I think this is pretty much hypostatized twaddle. I'd be interested to see research that somehow connected such-and-such a feature to evolutionary success in a rigorous way. In fact, I believe this basically journalistic theory reappears every now and then to sell papers or mags, but is in fact pretty close to Lysenkoism.

Consider that, in evolutionary theory, successful mutations are those that perpetuate the species. If I have lithe hips, though, wouldn't this increase the complications of pregnancy and birth? Wouldn't I be likely to survive maternity and go on and deliver more babies if I looked more like the ladies who used to labor on Russian highway maintenance crews?

I mean, there are successful mutations and unsuccessful ones. Let's say I mutate and turn out to be a combination of Barbie and the latest hot porn star. Sure, all the fertile young guys will pursue me, but I'll wind up bleeding to death with a breech fetus, the baby will die too, and where's your species then?

I think this line of reasoning is equally credible, if not more so, than the other.

I would also point out that the exponent of this latest wrinkle is a psychologist. Now, I realize that this is a lighthearted post, and the coverage of this research also appears to be lighthearted. However, I'm not aware that evolution per se is a normal study in Psychology. But as several commentators with reservations about traditional evolutionary theory have pointed out, no field -- biology, genetics, or other -- has really systematically explicated the actual operation of theoretical evolutionary processes. Psychology certainly hasn't. And even though Iain Murray feels that statistics somehow "prove" evolution, I believe there are serious reservations that there has actually been enough time for all the evolutionary mutational monkeys pounding on the metaphorical evolutionary mutational keyboard to produce the number of evolutionary mutations that would have to have occurred to allow a piece of pond scum to evolve into Barbra Streisand.

So we're sort of piling lightheartedness on top of - I hate to say it -- a certain level of extra-specialty quackery here, something that actually does go on with some frequency in the academic world.

There's a book that addresses these very issues. It's excellent: Survival of the Prettiest.

Try reading Elaine Morgan's "Descent of Woman" for a different perspective on evolutionary theory. You might especially enjoy it if the caveman meat hunter / little woman waiting in the cave theory strikes you as a bit silly. This book also takes on the very real modern (and ancient) phenomenon of women being attracted to not the hairy big ape throwing his friends around, but the mysterious, sexy 'new guy in town'. Morgan and others point out that a biological attraction to 'new blood', if you will, is a far more practical and important trait for the perpetuation of a healthy species than sitting around a cave hoping your man will return.

Ouch, Mary - point taken. I'm sure me mates still in-country will be pleased to hear that.

Perhaps I should check up on their girl-friends?

"Lysenkoism" is the fallacious belief, official policy in the Stalinist Soviet Union, that acquired traits somehow become part of genetic material that is passed on to future generations. I went to the Amazon links suggested above and find, again, that a psychologist is making very mushy statements that are hard to parse in determining whether a preference for a symmetrical face or fair skin is an acquired trait that is passed on, or a trait that somehow became a successful mutation via natural selection, and we somehow have acquired the subconscious propensity to value. Both versions, on their face, do not seem especially coherent.

In addition, the summary of "Survival of the Prettiest" that says the book apparently puts forward the point that blonde hair and fair skin are somehow superior evolutionary traits is, on the face of it, racist -- and contradicts common sense, since those with dark skin and dark hair far outnumber those with fair skin and blonde hair. Wouldn't logic lead to the conclusion that Nordic traits, if evolutionarily successful, would lead to Aryans dominating the world? The mind boggles at the obtuseness that prevails here.

I noticed another mushy statement in the quote in Dan's post: "Their [women's] choice of a mate is informed by evolutionary complexities involving not only potential fertility and health but perceived ability to protect the female’s offspring through wealth and power." Now, evolutionary theory, it seems to me, has nothing to do with perceptions and everything to do with what really works. If something makes one squirrel faster than another, it will breed more, since it will live longer, and its genes will be passed on to more little squirrels. Whether a potential squirrel mate PERCEIVES any advantage to a sleeker set of ears (which may or may not be the thing that makes the squirrel fast) has nothing to do with it.

