On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 04:39:36 +0000 (UTC), 
William Morse  wrote:
> kbc32{at}yahoo.com (kbc) wrote in news:buc90d$9ub$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org:
> 
>> I am curious whether there is any scientific explanation for the
>> role  facial appearance plays in mate-selection in humans.
>  
>> Are beautiful people genetically better ( such that their survival
>> chances are more ) ? ( i am not hinting anything.  just explaining
>> my question. )

[snip]

> If you are really interested, I suggest you take a break from watching TV 
> and read Geoffrey Miller's "The Mating Mind", which
discusses the whole 
> question of mate selection in humans in considerable detail.
> 
> Very briefly, yes a number of studies show beauty to be a measure of 
> facial symmetry. Symmetry is an indicator of lack of genetic or 
> developmental abnormalities, and so is a good fitness indicator. So 
> beautiful people are likely to be genetically "better". You
should note 
> that they are only "better" in terms of the conditions that humans 
> evolved under, which are not necessarily the conditions we experience 
> today.
> 
> There is also evidence that indicates that humans to a certain extent 
> prefer faces with younger looking features (especially in females), which 
> probably relates to  the interest in having a mate who is still young 
> enough to bear and raise a number of children.  

This is all very interesting but it doesn't answer the question. Are
there any studies to indicate that beauty is correlated with ability
to reproduce and are there any studies that describe the genetic 
components of beauty? In order for there to be selection for particular
facial features there have to be genes that have a direct effect on
facial appearance and there have to alleles for genes that modify the
response to that appearance. All of these are possible, but they 
seem to be implicitly assumed rather than seriously examined.

Another assuption seems to be that facial beauty correlates with
reproductive success. Most of the people who post here seem to assume 
that men only marry beautiful women and all the ugly ones die  
childless. This does not correspond to my experience. As far as I
know the vast majority of women in any society contribute their genes
to the next generation. I doubt very much that there's a detectable
difference between the facial beauty of successful vs. non-successful
mothers. Such a difference is absolutely essential for any adaptionist
just-so story. Does anyone have any data to suggest that facial beauty
correlates with evolutionary fitness either now or in the past?




Larry (who now prefers older-looking women) Moran
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