Posted on 04/04/2007 1:06:34 PM PDT by blam
Study Explains Why We're Not All Beautiful
By Andrea Thompson
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 28 March 2007
09:47 am ET
A new study explains why we aren't all born with Brad Pitt’s perfectly chiseled features or Angelina Jolie’s pouty lips.
A long-standing thorn in the side of biologists has been the difficulty in accounting for the enormous variation between individuals when sexual selection by females for the most attractive mates should quickly spread the “best” genes through a population.
“It is a major problem for evolutionary biology,” said study team leader Marion Petrie of Newcastle University.
The lek paradox
For some species, females select the most attractive males to mate with: female peacocks will choose males with the longest tail feathers—the peacock version of George Clooney. These more attractive features usually indicate some other level of genetic fitness, such as disease resistance, that the female’s offspring will then also inherit.
According to this method of sexual selection, if females only bred with the most attractive males, then all males should be equally attractive and sexual selection could not take place. (In the peacocks’ case, all males would have similarly long tails.) But clearly this isn’t the case: for every Johnny Depp out there, there’s a George Costanza—in humans, birds and other animals alike.
This so-called “lek paradox” (a lek is a group of males congregated for mating) has plagued evolutionary biologists for decades.
“If you had no variation at all, you wouldn’t get evolution,” Petrie told LiveScience.
But a group of British scientists think they have found the answer to the paradox in the human body’s “DNA repair kits.”
DNA repair kits
A cell’s DNA repair kit is not really a kit but a set of molecular processes that routinely repair the damage
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
““If you had no variation at all, you wouldn’t get evolution,” Petrie told LiveScience.”
I don’t see any sign of evolution in modern man.
What is attractive to one, could be ugly to another (for animals).
Add onto this humans, who hopefully are not so base that all humans marry based on physical appearance.
Ugly people don’t get the chance to reproduce as much........
But we have seen lot’s of ugly folks.
That’s just so wrong ping!
“Ugly people don’t get the chance to reproduce as much........”
Then why are there so damned many of them?
When was the last time you hung out at the Wal Mart Super Center?
Because it has less to do with what they are born with, and more to do with their souls shining through the exterior. ;)
This should never be mentioned without referencing Zahavi.
Also, the idea of ‘beautiful’ changes over time and culture. A trip to a portrait gallery will show you that.
She wasn't born with them either.
This is easy: once upon a time, God ordained that::
“There shall be an Ass for Every Seat!”
And people have been obedient to that law since time began.
Sheesh
Then why are there so damned many of them?
Because they find each other.
As a seventy plus year male, I have been puzzling over this for many years. I very much appreciate this information.
As my statistics professor once put it:
“The normal curve is a cruel b!tc#.”
Actually, there are plenty of signs of ongoing evolution in human beings. Two recent studies, for example, showed evidence that human brains have evolved (and are continuing to evolve) new genes within the last 10,000 years.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.