The statement above refers in equal parts to fertility -- which would be a "correct" evolutionary factor -- to a "perceived ability to protect" -- which has nothing to do with it. And the mushiness of the statement, and the similar statements in linked discussions here, leads to a conclusion that there may be some sloppy thinking that a perceived cultural advantage is somehow passed on to "evolutionary" traits, which is not correct, but, it seems to me, sounds good.

What this reminds me of is the weird thinking that led to theories of racial superiority by the you-know-whos. Fair skin, we read, is a superior trait (it's in the Amazon review of the book), because when somebody gets the hots, it's easier to see. OK, let's accept that. This means that dark skin isn't a good trait, or isn't as good. If I'm dating some chick from Sri Lanka, it's harder to see if she's got the hots, and we won't make as many babies, or something like that. So to make more babies I should date a white chick. A REALLY white chick.

Humm. You can sort of begin to see where this is headed. Should we maybe keep the folks whose skin won't let you see if they've got the hots from, ah, breeding? Or just not let them into the country club? Sheesh.

Check out _Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species_, by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. It's a great book.

Sarah Hrdy is great...

And cheer up: at least it's not an obsession with Friedrich Hayek.

Daniel:
Serendipitously (perhaps?), the New Hampshire Supreme Court just ruled that oral sex is not adultery.

Some more interesting news to break to your better half.

Duck and cover.

SMG

I continue to be puzzled by some of the posts I see in this thread, which are different from those I've seen in other threads here. Several folks have simply felt the thing to do is point to Book X, which presumably answers everything, and their responsibility ends there. I might accept someone saying, "Well, John, you're clearly an undergraduate, and while your questions are valid, Immanuel Kant handled them well in Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. I recommend you undertake the honors program in German and Enlightenment Philosophy." However, what we're talking about here is parlor quackery -- I mean this literally. I googled the book on Mother Nature, Maternal Instincts, etc., and got an outdated agenda for a potluck meeting to discuss same someplace near Seattle in 2002.

The summary of the Mother Nature book I found reads, among other things, "Without ever denying personal accountability, she points out that many of the patterns of abuse and neglect that we see in cultures around the world (including, of course, our own) are neither unpredictable nor maladaptive in evolutionary terms."

I don't understand. I beat my infant child, and this is an evolutionary adaptation? I was wrong to do this, but a Ph.D. in Psychology at Podunk State says it's excusable? This is truly wacky stuff.

Let's keep on with this. Linda Schmidlapp, Ph.D., in her book, Triumph of the Evolutionary Will, explains how symmetrical facial features express the true evolutionary goal, along with blonde hair and fair skin. Without ever denying accountability, she explains how past scholarly theories of racial superiority, and their implementation by so-called "fascist" states, have been neither unpredictable nor maladaptive expressions of evolutionary development.

What puzzles me is that many of the writers who turn this stuff out are products of the top-x universities. What's your opinion on this stuff, Dan? You went, I believe, to Williams as an undergraduate, got your Ph.D. from Stanford, and now teach at Chicago. How do you feel about this? Do you have a sharpened sense of quackery here, or do you feel that anyone who's played the game and gotten a Ph.D. is entitled to speak at length without challenge, in areas that lead toward somewhat woozy consequences?

What about the folks who don't seem to have arguments to offer of their own, but feel that if you send for Dr. Schmidlapp's book, all will be revealed? I find this kind of stuff troubling, though I recognize most people outside the blogosphere are, luckily untouched by this particular brand of snake-oil.

John Bruce,

Book recommendations are one of the hidden pleasures of blogging. If you prefer long discourses, find a blog which specializes in them. Otherwise put up with folks who aren't like you.

Tom, I still don't understand this. If someone says, "Read Dianetics and you'll understand; I'm not going to waste my time arguing," I would consider this the rhetorical fallacy of abandonment of discussion. I think this is what's happening here. How do you feel about this "evolutionary psychology" pseudo-field, in which "experts" construct arguments that justify the superiority of fair skin and blonde hair? How do you feel this separates them from rather repugnant theories of the recent past?

Dan, I know this may be unpredictable, but some of this stuff comes out of the woodwork. I wonder now and then if you've had an education in fields other than Poli-Sci, and if you can apply an independent intelligence to stuff like this. I know it started as a joke, but clearly there are folks who take it seriously. How do you feel about this as a cultural phemomenon? Do you have opinions on things that may affect areas other than those directly related to your specialty?

John Bruce,

You are making the same mistake as the 3-judge 9th Circuit panel did on the California recall. They assumed failure to vote for a particular office or subject was evidence of mechanical error instead of a deliberate choice by a voter not to vote on that particular subject.

You assume failure to comment substantively on a given subject, and instead just making reference to a given book, is evidence that the poster is taking a position on the subject advocated somewhere in the book. We're not. We're just saying we found interesting information pertinent to the thread subject in the book, and suggesting that others check it out.

Like I said, go somewhere else if you prefer a board where the posts are almost always long and substantive.

Many of us here appreciate book references. I spent about $2500 on Amazon last year.

Yikes. The book is most decidedly not racist. Whoever wrote that review did a piss poor job. I recommended it because it was an interesting read that addressed many of the same issues discussed in this post. I make no apologies for not feeling the need or want to write an essay on the topic.

That Amazon comment was surely made with a very subjective mindset. ("I can't see the arousal cues on black women so how do black guys know?") All humans, regardless of how much melanin production their genes dictate, have external responses to mood. If you're a pale guy who grew up around pale people you've only learned to track those indicators that were part of your environment. People of other skin shades don't have any apparent problem learning to perceive the cues from their fellows they grow up amongst and manage to get together to produce offspring as well as anyone.

In other words, they don't "all look alike" to each other, nor would they to an outsider if he spends enough time in their midst. It's the sort of thing human brains are built to do well.

I wouldn't want to push John Bruce too far, but he might be interested in David Buss's book (can't recall the title, but it'll be obvious) on mate choice in about 150 cultures. They all look for the same physical characteristics, *allowing for local physical attributes*. The preferred waist-to-hip ratio is the same. In cultures with on average heavier females, the ratio is the same, but the actual preferred size is larger.

Likewise, symmetry (see Randy Thorne) and clear (not fair) skin, and clear eyes are evidence of good health and low parasite load -- i.e. good reproducers.

To understand evolutionary psychology, what it says and what it doesn't, it will not be enough to read Amazon blurbs, good though they might be. you gotta read the book.

P.S. You might enjoy Tooby and Cosmides' books. They back up evolutionary hypotheses with data.

In a study of the female form throughout history, Singh confirmed last year that the most important feature of the female body, from the ancient Egyptians to the streetwalkers on Sunset Boulevard, has been the hip-to-waist ratio.

Why is the cut-off point here the ancient Egyptians? Between 30,000 and 11,000 BC, this was the female image which was reproduced time and time again.

John Bruce asked:

Consider that, in evolutionary theory, successful mutations are those that perpetuate the species. If I have lithe hips, though, wouldn't this increase the complications of pregnancy and birth? Wouldn't I be likely to survive maternity and go on and deliver more babies if I looked more like the ladies who used to labor on Russian highway maintenance crews?

Check out the image of the Mediteranean Venus above and see that the answer is most likely yes. The cult of the child-like and virginal figure comes into being around the dawn of civilisation, because this is just about the period in which it becomes more important for men to guard their status by controlling access to women than to simply survive.

Daniel, can I suggest a simple fantasy exercise--everytime you see another beauty, enjoy for a moment, then deliberately fantasize about your wife (or a memory).
It helps me, anyway.