A good looking woman has a lot of advantages that an average looking women does not have. So looks alone would increase her odds for survival. If evolution were true, I would expect the less attractive one’s to die off in favor of the attractive ones just like the change in structure of Darwin’s finches. But what do we see in every day life? Most people have just average looks.
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Someone should let him know about the Bell Curve.
Yeah, if (a big "if") attractiveness is one of the primary traits selected for in the human population, we can expect the average appearence of our current population to be quite beautiful by the standards of our anscestors .
In any case, beauty is relative.
Its too bad it's usually so hard to reply directly to the post.
The fact is that exaggerted sexual characteristics are constantly selected for by natural selection, even at the expense of more directly beneficial traits. The peacock's tail is the obvious example. The same is true of human women. We have far more developed breatss and other secondary sexual characterists than do chimpanzee females or homo erectus females; we've also given us estris for the ability to have sex at any point in the cycle so as to accomodate male desire. One of those TV anthropologists descrbed humans as the sexiest apes alive preceisely because human sexual characteristics are so pronounced compared to those of other primates.
So actually this query does address a very valid and important element of evolution. But, typically for the fundmanetalist, he assumes the problem has not been addressed and does nothing to find out about it.
However that last statement "Most people have just average looks" is just monumentally stupid (its like saying 'this is a bad result: half the test scores are below average!').
Well just a few hundred years ago, most people looked like you , so we've done a pretty good job of breeding out the really ugly ones...
1) Beauty is subjective. Standards change over time.
2) Average is relative to the other people around at the time, not compared to the women of the distant past.
You fail to account for the brutish ogre father's genes factoring into his daughter's genome, since, obviously, males are not selected according to physical apprearance, since they can just have their way with the pretty ladies using their strength and cunning, right?
Lets say your analogy is incorrect, that each generation is more beautiful than the last.
Then, there would still be the same amount of average looking people, just a different standard of beauty.
Hallelughlia!
God Christ, compared to a woman from 10,000 years ago, my ex is hot! Nah, second thought, give me a Neanderthal babe.
One reasons would be that the canon of beauty changes. That is, average is always the norm, because noteworthy beauty requires that one be outstanding.
It's like saying 'Tall is better, but most people are of average height'. One who was smart would wonder 'But is that average taller than before?'
Idiot.
Because ugly people keep having sex AND a lot of good looking women and good looking men go for mates who are average. We have different reasoning behind mate selection.
Remember power, money and intelligence are our biggest aphrodisiacs rather than just being a pretty face. After all who cares what you look like if your family is starving...
SavedToo is among the approximately 50% (because if you're using the mean as the average, it could be a bit away from 50%) of people who have below average intelligence.
Also, it seems that beauty is in the eye of the present.
What constitutes 'good looks' varies from culture to culture and also from person to person inside a culture. Around 150 years ago, women with wide hips were considered most attractive as they were considered likely to be able to bear healthy children. Recently it has become more important to more people that one's partner be intelligent and easy to speak to. People like to look at and even mess around with beautiful people, but they don't always consider them the best life mates.
This all skirts the main flaw in your argument. Everybody isn't above average because average, by definition, is the median look. In the distant past, the average may have been much less.
Sheesh! Obviously someone has a face like the back of a truck. Just because you're ugly Saved, doesn't mean everybody is.
As an aside, we, as a species, have become less hirsute which may or may not be a result of sexual selection.
"Most people have just average looks."
Hence the word average stuck in there you moron. If every man looked like George Cloony and every woman like Angelina Jolie then they too would be "average" you nit.
The concept of beauty is societally, not genetically defined, so your argument falls flat. What was beautiful 200 years ago would be considered undesirable now. People are not animals, we mate for more reasons than just looks. Personality, status, familiarity, background, beer... human attraction knows no bounds.
Two things we know about this person:
(1) They are the shallowest person you will ever hear about in your entire life.
(2) His wife probably wouldn't like reading his post.
Since when does getting a decent job or shagging a good looking bloke amount to "survival"? If their pig ugliness was resulting in their dying out, then evolution might decree a better looking society (how fucking boring would THAT be?), but seeing as people aren't NOT reproducing due to their looks, your argument holds no water.
The nature of industrialized Western society has pretty much negated natural selection for humans. Everyone survives, whether they would in truly natural conditions or not. Proof that artificial conditions don't kill off people is not proof that evolution doesn't exist.
Also, the beauty standard in this country is LESS conducive to physical survival than not fitting it is. Let's see, thin but with huge boobs, blonde, and tanned in a way that everyone knows you started off pale and aren't actually, god forbid, dark. People who think that survival has anything to do with looks are perfectly welcome to release me and Paris Hilton into the wilderness (into different spots so that I don't kill her and ruin the experiment) and see who stays alive longer.
Princess Rot wrote:
"The concept of beauty is societally, not genetically defined, so your argument falls flat." I'm afraid the evidence disagrees.
Experiments have been done where babies were shown a supermodel alongside a homely woman, and invariably the baby pays more attention to the supermodel.
One could also argue that a lot of what makes women and men "beautiful" is not genetic. A nice facial structure and a good body is important for a supermodel, of course, but what really makes a model "beautiful" is the hair, clothing, and make-up that accentuate already attractive features. Take that all away, and a lot of supermodels aren't too far from the average.
On the flip side, a lot of "average" people suddenly become very "beautiful" with enough careful grooming.
For the last thousand years or so, people have tended to mate within their social group. Couples have been pared off by their families, not due to good looks, or even mutual affection, but because the families wanted to join their properties.
Good looks is just as much societal opinion as it is genes. Just look at paintings of kings and queens from different periods. The painters made them look good, in the style that was popular at the time.
This brings up an interesting point: Since modern society seems to value large breasts, and many women who are less endowed are turning to plastic surgery, this means that those with genes for smaller breasts are actually MORE successful at finding mates. Therefore, the frequency distribution of flat-chested women will begin to rise as more and more women realize that they need to be 'enhanced' in order to find mates.
Good-looking women have no end of problems with horny sexist assholes (however, they can be much more discerning when selecting a mate), and if they live in Islamistan, their burqas are just as ugly as the next woman's.
Also: "No matter how fine she looks, someone somewhere is totally fed up with her shit."
SavedToo must be new to the planet. A horny man will basically fuck any woman that offers herself. This is an exaggeration, but you get the picture.
Also, why did I say "horny" man?
Not every man is like this - thankfully. But it's enough to perpetuate non-beauty. Also, tastes differ.
Defining if someone is "Goodlooking" is simply done by an individual's perception of what good looks are. If everyone looked like bananas then bananas would be defind as something good looking, since no one looks different, and the main concept of thinking someone is goodlooking is generated by sexual atraction.
This must be one of the most horrible/hilarious straw men against evolution.
"Why are most people average when Darwin claims that only the fittest survive?"
Kind of an innumerate spin on:
"Why are there more than one species/individual when Darwin claims that only the fittest survive?"
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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