Ugly People And Evolution

I just found a great article which pretty much debunks any "Evolutionary Biology" theory on pick up there is.  Basically, it asks "If natural selection is real, then why are ugly people still around?"  It’s a fantastic read.  Check it out…

Why isn’t everyone beautiful, smart and healthy? Or, in a less-polite
formulation, why haven’t ugly, stupid, unhealthy people been bred out
of the population—ugly people because no one will have them as mates,
meaning they don’t get the chance to pass their ugliness to the next
generation; stupid people because they’re outgunned in the race to
financial success (that is, acquiring resources needed to survive and
reproduce); unhealthy people because they die before they get a chance
to reproduce?

Evolutionary theory predicts that the unfeeling hand of natural
selection would lead to a culling of disadvantageous traits—or, as
biologists more delicately phrase it, “depletion of genetic variation
in natural populations as a result of the effects of selection.”

But look around, and you’ll see that that has not happened—not in
people, and not in wild animals where homely and infirm offspring are
born all the time.

Evolutionary geneticists try to explain this paradox by positing that
mutations for disadvantageous traits keep popping up no matter how hard
natural selection attempts to wipe them out, but in their more honest
moments the scientists admit that in real life undesirable traits are
way more common than this mechanism would account for; “ugly” mutations
just don’t occur that often. In a groundbreaking study, biologists at
the University of Edinburgh in Scotland have figured out why, at least
in one species: genes that are good for males are bad for females and,
perhaps, vice versa.

The scientists studied red deer, 3,559 of them from eight generations,
living on Scotland’s Isle of Rum. They carefully noted each animal’s
fitness, who mated with whom, how many offspring survived, which
offspring mated and with what results. Bottom line: “male red deer with
relatively high fitness fathered, on average, daughters with relatively
low fitness,” Edinburgh’s Katharina Foerster and her colleagues
conclude in tomorrow’s issue of the journal Nature. “Male red deer with
a relatively high lifetime [fitness, which includes their reproductive
success, the only thing evolution cares about] sired, on average,
daughters with a relatively low [fitness].” The reverse also holds.
Males that were relatively less successful in their reproductive
success and fitness had daughters that were extra successful.

The reason is that any particular gene-based trait may have very
different effects on males than in females. Extrapolating to humans
(and oversimplifying, sorry) you might imagine that a particular shape
of the nose or turn of the chin would look drop-dead hunky on a male,
but horsey on a woman; dad got to mate because his looks attracted a
female, but the result of their togetherness produced daughters whose
pulchritude was less than obvious. Traits that evolutionary
psychologists tell us make women unfit for mating (having the “wrong”
shape) remain abundant in the human race because the DNA for the
traits, when inherited by sons, confers a selective advantage; when
those sons have daughters, presto—more females with less-than-hourglass
shapes. Or as the Edinburgh biologists put it, “optimal genotypes
differ between male and female red deer, because a genotype that
produces a male phenotype with relatively high fitness will, on
average, produce a phenotype with lower fitness when expressed in a
female.”

This discovery reminds me of other seminal studies that contribute to
our understanding of why “bad” genes persist. The best known is the gene
for sickle-cell disease, which is prevalent through the Mediterranean
region and much of Africa. Why wouldn’t natural selection get rid of
it? Because, it turns out, carrying one copy of the gene increases your
resistance to malaria (this is explained well here), which is
prevalent—surprise!—in the exact same regions.

Much of the theorizing about fitness in human biology has been
undermined by empirical studies (see, for instance, “Adapting Minds” by
David Buller). The study of red deer provides one more cautionary tale
for those who would be tempted to weed out “undesirable” traits in the
human population. On a less lofty note, it should make us think twice
before we reject as a mate someone who does not conform to the
“fitness” stereotype promulgated by evolutionary psychologists (such as
a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7 for women, and alpha-male behavior for
men). You may think, subconsciously, that you’re choosing someone who
will transmit “good genes” to your kids, but just ask yourself how that
perky little nose will look on your son or those rippling pecs on your
daughter.

See, this has always been my problem with looking at pick-up in terms of evolutionary biology.  The notion that a guy has to display "alpha" traits in order to attract a woman.  I’ve always thought this was complete BS, and now this belief has been backed up by this study.

In my experience, you don’t need to be "alpha" or "good looking" to get a girl.  Human beings are much different from animals, in the respect that we can appeal to things such as intellect and emotion, which can win out over physical traits when it comes down to mating.

Just like in the study, you do see alpha males mating with more women and beta males mating with less women – but when it comes to humans, we have more options available to us in finding mates than animals do.

Again, if you read this article, you’ll begin to understand why we preach things like "Looks don’t matter" and "all you need is confidence."  The typical idea of "beauty" as defined by evolutionary biologist, is not always the ideal for certain people to mate with.  This leaves a lot of room for maneuvering for those of us who don’t match some type of ideal.

And that, my friends, is a good thing!