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 ...
There are sound scientific reasons:
1) Many beautiful people are jerks, and become unbearable before the clothes even come off..
2) There are no ugly people at Closing Time.
2a) Beer.
ROFL
It’s just the way we are.
On the bright side, we all look wonderful to out dogs, and also to our cats, at least when the can-opener is running.
That's either stupid journalism or stupid biology. The selective pressures for choosing a man for a mate are different in various places around the world.
US and the civilized world: Attractiveness and money
Africa and Middle East: Can he shoot well enough to protect me? or ideally: Is he from the civilized world?
Well.. uh er.. you see it's like this... Imagine your carrot was 15 inches long.
OH! AARGGGH! Excuse me while I go throw up.
Hehehe! Lol!
Man, I feel like an idiot now...
Thru a thin patina of alcohol induced haze, everybody looks good..........
Oh, THAT guy. Yes, it was a mystery. Every night, he would leave with some gorgeous woman.
"What's his secret?" We asked the bartender.
"I dunno. He just sits there in the corner, by himself, licking his eyebrows..."
So how come we've still got so many Neanderthals who join the DimocRAT party?
Ever go to bed at two with a ten then wake up at ten with a two?.........
Wow, and what did his dates have to say about that?
"MOOooooooo!"
It's all in the chips as they fall.
< cough >
This is probably as good of a place as any to ask. Whhat is the big deal about Angelina Jolie?!? I mean, I don't find her ugly, but I most certainly don't find her attractive either. She's an average looking woman for her age. And this is coming from a guy with a soft spot for dark-haired women.
Even more disturbing to me is the reaction of women I bring this up to. These are otherwise perfectly straight chicks who become borderline lesbiotic when you bring up Angelina. "Oh Jeff! She's is SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!" I'm sorry. Anna Kournakova is beautiful. Julia Louis Dreyfuss is beautiful. Jolie ain't.
Yup. I've had three wives and four dogs. I still have the dogs. (Click on my name to see their pictures)
>Ugly people don’t get the chance to reproduce as much........
yeah, but when they get a chance, they have at it and pop them out by the dozen. LOL.
But were Brad and Angeline actually born with their perfect looks? LOL
I can’t get passed Pitt’s smoker nostrils. They’ll only get worse as he gets older, if he continues to puff away.
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