive.
The only reason I can think is that women are being honest when they say, "We don't care what the guy looks like."
What you are noticing is the fact that men are "attractive" to women for different reasons than women are attractive to men.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
Hey, whatever floats your boat man...I've spent my entire life trying my BEST to avoid having the little 'milstones' around my neck. That's what contraception is for (and abortion if those still fail).
I'm glad people like having kids, but, it just isn't right to say it "completes" you. I've never wanted any, and I feel very complete! I'm not tied down to kids and a wife, I can date as I please, trade to a new 'model' of woman when I feel like it, and I don't have to worry about what I spend my finances on, because little Suzy needs braces. I can come and go as I please, travel, experience life and all it has to offer.
I don't look down on your for your choices, but, to say one must have that 'traditional' home with wife and kids to be a complete person is just plain nonsense. Different strokes for different folks...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You experience all life has to offer? Really? You're experiencing a very limited subset of what life has to offer. Different strokes indeed, but don't delude yourself. You've traded one set of experiences for another.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If you soak her in warm salt water and scorch her in 100 degree heat for for a few hours and she still looks good in a bikini standing under the noonday sun
Sounds like you're after a lobster, not a woman.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer