Preferences

Women prefer taller men. That’s probably a good thing from an evolutionary perspective. If the preference worked in the other direction, eventually our descendants would evolve smaller and smaller until squirrels ate them.

The usual explanation for why humans have certain preferences in mates is because the preferred traits signal good health, and that is an advantage for baby-making.

But what if those preferences are just coincidences? For example, I have clear preferences for some types of automobile designs, but I don’t want to hump those cars and produce tricycles.

My hypothesis of evolution is that every creature with eyes and a brain has a sense of beauty that coincidentally overlaps with health, but is independent. Studies have shown that mood is directly affected by the color and design of your environment. Most people prefer being on a beach or in the mountains compared to a cubicle. But you don’t prefer the beach or mountain because you want to have their babies. They just make you feel good.

Even your dog has a preferred place in the house or in the yard, for whatever doggie reasons he has.

I think you choose your mate based on a personal sense of beauty.  And if your environment only has a few choices, you pick the one with the most beauty, relatively speaking.

You can see some divergence between beauty and reproductive health in popular culture. Models and actresses are often too thin to appear as optimal baby-makers while still considered highly attractive.

Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?

Comments

[buggal1989]

Shot men don't give up in a blue funk. There are those of us (and I put this in a politically correct genderless sense) who PREFER short men. We usually happen to be short ourselves and don't want to spend the rest of our lives with arms resting on our shoulders or heads s it may be. And Scott as funny as your blog is, the comment section is even funnier! I love to read what nonsense other people can make of your nonsense.....it's addictive and I'm getting no work done! And it's your fault! And now I need to go take my medicine, no really, I do.

[Henry]

Sorry for being couple days late but...

There is an another explanation for preferring certain features in partners. One that I believe explains things a lot better than the "indications of good health"-explanation

The selfish-gene explanation. We just might have a gene that prefers longer people, it started randomly and there wasn't any drawback in it so evolution never killed it. It might have made the people who like long people a bit more agressive in getting a mate and so the gene has become more and more common in population. All the time this gene for making people like long people more has been mixed with genes for longer people. Luckily the positive feedback haven't led yet to ridiculous proportions like in the case of peacocks.

More about this gene centric view of evolution can be found in Richard Dawkins's book Selfish Gene.

Henry

[John]

If a you make a tricycle by humping a car, does that mean that tricycles can't reproduce, like mules?

http://awritersblock.com

[Free William]

Interesting post Scott, all this discussion of preferences presumes that free will exists... otherwise it is all irrelevent.

As for your question "If the unknowable exists, is that evidence of the unknowable?"

It is not really a useful question is it?

[Macneil]

I really regret to mention this, but natural selection accounts for all that you're wondering about.

These characteristics are proxies for health, but effective proxies.

[Rich T.]

"But what if those preferences are just coincidences?"

Of course they are. People who don't understand evolution try to find a "reason" for everything that happens. But randomness is stronger.

"Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"

It doesn't have to be. But it could be.

[Mayna]

My ex and I were both tall, and I found lugging the giant babies around to be a challenge. (They've been advised to marry shorter people.) I always told myself the next one would be my height or shorter. I'm 5'8". I have dated shorter men, and it's not an issue I really consider. For me, it's always been all about compatibility. I tend to go for intellectuals or geeky types, because they are more interesting. (I loathe heavy drinkers and jock types, so there are not many valid contenders.)

[conan]

I would have expected more comments mentioning dawkins ... in one of his books (probably the selfish gene) he mentions (I'm inventing this example because I don't remember his) that it is possible that in a population, a gene for long noses arises due to random mutations. If this happens, then a gene for attraction to long noses has an evolutionary advantage. Of course, if there is a gene for long noses, *and* a gene for attraction to long noses in the population, then everybody's going to end up with long noses. Nothing to do with beauty, fitness, or anything else. Just a random walk down mutation alley ...

[John V]

My hypothesis of evolution is that every creature acts with complete selfishness. For all we know, a species of three-legged ostriches appeared thousands of years ago, but no ostrich, including three-legged ones, found them to be attractive, and eventually that mutation died out. Perhaps the reason that sharks look the same now as they did millions of years ago is that sharks know what they like, and do not reproduce with sharks that do not look exactly as a shark should.

I firmly believe that evolution itself can evolve. I believe that human evolution has evolved past making changes to our physical appearance, at least in a major way. Future humans will not have more or less fingers or toes, future humans will not have oversized foreheads and purple skin. Humans will evolve from this point forward only within our minds. This will take longer than traditional evolution because the changes will be very subtle. Eventually, people will stop mating with people with certain mental traits and those mutations will die off. For example, perhaps in thousands of years, depression will die out simply because a majority of people would prefer to have babies with non-depressed people. The same can be said for people with extreme anger issues, alcoholism, people with multiple personalities, people who are suicidal, people who are Cub fans. Eventually, the human need to reproduce with that someone special will force un-attractive traits out of the gene pool.

[Tuzo]

"If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"

Whether all animals with brains have an innate sense of beauty seems very difficult to prove. I don't think it's true but let's assume it *is* true. My answer is: no. Just because things (or in this case animals) have a specific nature does not provide any evidence for God.

If all creatures are made of cells, is that evidence for God?

[Greg]

Your line of reasoning and questioning greatly over-simplifies the evolutionary model. Yes it is fundamentally based on reproduction, but three real factors come out of this. The first is obviously reproduction, but this in turn creates a need for sustenance, and a need for security. So to properly understand behavior, you have to begin not just with reproduction as a motive, but the triumvirate of reproduction, sustenance, and security.

These three factors have been acknowledged in many lines of thinking including the political thought that founded the U.S., much of which comes from John Locke’s political theory that people need to be granted life (sustenance), liberty (reproduction), and property (security) to be content. Of course Kierkegaard made similar conclusions prior to Locke, and Thomas Jefferson borrowed this from Locke for our Declaration of Independence, but was edited to replace property with "the pursuit of Happiness" because power to the people should only go so far. Of course this one edit has resulted in a country full of people suffering from depression because while they can pursuit it, most of them never seem to get it, because security was taken away (and soon social security).

Reproduction cannot be equated to sex. And this is what confuses many people. We must think of this as the ability or potential to reproduce. This is why the other factors become important, because they can make up the difference. In modern terms for example, we can exchange health with security. This is why women are willing to date ugly guys with nice cars and vice versa. This has absolutely nothing to do with the concept of beauty, though there is a correlation.

The concept of beauty can be described as a result of how we create neural associations in our minds and the relationship of those associations with our biochemical ability to generate sensations of pain or pleasure. Your question: "If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?" deals with this pain-pleasure structure.

First, it cannot be stated that "all creatures with brains" have a notion of beauty. Also there is vagueness to the question. Does individual imply that individuals recognize the "same" or "absolute" concept of what is beautiful, or does it imply that each individual has a "unique" or "relative" concept of what is beautiful?

If you are talking in terms of absolute beauty, then, yes, that would give credence to the idea that there is some form of absolute knowledge in the universe, but not necessarily a god. This can easily be shown not to be the case by getting any two people and asking them for examples of what is beautiful. They might agree on some things, but not all things.

This leads to the relative perspective that all people form their own interpretations of beauty (based on complex pain-pleasure structures, or preferences, that take your whole life to form and never stop forming). From here there is no logical connection to any argument for the existence of a god.

So good health may be one influence for mating, but if you've been around the block, you will quickly find that it isn't the only factor. That's good news for humanity because we are constantly catching colds. Security, or a safe environment, and sustenance, or the ability to provide nourishment (air, water, food), are huge factors in mating. In my opinion, these factors tend to overshadow the individual health criteria.

[Rodders]

Off topic: Looks like they can make small Stirling Engines too... using the heat from a CPU to drive a fan to cool the CPU... Brilliant!

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/02/29/msi_stirling_cooling/

[Sam]

"And anyway, the christian/jewish/muslim god can't exist. It's impossible for something to be all-knowing and all-powerful. If he is all-knowing, he knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, including what he will do in the future, it means that he is not all-powerful, since he can't change his mind about what he will do in the future. If he can change his mind, then he isn't all-knowing. At best, beauty could be used as evidence for Buddha, Athena, or Spinoza's God (which is basically glorified atheism)."

Hey retard,
Buddha is a person, an actual real live person, why would he need beauty to prove that he exists? And why couldn't God just know that he is going to change his mind?

[jerry w.]

What I look for in a woman......

A pulse (not an absolute, but a preference), and a body temperature above ambient.

Simple, yet to the point for a change.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Alan]

How do you figure that all creatures with brains have a sense of beauty? In nature its all about strength and fitness.

God is just a imaginary friend for adults.

Alan

[BobNL]

The people that have preferences for healthy people are the ones who's offspring will have a higher survival rate. Over time people with these preferences will become a majority. That is logical and we call it evolution. It is selection of accidental characteristics that give you an edge on survival. Nothing mysterious about it.

And on the philosophical question:
That is at the most (I am being very generous now) a hint at the existence of a god. Nowhere near evidence.

Another question: is the fact that the bible (or the koran) contains passages that contradict themselves and passages that can be interpreted in different ways proof that these books were thought up by people and not by a higher creature? If I was a higher creature I would want my words to be unambiguous.

[Patrick]

First, there's a false assumption here. We don't choose our mates based on beauty. If that were the case, we'd all be lining up to marry Elle McPherson (20 years ago), or Charlize Theron or Heidi Klum or Amber Valletta or Giselle Bundchen or one of the other women that Tom Brady has dated and/or impregnated. (Offtopic: Tom Brady, you are DA MAN!) We choose our mates based on a tradeoff of who is the most beautiful woman who we could actually get to date us in the real world, and who won't be repulsed by our poor personal hygiene, bad teeth, nose-picking habit, or whatever. (Not to mention that she must be someone we can actually meet through our social connections!)

All of life is this kind of compromise. Yes, I'd love to live at the beach, but instead I live in a decent suburb WHERE I CAN AFFORD A HOUSE.

So, if there is a "god," he must value compromise above all else, along with random chance. So perhaps the highest calling in live isn't being a priest, but being some kind of negotiator or mediator? My belief system, however, is that we should all aspire to be craps dealer; since life is actually a series of random chances (within a given set of constraints), then we should really all be worshipping a set of dice.

[my2k]

[Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?]

Only if beauty is truth and truth is beauty. If all creatures have an innate and individual sense of truth (or justice or whatever you call it) then that would seem a reasonable evidence of God. If there is truth what makes it true, unless there is a source of truth? All science, observation and reason becomes mere subjective conjecture unless there are underlying universal truths behind them.

[Leonel]

"Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"

No.

"Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of a cartoonist with too much spare time in his hands?"

Yes.

[Nimrod]

Argh, you ended with a monkey dance question!

[DF]

The problem resides in the fact that there are weirdos out there who want to screw their cars, some prefer chevys, some prefer fords. We assume that those people are freaks because the majority of people don't want to screw their cars.

Everyone has a difference of opinion as to what their perfect mate should be like, even if they are only small differences. However we are willing to settle on certain aspects for others. For example, if your mate is exceptionally attractive, you will settle for her even if they are a complete slob around the house. If your mate can suck the chrome off a trailer hitch but can't cook, you may be willing to settle. Not everyone finds Jessica Alba attractive, but she is close enough for a lot of guys, even without knowing her.

Now, if you ever had the chance to be with Jessica Alba and she sucked a golf ball through your garden hose for you, I could see where you would start believing in god. However, I believe since we all desire something different in mates, and we are willing to settle to ensure the human species, that it leads more to evolution. It also results in the current high divorce rate.

[Mike]

"Models and actresses are often too thin to appear as optimal baby-makers while still considered highly attractive." By who? I like my ladies curvy. I far prefer the fat slutty Britany to the teenage virgin whore. What, it's only me? Anyway she's not fat.

Alsadius had it right, the only men who prefer the stick thin anorexic fashion models are the gay fashion designers (who are entitled to be gay, but not to tell me what a good looking woman is). Although a lot of attractive women are thin(ish) - actually Debby Harry, Martina Navratilova, Christina Aguilera, Cher (on that battleship), Sheridan Smith, Nicole Kidman, Cheryl Tweedy, that red-head from Girls Aloud whose name I can't remember, Charlotte Church, Catherine Zeta Jones, Hattie Jacques.

[M]

"Studies show that....". hehehe...

[Greg]

Evidence that we have traits that cannot be explained in evolutionary terms is not the same as evidence for god. You can't prove one theory merely by discrediting another.

You could look at peoples sense of beauty and find evolutionary reasons for it. Maybe people like a beach because it indicates a variety of types of shelter, readily available fish and space to run if something attacks.

There are exceptions as you point out and this is probably true of other ideas of beauty as well. But that's nothing new, there are plenty of seemingly evolved responses which are maladaptive (Since you like to look at the odd psychology study look up the General Adaption Syndrome)

[Mark]

"The actresses/models/random anorexic chicks that are absurdly thin aren't attractive, they're appalling, and 98% of straight guys will agree with me on this.
Posted by: Alsadius "

But the women want to see them, not the men, and women think that "size 0" is "beautiful".

Weird.

'course men can't get anything right, so they don't ask us...

[RavenBlack]

Bonus return question showing how the original question is ridiculous: if all creatures with brains *don't* have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is *that* evidence of God?

[Mark]

"[Your comment makes sense to me if you are either an expert in evolution yourself or an idiot. Where did you get your degree in biology? -- Scott]

Posted by: Tim "

Unfortunately, your logical disconnect (we find thing beautiful -> that's because it's God's will) shows either you're trolling (in which case Tim is counter-trolling), misled (in which case Tim is correct but rude) or deliberately obtuse (Tim is right and merely choosing appropriately for your blindness).

When it comes to evolution, your cognitive dissonance gets in the way and you can't be trusted to see around it. All you can really do is avoid situations you cannot help yourself. In much the same way as an alcoholic avoids any alcohol: they can't stop themselves when they start.

[You don't understand this blog or the meaning of trolling. -- Scott]

[Warfreak2]

"Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"

What a ridiculous question. Beauty is just something you enjoy looking at; we already know we are all different (and so we might well have different ideas of beauty), so really what you're asking is whether "we enjoy looking at certain things" is evidence that God exists.

About as ridiculous as "the mona lisa is so beautiful, God must exist", "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy", or "e^(i*pi) + 1 = 0 is proof that God exists".

(Sorry, had to slip in the maths one there!)

[Mark]

You fail at the first hurdle!

You have no wheels.

Cars have four.

Your cyborg offspring would then have one of

four wheels (wheels are a maternal genetic trait)
no wheels (wheels are a regressive trait)
two wheels

Tch.

[Lamark]

Humping Cars, Hmmmm, am I the only one who was brought back to the blog about a man, a bicycle and a hotel room?

[Ariane]

I can't speak for anyone else, but my sense of beauty comes from many sources. Social conditioning, some active counter-conditioning on my own part, intellect (there is, of course, beauty in an elegant, powerful theory), instinct, the desire for novelty, the comfort of the familiar.

I reckon you'd be hard pressed to explain or find any cause for explanation in such a broad category. It's a bit like asking what causes geography and what geography might be evidence of.

[Ray]

I've always thought the same thing and that you choose a certain "type" of look in your mate, and assuming you have had enough partners in life to recognise a pattern you end up with one that corresponds to what your genes have subconsciously steered you towards in order to produce ideal offspring.

I am 6.1ft tall, blond blue eyes etc and my wife is tall, slim and has curly brunette hair: Our kids are gorgeous. Several previous partners have looked very similar to my wife.

Some people clearly haven't listened to their genes, hence the proliferation of ugly people in the world.

(I probably should never be given a position of power)

[Nick]

it's like you skimmed a newspaper article from the science section about evolutionary psych and then decided to write a post about it.

but i like you anyways.

[macuga]

As I read your blog, I was thinking to myself, "Whoa, guy's all over the place today."

And then I read your final nonsequitur.

WTF?!

How would this be evidence for the existence of god?

[dinglehopper]

absurd! how can sense of beauty have anything to do with evidence of god!

[Chris]

An innate sense of beauty is evidence of evolution, not of any gods. No-one thinks "I want to have sex with that man (or woman) because his height (or her hips) indicate a good chance of reproductive success" - we just feel the urge from some primal area of our brains. Likewise, a beach or mountaintop feels like a more pleasant place to be than a cubicle, because it *is* a better place to be, as far as our pre-historic brains are concerned - more food and water available, fewer places for predators to hide, etc.

A more interesting philosophical question is - if our subconscious minds have such a strong influence over our actions, what are the implications for free will?

[Joe]

Depends what you think 'God' is.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder - that is a truth I believe. I actually think that beauty is the natural state of things, it is our prejudices based on experience (especially early life) that hide that beauty. So when something is beautiful, it means you are seeing it without judgement. Something akin to love? I think so.

Then perhaps is 'God is love' as is sometimes stated, then God is found simply by looking without judgement.

[Martin]

What would I know about beauty? I'm a married man and have no eye for anybody else.
But here is what the data say: In psychological testing men or women very consistently pick a certain set of facial features as being attractive. The interesting bit is that the features women consider attractive are reasonably well correlated to male sperm number and motility, key determinants of fertility.
There even is a second layer to this. When people are filmed while dancing (with blinding to facial features) again certain types of male movements are consistently seen as attractive by women. And these male movement patterns again are reasonably well related to sperm number and motility.
Unfortunately, even a lot of dance lessons will not make you more fertile.

[Crimson_Sky]

Actually, to address the first line in this post, I have always prefered shorter men or equal to my height. ;) From my first crushes in school, they were always the short guys. I'm only 5'4", so that limits a lot of guys out there too.

Maybe I'm just weird. Maybe I don't have a fear of being eaten by squirrels, I don't know. ;) All I know is that there are two main physical characteristics I look for, and can determine if I have any interest in a guy: 1) His hair. I like long hair. 2) His height. If he's gonna be taller, better not be much.

[Derek]

Your dog prefers the couch because softer spots hive it less back problems later in life, and dogs who took care of their backs were more likely to reproduce, therefore making later dogs even more likely to carry the "I want to sit on the couch" trait.

People like the mountains and the beach because these give us many things (exercise, sun, food) that made us more likely to survive and pass on our desires for these things.

Sexual attraction is only one evolutionary pressure. There are many others.

I'm not sure I can explain why natural selection produced a concept of beauty (there could be millions of reasons and I have no idea which is the correct one), but I'm pretty sure it can't be attributed to some invisible non-existent space monster... And even if you could somehow twist it into being consistent with a god, that would be nowhere even close to proving that such a god existed.

And anyway, the christian/jewish/muslim god can't exist. It's impossible for something to be all-knowing and all-powerful. If he is all-knowing, he knows everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen, including what he will do in the future, it means that he is not all-powerful, since he can't change his mind about what he will do in the future. If he can change his mind, then he isn't all-knowing. At best, beauty could be used as evidence for Buddha, Athena, or Spinoza's God (which is basically glorified atheism).

[KK]

Answer to bonus question: definitely.

[Andy Coulter]

Huh?

[playtah]

Could it be that the same principle of perception-of-circumstances (or "sense") that initiates the "flight or flight" chemical reaction in the brain is really what happens when we perceive something aesthetically pleasing? What if our brain, with its library of memories, experiences, instinct, and knowledge perceives something as pleasing and releases chemicals that cause physical responsiveness and attraction? Is that "beauty"? I don't know. Either way, I don't think it necessarily points to evidence of a supreme being, just evidence of a complex process. Yeah? No?

--Playtah

[rd]

but those individual senses of beauty rarely match like perfectly
leading to many unrequited love or adultery or some other nuisance
which could be interpreted as an evidence against God may be, though one wants of course to believe that beauty will save the world

[Rick in China]

In your bonus question you've left out proper definition of beauty, while referencing it somewhat in your actual post! I don't believe there's any relation to God in the ability to feel something is beautiful - that sensation is simply a learned response based on both as you mentioned, environmental and natural selection instinct. Throughout history a classic "beauty" has changed so significantly, as well as being drastically different between cultures with different values and focus.

[Do.Gbert]

Beauty is most certainly evidence of God. From a philosophical perspective beauty should be a subjective concept, but nearly all humans from all parts of the world find nature and its spectacular sights (mountains, sunsets, etc.) to be a breathtaking experience for whatever reason.

Appreciation of beauty you can't mate with has no evolutionary benefit. Ergo, God.

Of course, "evidence" and "God" are opposing concepts. God demands faith, but our puny pathetic brains attempt to somehow explain him scientifically using our pathetic limited understanding of the tiny fraction of the visible universe in the tiny fraction of time we are present here.

[Esn]

A comedic philosophical argument between Good, Beauty and Truth:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2438769051884256792&hl=en

(incidentally, this year marks that film's 50th anniversary)

[May]

I personally prefer men of a similar height to mine (I'm 5'6"). Tall men are a pain in the back... for serious. Plus, it's more comfortable to ..you know..

[Evan]

interesting theory you have there, and makes sense to me. the thing is though, it would be to our benefit to be as small as physically possible. like in the kurt vonnegut book, slapstick, wherein the chinese make themselves tiny. think of our resources in proportion to our size. what would have been a meal for one could feed a family of four for a month, overpopulation wouldnt even be possible. if we had tiny cars, it wouldnt take but a drop of gas to fill a tank. and there would be some not so small people, maybe a foot or so high, who could operate some large machinery and even protect us from the now monstrous fauna. unless of course we could shrink them too.

[Vincent]

"My hypothesis of evolution is that every creature with eyes and a brain has a sense of beauty that coincidentally overlaps with health, but is independent"
How would you explain this coincidence ?

"If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"
Honestly I do not even get the question. Why would it be an evidence of God ? (really, I do not get it at all. Hope you will say why you think it might be)

[passerby]

No it is evidence that we don't fully understand the human body or evolution. The theory of evolution is just the current best guess at why we evolved the way we did. There probably will be a better answer in the future but for now its the best we have. God is not even the second best answer as it is not an answer but rather an evasion of the question. Its a cop out. Its the 'because I say so' answer parents give their children when they can't or don't want to give them a real answer. If god made us: which god and why and what made god? When explaining why something is the way it is, saying god did it or it was god's will is just a weasel way of saying 'I don't know'. Its replacing an unknown with a much greater unknown. It is also a creativity killer. If you think 'god did it' is a good enough answer why look into it any more. Without the god answer you might be more inclined to actually research it and find the real answer. I don't think it is a coincidence that so many scientists are atheists.

[D. Mented]

A different evolutionary aspect helps select a mate; we all have the instinct to learn and adapt right from our first breath. If we're with good people who are well adapted to their circumstances, that's a big plus. If they have problems, behaviors that are self- destructive or destructive of others, or they're neglectful, we adapt to that, too. Not such a plus.
We tend to be drawn to people who remind us of our corresponding parent (mother for heterosexual boys, father for gay boys, father for heterosexual girls, etc.) at the age that parent was when we were very young. This may be a behavior, a feature, figure, or usually a combination.
Other factors can short circuit this instinct, but it's rare. We don't realise that's what's happening because we think of our parents at the age they are now, and they usually look and act quite a bit different.
One short-circuit is the media-girl image. All media today are saturated with images of women who are considered visually perfect. This image changes over about five-year periods, but on any given day, all the media girls will look pretty similar. Unfortunately, these days, the image is decided by the kind of gay men who think female=repulsive. Look at runway models from behind, and you may notice that they have a straight, narrow v-line from the top of their ribs to the bottom of their hips; this is the silhouette of a tall, thin boy.
Many men don't find this particularly attractive, and there are actually a lot of gay men who don't think it's beautiful on a woman, but that's what's in the media right now.
As Carlos Mencia put it; "Women in Hollywood, stop losing weight! Men don't want ten year old boys - men like BOOOOOOOOOBS!"
This image gets into people's perception as what "everybody" wants - or wants to be, and our social instincts make us strive to achieve or acquire (depending on gender) a body that looks like that.
Don't worry, sisters - men still like boobs.
D. Mented

[Daniel M]

I think that it is inherently impossible to prove the existence of God by looking at creation. If you could prove God's existence, then what would be the point of faith?

People with an appreciation for beauty will live more fulfilling lives. The connection to natural selection is easy enough to see.

[Matthew Kovich]

No. No it is not.

If it were evidence, than a guy on the track to get his Ph.d. in Aesthetics like me would probably start going to church again.

This Sunday, I'm sleeping in (with my girlfriend, after we sin out of wedlock).

No church is sight.

[Sam]

Evolution!

[Eric Crampton]

Dennis Dutton, philosopher at the University of Canterbury in New Zeakand and editor of Arts and Letters Daily, is finishing up a book arguing that there exist universal aesthetics: people around the world have similar notions of beauty (whether in music, art, women); he argues an evolutionary basis for this. You ought look Dutton up...

[Lenny]

That tricycle bit is the tops, Scott. I'm suspicious that you wrote the whole psychological post as an envelope for that joke.

[Alan]

I like to think that beauty is, for the most part, some deep principle of neural networks that is not well understood yet.

[Miguel]

That's a rather naive view of evolution, Scott.

For example, when you say "For example, I have clear preferences for some types of automobile designs, but I don’t want to hump those cars and produce tricycles.", you're clearly conflating proximate and ultimate causes of behavior.

Reading a bit of evolutionary psychology literature would help a lot. I strongly recommend Steven Pinker's "Blank Slate" as a great popular introduction to ev-psych.

Of course I don't discount the possibility that you already knows all of this and is just toying with your readers. If that's the case, I've to say that I'm not amused :p

And your bonus question is clearly meant to induce a "dance, monkey, dance" state, so I won't try to answer it.

[dawn]

i prefer short men. Tall men just look awkward and gangly to me... since I was ***5*** years old. (I was an early bloomer.) Sadly tall men adore me (I'm 5'1")... my progeny are doomed... ooops I don;t have any...

[Christopher]

The last time I got to bother you, I was trying to give you some fodder on launching a shuttle off of one end of a launch pad and a moon rocket of the other end. The idea made sense, because you could haul both rockets out of the tall building onto the launch pad at the same time. This would save hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the first rocket launched would not get burnt by the blast. The second one could be covered up with recycled paper. The pointy haired KSC boss endorsed the money saving plan, and hired Dogbert and I to put the rockets on the pad.

The State of Florida sent in thousands of bureacrats to bother the project and raise revenues. Dogbert and I conspired, and put masts on a large second stage. We then took the bureacrats out for a sailing sea tour. At that point, we began to kick them off the rocket. No harm done, no matter how we did it, the bureaucrats floated back to the capital, and resumed pretending to work.

Things have changed, and now the south end of Florida is overun by Iguanas. They are in the back yard, the front yard, high schools, car engines, grocery stores, etc. They are making more iguanas for the spring.

Iguanas are quite intelligent, crafty, and weasely. They can con you into carrying them, use your hand for heat energy, and scare people like Dilbert's mom.

Iguanas like cats, and unfortunately that makes me think of Catbert. Catbert would put the Iggies to work by making them spy on the staff. The boss would brag that the company has gone green, as an Iguana climbs up his hair point and goes to sleep while he is talking about company benefits.

One iguana complained to me that he was downed out because he thought he was going to be a fierce dimetrodon, and fight with Bob the Esquire Dinosaur. This iguana was disheartened because his sail ended up under his chin, and his dorsal spines are to short to hold up a sail, anyway.
For revenge, he became a vegetarian.

Because of their high numbers, Iguanas make good, cheap labor, except they avoid work, and moving out of the basking light. Sometimes, they will steal lunches and break into the vending machine for Lifesavers and other fruit candies. Iguanas would exhibit animal magnetism toward Wally, and emulate his work styles.

Of course Iguanas are beautiful, and intellegent, so what more can one ask for?

Hint: possible fodder.

The end

Chris

[Some Random Internet Denizen Pretending]

Firstly, models are chosen by and presented as objects of beauty by fashion designers - for the most part, gay men. Their status as "beautiful" is bestowed on them by the minor section of society that has no potential interest in mating with them.

This explains why so many of them are mingers* with the physical body of a pubescent boy.

If you want a philosphical conclusion of what beauty is, then the application of the Golden Ratio in Dr. Marquardt's work (a google will provide you with the usual pro and anti scientific arguments we normal humans won't be able to follow) on the human face would seem to apply. Humans respond to familiar mathematical patterns as that's what our brain is biased towards. Hardly proof of god.

*http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=minger

[Paul Koan]

Lumping the aesthetic reward of "beauty" when selecting a mate with the aesthetic reward of looking at a car in the same category is logically flawed.

Not every feeling that is similar has the same root cause. One is because of a survival imperative (not yours, but your genes), the other is because of any number of causes. Perhaps you feel your penis is too small. Perhaps the curves of a some vehicle trigger the same neural pathways that the curves of potential mate would trigger.

Preference of outdoors over cubicle - yes it is "just because it feels good", but why? Because your body design evolved over millions of years to be nomadic and outdoors, and other pressures of the way society has developed - with money as an imperative winning over simple survival, has left us indoors in boxes.

An innate sense of beauty is clear evidence of evolution, once you go to the trouble of defining your terms.

[Keenan]

In a way. Beauty could be seen as humans seeking the beauty of The Garden. If a Garden of Eden was recreated and all people found it to be the most beautiful thing they'd ever seen, that very well may be evidence of God.

[Pete Dunford]

I just re-read the bonus question, and realised I missed that point completely. WTF. "If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"
Asking if the un-knowable as evidence of the un-answerable? How you. Keep it up, Scott.

[Mirek2]

I don't think it's an evidence of God (sorry, I'm not very religious). I just think it's a part of nature, which is, however much the human tries to analyze it, mysterious and unpredictable. I don't think there's any evidence for God, but I also don't think there's any evidence for no God. I just think it's something a human believes in or not, or perhaps doesn't even think about...
P.S.: To be honest, I hate how today's models look - the lipstick, the makeup, the thinness - I find it repulsing... I guess it's just me...

[Pete Dunford]

Valid observation about height. I think the development of the "high heel" and the "lift" (the shoe kind) has something to do with the problem. In 500 years (evoloution moves fast, the alternative is dieing out) or maybe 1000 years, we'll have two or three sub-species. The tall will breed with other talls. The middles will wear the heels and breed with the talls, or not, and end up with the short.
The short won't get a look-in with the talls, they'll develop as seperate, "related" species.
The in-betweens will either cripple themselves with the heels, or resign themselves to breeding below themselves and be subsumed into the shorts. A few will remain a third, disabled, dead end.

Bonus answer. Maybe it's one of God's jokes, maybe it's twisted evoloution: either way, Humans are getting the "short" end of the deal.

Actually, "the tall" are facing another challenge. Get too tall, you keep knocking your head on door frames, bits of scaffold, overhanging branches, there are all sorts of obstacles. I think there's an environmental limit on how tall we will get. Any that slip through the net will be crippled through bad backs from constant stooping. Serves the freaks right!
(I'm 5'6, BTW)

[Paul]

"...Models and actresses are often too thin to appear as optimal baby-makers while still considered highly attractive...."

Models are NOT normally selected by heterosexual males, since they don't dominate the fashion industry. Only women with physiques resembling teenage boys need apply...

Straight men have different preferences entirely. From hip hop ("I like big b*tts and I cannot lie") to country western ("We hate to see her go / But love to watch her leave /with that honky tonk badonkadonk"), the music of heterosexual men of every ethnic group rings with the praises of the "breeder-hipped" women, the ones with the magical 0.7 waist/hip ratio. Yet try getting women to believe this! Thanks to fashionista brainwashing, most of them mistakenly believe they'd be more attractive if they were built like a male from the waist down. How wrong they are.....

Some weird scientist years ago compared models versus female porn stars (who are selected to appeal, by and large, to straight men), and found that the porn girls had much more exaggerated hourglass-type figures than the slender, curveless models.

Interestingly, both anorexics and the obese have a harder time conceiving, than normal "hourglass" women. This really is all fertility driven.

[Keith Wooly]

My answer to that last question is a resounding 'YES'.
(with trumpet fanfare)

[Bloodboiler]

There was a study in the news recently that compared public and private liking of music. Their result was something like this: Knowing what others claim to like makes you follow others instead of your private likings. Only edge cases stay the same. Really good is never rated as bad and Really bad is never rated as good.
I believe this applies to more than music. We all share general ideals about beauty and picker on details. Those general ideas are our innate sense of beauty and ultimately comes form implementation details of out senses and sensory processing. Individual sense of beauty is just collection of prejudices.

As a bonus, consider this: Our attention sets limits to what we perceive and much of that data is pre-selected and pre-processed before any conscious processing. Before that tiny amount of information becomes a conscious perception it is further twisted, filtered, subtracted and added by expectations. Therefore, the moist robot that is you, is essentially operating in internal simulation while physically operating in what we assume is actual reality.
And all this with just perception processing before any higher level delusions are added in interpretation of meaning.

[Bill D. Johnston]

I am not so sure that all beauty is all that subjective. You have the concept of women wanting to dye their hair blonde showing up in cultures that have no interaction with societies outside theirs. Some ideas of beauty seem to reoccur across cultural lines. Although, there are some individual variations in what might constitute beauty.

[Patti]

Patti says,
I believe there is one God and the existence of all things is due to his beautiful "original designs"

God created most things "beautiful". Yet, we can make them ugly through thought, word and deed.
We distort his beautiful designs and we tamper with his creations.
All animal attractions, when they occur for correct and positive reasons, are founded in beauty. I believe this to be true on any level. A basic instinct is to admire that which we perceive to be "beautiful" through our senses, our logic and in man's case.. our underlying values and spiritual guidance.
Only when man allows other men to dictate what beauty is, do we form distorted views on beauty.
Also, looking for an inner beauty and appreciating what at first glance may not please us, sets us apart from animals.

Beauty is the one thing that shouldn't be taken.. at face value!

On another note, I wonder why we always find "handsome men to play Christ". Just why is that?
Was Christ ... beautiful ... to the eye?
I personally, would like to see an uglier man play Christ.

In each religion, God looks very much like the people to which he appears. God always takes on the beauty of that particular race of people. In an effort to be understood, and accepted, all spiritual prophets and God look like their servants.
The true God is one with all races and peoples.
God is truly beautiful.

[James]

no natural phenomenon is evidence for a deity. any natural explanation for it, no matter how mental, is better than a supernatural one. you talked about deus ex machina the other day, it's totally unsatisfactory.

[Brett]

1. Scott, you clearly don't understand statistics or evolution. It is evolutionarily valuable to seek out healthy mates. Fact. Potential mates are identified by subjective attractiveness. Fact. Subjective attractiveness is correlated to health. Fact. Therefore it's extremely likely that:

A). attractiveness is related to good health, because it is evolutionarily adaptive

B). differences in subjective attractiveness, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," is due to variation about the mean that is observed with any trait.

2. Morals are more learned from an interaction of intelligence and societal reward/punishment interactions. To argue morals are solely hard wired is ignorant, and is surely not evidence for God (to the person who posted that).

3. If we think of height (another naturally variable trait like subjective attractiveness) on a continuous scale, then everyone has an individual and innate height that nobody else has (as the probability of someone else having that exact same height is 1/infinity, or zero). But we all agree that this is not evidence of God.

[WCE]

On a related topic, love is what happens to the brain when a suitable mate is selected for bonding. The process involves each person figuring out the personality of the other, so that their behavior is predictable. In a very real sense, the lovers blend their separate identities into one.

The problem comes up when a lover acts in an unpredictable way. If it's a small thing, it just adds "romance" to the relationship, like when you bring flowers to your mate for no special reason. Your mate simply incorporates a note to herself that you sometimes do something sweet for no logical reason, and that increases her sense of your worth as a mate. If the unpredictable thing is bringing home a hooker so you can have a three-way, it's a different matter, and love flies out the window (usually).

[KBR]

you lost me at humping a car

[WCE]

Beauty and attractiveness are two separate concepts, BTW. As you've pointed out, there are lots of beautiful things that you wouldn't normally consider having sex with. (Although there's a famous case in neurology where a guy got his head impaled with a steel rod that left him alive and otherwise functional, who would attempt having sex with anything he found beautiful, including the lamp in his doctor's office waiting room.)

Beauty is a reflection of underlying symmetries, patterns that the brain identifies readily, themes that repeat at multiple levels leading to works of popular art. Nature abounds with fractal patterns that have similarities at multiple levels, and that's what makes looking at ferns and flowers pleasant - the brain picks up the patterns of patterns, and finding them, is rewarded with endorphins.

Music likewise has fractal patterns, and when those patterns are implemented correctly, you enjoy the music. When a musician hits a false note, especially towards the end of a song, it spoils the enjoyment of the song, even if the rest of the piece was flawless. The wrong note implies that the symmetry that the brain detected was flawed, and the brain has to undo the pleasure it granted itself when it detected the intended pattern.

[Nirav]

I suggest you read 2 books by the same author (Richard Dawkins)
The first one "Selfish Gene" answers your query why we all have the same definition of beauty.

the Second one "God Delusion", tries and answers your other question.

[Michael McCafferty]

That's some pretty slim "evidence of God", Scott.
But then, it's about as good as any other "evidence" I've heard people claim for the existence of a god.

[WCE]

I should amend my previous comment regarding Natural Selection as being the force that weeds-out the kids who inherited the weaker traits of both parents. That's Darwin's theory, which I agree dominates in difficult environments. But not all environments are difficult to survive, sometimes the weather's good and the food supply is plentiful and there are lots more rabbits than coyotes can eat, if you follow my meaning. We're currently living in unchallenging times (in the survival sense), most of us in the developed nations, anyway. In these times, the dumb/ugly kids simply get selected-out of the breeding pool by *sexual selection*, something Darwin overlooked (or didn't bother explaining).

Ugly/dumb offspring tend not to have as many breeding opportunities as pretty/smart offspring, so generations in unchallenging times (in terms of survival), and each generation tends to look better than the previous one, even if they aren't better at hunting or gathering.

There's secondary effects at work, too, that tends to mask this effect, where dumb/ugly people settle for what they can get and breed like rabbits anyway, while smart/pretty people tend to have fewer kids for various reasons, like concern for overpopulation or simply because they're having too much fun being attractive to multiple partners, and that generally ends when you pick one person to marry. But this leads to discussions of eugenics and other unpopular subjects, so I tend to avoid going into them.

[nick]

Scott, I think you stopped short with your analysis. In the same way I might like the mountains more than my cubicle because they are more beautiful, I might like my ugly chair more than my beautiful bench.

Maybe "healthy" and "beautiful" are independent of each other, but still subsets of a broader quality? Maybe they're subsets of "quality" itself?

Bonus answer: I think it's only proof of beauty (or proof of quality, in my arrogantly tweaked version of your question).

Do you agree?

[Jan]

I don't think so.

Thanks for starting your post with "Women prefer taller men". That always makes my day.

[Just Me]

Scott, you may not want to hump the automobiles, but the designs you like are probably in some way geared to gettin' the chicks. Either you like cars that look fast, or powerful, or expensive, or all of the above.

No one buys cars that look slow, cheap and rinky-dink, unless they can't afford anything else.

Similarly, other things of beauty that you like, are geared towards getting some. Basically, all humans and animals are looking for food enough, and shelter enough, to provide for themselves and attract a mate long enough, to do the deed. So that leather sofa is beautiful to you because you picture yourself and your mate on it, and that steak dinner is beautiful to you because, hey, March 20 is coming up fast.

[Cyrus]

Sure it can be evidence of God. In my experience the Godless tend to not be so beautiful anyway.

[Wil]

Hi Scott,

If you haven't yet read it, "The Botany of Desire" has a section on this, in the chapter on tulips (representing the desire for beauty).

Essentially, animals _love_ symmetry (among other things). Ever notice symmetry in the plant kingdom? It's all because of animals. Before animals, plants couldn't get pollinated, and they tended to be relatively asymmetric. Think ferns, with their spore pods.

But when animals (and their eyes) came along, though, they tended to breed preferentially with symmetric-looking partners. Symmetry isn't an easy thing to achieve, especially if you've suffered from lots of disease and/or parasites, so when you have got it, it's a probable indicator of health, like a peacock's tail. Animals learned to love it and seek it out, not just in animals, but in plants. And, since animals were useful to plants for pollination, plants' sexual parts started getting more symmetry, to attract the eyes of the animals.

Apparently, this extended to some pretty wacky plants. Not only do you have the tulip, paragon of symmetry (and a little phallic), but you've also got plants with flowers that look like bugs. The Victorians thought that this was to scare away the bugs so that the flower could chastely fertilize itself, but no, it actually looks, and smells, like this particular bug, and so these bugs fly up and try to hump the flowers. Eventually they finish or get tired, and fly off, covered in flower love dust, until another bug-flower catches their eye.

[really]

Scott Adams,

http://www.predictify.com/auctionview.aspx?ID=176

what's going on with this??

[rpk]

"If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?"

No. Religion, which claims to be the word of God, teaches in absolute terms...things are either right or wrong, good or bad. There can be no individual sense of these things, nor could there be an individual sense of beauty if it were a trait passed to us from God.

If God had given us the sense of beauty, we might all think that a beautiful woman would have to be blonde and weight no more than 95 pounds. A beautiful car would have to be a red convertible.

But we think as individuals. A woman may look at an antique piece of furniture and think about how beautiful it would look in her home. Her husband might look at the same thing and think of it as an ugly eyesore that he would never want in his home.

The fact the we all view beauty differently is evidence that our sense of what is beautiful did not come from God.

[Don Spidell]

This post, especially the fact that you asked that last question, are both evidences of God, as is this comment. Woah.

[Aardwizz]

Scott:

You said:
[Models and actresses are often too thin to appear as optimal baby-makers while still considered highly attractive]

Don't discount that as a mis-match of your theory just yet:

- Skinny models and actresses are often big breasted, meaning that they are good milk producers.

- They are also usually wide-hipped, meaning that they'll have less of a problem with childbirth.

- True, they lack insulating body fat. But they also go with a preference for tropical climates, where insulation is not a survival requirement, and its lack indicates a mate that will require less maintenance to provide a high-caloric diet.

That preference for tropical climates also, by your hypothesis, allows them to be scantily clad, but that's just a fringe benefit.

©¿©¬

[Geinbits]

I don't think that having an opinion on something (or someone) is evidence of god. Would you say that "I prefer Obama over Clinton." is evidence on a divine being? Of course not.
Look at it this way, there are three possible combinations to this:
1) there is no god, and it is possible to have a sense of beauty without god.
2) there is a god, and you can only have a sense of beauty because god exists.
3) there is a god, but even if god didn't exist you would still be able to have a sense of beauty.

Now in order to use the whole "sense of beauty = god" idea number three would need to be true. However there are two other options that could be true. So we need to eliminate the other two. What do we need to know in order to eliminate one? Whether or not there is a god. If you need to know the conclusion(I'm using the scientific method here) before your evidence becomes valid what you call "evidence" is not really evidence!

[infidel]

"But you don’t prefer the beach or mountain because you want to have their babies" might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard in any discussion of evolution. And believe me, Creationists say some pretty stupid things.

"General Nonsense" indeed.

[Diogo]

You finally stopped writing the ultimate-crap-i-came-up-when-i-was-idle posts.
THIS is an evidence of God.

[bb]

The answer to your question is, yes.

The better evidence for God is our innate sense of ‘right and wrong’. This is better evidence because there is no way to attribute that to ‘evolution’ or some other humanist world view. It’s hard to argue that when you think to yourself, ‘that’s just not right’, that what you are really thinking is, ‘there is an absolute right and wrong set in place, and that doesn’t measure up to what is absolutely right.’ Now if there is absolute ‘right and wrong’ something or someone must have defined it and built it into us.

[Lindsey ^_^]

I wouldn't go so far as to call beauty "intelligence." Sometimes what we find to be beautiful is irrational and leads to hurt. I'm thinking of pedophiles and the like. Our brains are wired to tell us that "generally, people with these characteristics are healthy and make good babies." That's not always the case, but barring developing psychic abilities that's really the best we can do at this point.

Also, the definition of beauty plays a part. Sometimes people find something to be beautiful if it makes them happy. They might know someone that they find ugly, but after getting to know them and enjoying their time spent together find them to be beautiful In that case it's not a physical sense of beauty but an emotional one - we find beauty in the things we love and enjoy.

While I do believe in God, I don't think this is evidence of God. I suppose you could interpret it that way, but it is also evidence of evolution, so in the end it comes down to which you believe in. The people who believe in God will say yes, and the people who don't, obviously, will say no.

[Bill Tkach]

Certain people are attracted to certain types of cars. Just like certain people are attracted to certain types of paintings, or certain people like pink, others like green. If your definition of God is the Christian/Muslim God, the God that is praised when things go good, but when things go wrong it's someone else's fault God, I disagree. If you think God is just "Something Undefinable that makes us do things and shapes our world" then sure. Beauty could be God.

But, there are other factors. Unfortunately, someone already beat me to the symmetry thing, which pretty much applies to everything you look at, especially people. Asymmetric people are generally considered less attractive. This can be related to survival, since a more symmetric person is more likely to have less structural defects, and be able to run hop jump easier. Or, if her eyeballs are in the correct place and she has two arms, she could be traded for something more useful, like an ax.

Why do we look at squirrels and thing they're fluffy and cute? Why are baby animals cute. Why is a baby cute, but a runway model beautiful? I think that's just a matter of sexual drive. Beautiful is usually related to things we find sexually stimulating. Although a flower can be beautiful, and I still don't want to bang it. Hmm... maybe my hypothesis is incorrect.

Maybe beauty is just something that is forced upon us by society, and not "God". Maybe societies structures are God. I mean, I don't find lip plates all that sexy, but some people do. We are constantly told what is beautiful. We are told "This car is beautiful, or nice". For instance, when Honda (?) released the Element, I thought it looked boxy and ugly. But, over many months of advertising and seeing it on the road, it eventually became attractive. Same with all cars. As they get older, they, for the most part, become less attractive. If you look at a new Toyota Corolla, vs an old Toyota Corolla, the old ones aren't as attractive, even though they might be in great shape. I think a lot of it is just the media (ie societies messages) telling us how beautiful things are.

People get bored. Often beauty is just what is new, or different. Especially in our society, where we constantly are having to purchase new this, replace old fashioned that, buy new ripped jeans because they are cooler than the old ripped jeans. Maybe it's just familiarity too. Maybe seening pictures of Britney Spears everywhere makes her more beautiful. Well it did in the past. Now she just looks buggered.

[Real Live Girl]

As long as you agree mate and husband/wife might not be the same thing, then I can agree that people normally choose their mate based on a personal sense of beauty. For some people, it might take a few spousal test-runs first before selecting a mate, instead of a babymaker, arm candy, career builder, parent pleaser, credit card, etc.

One thing I have seen is that a lot people marry the person they love (or are with) at the point in their lives they decide it's time to be married. Might not be the prettiest, strongest, smartest, or best person to reproduce with; or even the most suitable person to build a lasting marriage with; but when time is a factor and/or the inventory of candidates seems to be running low, settling can happen.

But formulating an innate and individual sense of beauty is on my list of evidence that God exists. And most people do have something beautiful going on - regardless of race, size or age.

[fester60613]

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

And remember that ***anything*** you can think of is a sexual turn on for *somebody*.

As for "If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God?": No. It's merely evidence that sentient beings have a sense of beauty. Why does our culture have this overwhelming need to attribute every aspect of human existence to either god or satan? Just feakin' BE!

[Raghu]

I do not believe that preferences are meant for having good babies at all.

Each preference/desire that I have is based very much on my innate tendencies and has nothing to do with my kids! My liking for a particular flavor of ice cream or a specific type of automobile has nothing to do with my offspring.

Even my preference of women has nothing to with offspring.

I think the urge to satisfy sex comes much earlier than the desire for kids, and for most people kids are an aftermath, and in my opinion a painful aftermath.

Evolution ? What evolution ? I never really get evolution, we rarely evolve but find more ways to satisfy ourselves. But thats not the subject of this post I think.

[Just Me]

If God is defined as a guy sitting on the clouds watching our every move, or some sort of entity outside of the natural world/universe, then no.

If God is defined as the processes of the natural world/universe, maybe.

Also, "beauty" is not just one thing. Preference might be a better word.

[Robert]

I was reading the Wikipedia article about blond hair. It said that people in cold climates tend to have blond hair because other features of youth and health (like perky breasts) were obscured by heavy clothes.

As a blond-haired person myself, I can say this is at least partially true. As I get older, my hair is getting darker and darker (until it turns gray, I suppose).

[Zzyzxmo]

Of course women prefer taller men. Tall men can reach the top cabinet shelfs. Duh!!!

Tall men make the gals look more diminutive and smaller. Picking men is like choosing accessories.
A womens butt looks smaller when she's in the company of a taller man because everyone is staring up at Ol' "sky high" and not down at her big ass.

You want evidence of G-d? Because we hairless apes still exist and have survived and thrived over millenia (at the exspense of larger creatures quite capable of devouring us) proves G-d exists AND has a sense of humour.

[nick]

yes

[Gustaf Sjöblom]

As for your particular posed hypothesis, I fail to see what it specifically have to do with evolution. Did you simply forget to mention that or was it on purpose to confuse us? (I don't really trust you on this issue, for obvious reasons).

Anyway, to humor you a bit, sense of beauty can be 'formed' by evolution, the most obvious examples are mens general (but not exclusive) fondness of large BOOBIES, and the general tendency to think that baby-like features are cute.

It can however also be the other way around. That sense of beauty directs evolution. This is called sexual selection and the most obvious example for this is peacocks. 'Beauty' itself becomes a reproductive advantage and the results are there for all to see.

As for your little flirt with the divine, I'm afraid that God gets to visit Occam's barbershop this time as well.

[Jacob Germain]

I've taken to answering nearly all questions with God. it makes my life just that much easier.

[Bruce Harrison]

Well, innate, yes, individual, no. I've heard Dr. Dean Edell talking about research into what people find beautiful, and there's something like an 80% correlation between what one person finds beautiful in the opposite sex and what another person finds beautiful. It also seems to be independent of race or age, so even John McCain would, at least 80% of the time, find the same person beautiful as would you. I'm sure that last part amazes you, considering your opinion of the effects of John McCain's age.

Super-thin models usually have enhanced breasts so that even though they're thin, the part that makes them look like they would be good mothers is still in bloom, so to speak. Than again, if you have ever seen one of those models in the flesh, rather than carefully made-up and photographed/Photoshopped, the emaciation is really not very attractive.

As to a common sense of beauty being a proof of God's existence: for the first part (all creatures having a sense of beauty), I don't know if it's accurate to say that. A true appreciation of beauty may be limited to man - that could be taken as circumstantial evidence for the existence of the soul, which indirectly points to the existence of God, but how do we measure "beauty appreciation" in other animals? You rarely see a dog sitting contemplating a beautiful sunset, for example. And cats only find themselves beautiful - so there you are.

[Angel]

The Concept of Beauty is one that interests me greatly.

I agree with your hypothesis: Our concept of beauty, and our sense of reproductive overlap each other, but are otherwise independent.

I think has most to do with the concept of beauty. Beauty is very, VERY subjective: What each person finds beautiful is related to their experiences, what they have lived. Beauty is supposed to be something nice that makes the person feel at ease, so those life experiences that have made the person feel at ease are considered beautiful.

I don't think all creatures have an innate sense of beauty. They have an innate sense of health and a desire for reproduction, but that sense of beauty will probably appear on certain levels of evolution. I don't think we, as a race of animals, are the only ones who have it.

Even then, it's no proof for the existence of God. How could it be? It just proves that an animal's previous experiences change its behavior.

[Michael]

Beauty is arguably the most subjective thing in the world. Body types have little to do with health, though, Scott. It's more the construction of the individual, and how they approach life, which determines their attractiveness. So far as pleasure goes, looks and health factor marginally into sexual attraction wherever independent thought lives.

How well their genetic material will mesh is more a matter of their sentiment towards one another than it is a matter of physics. That's why you can get two beautiful people who have deformed or unhealthy looking babies. If the love is not there, no amount of genetic composition can save them. And then again, their offspring may find love, and be fruitful. This is evidence of God. That a soul life kindles beauty even in bleakness. But it is not a valid excuse to extinguish light, or jealously guard it until it suffocates.

If someone is unhealthy in spirit, this will attract those who like to exploit that. If there is an environment where people who are lacking soul depth are mass produced, you get a lot of that shallow kind of beauty which thinks only of the shell, and not of the refinement of the spirit. And even the shell can not survive in this dim light, which is why you then get butchery to sustain it. And when this is held up as an example of ideal beauty, and people make it about inches and colors, children no longer matter. Children are pure, and they are sacred. Children are potential. They are the voice of the cosmos. At least those born into light. Some children are just cursed from the start.

Suffering as a state of mind is no longer offensive to those who live thus. It's an analogy for Jesus on the cross. Only we are Jesus. We behold him, and thus, we are him. Those who claim to be against Christianity, and, in the same breath, crucify themselves and the objects of their desire– they are confused. They fulfill the punitive tenets of a religion which they profess to despise.

No matter how we look at it, we need children to matter if we are to continue as a species. I guess it all boils down to that. Some people argue that our existence is irrelevant. But so long as children are being born, I don't think they have the right to assert that view point on a governmental level. If you can convince everybody else on the planet that we ought to stop reproducing, then you have a valid opportunity to let nihilists into government. Other than that, I can only order them to keep their damned misery to themselves.

Tell me now, then, why I have, on occasion, seen men and women wrinkled past recognition, who were more beautiful to me than the most fecund, sweet-smelling youth? Could it be the human sense of smell has untold dimensions, as does beauty? Could it be that so many of our youth are soured and vacant, that beauty simply can not live there? And what of those who find this arousing? What of them? Do they know the meaning of the word, beauty? Have they known love? Or has it never been ignited.

[pietro]

The sense of beauty coincidentally overlaps with health?
hmmm... what if there is no coincidence, and is the result of natural selection: the DNA producing a sense of beauty that does not enable health in their descendants, sooner or later will disappear.

So the sense of beauty is subject to natural selection too..

Anyway, I don't have a problem with how much innate or predetermined my sense of beauty is. That has little to do with free will.

[BuyStuff]

I think beauty is an aspect of something that invokes our desire to possess it or control it in some way. This is why many people instinctively attempt to destroy beauty when they see it - they don't have the wit to deal with their emotion in any other way: "If I can not have shiny pebble no one will have shiny pebble!"

This fits in with the evolution argument and also explains territorial behaviour. Beauty is something we respond to, not something intrinsic.

This is not to be confused with cuteness (although people use the two terms interchangeably) which brings out the desire to protect something. By contrast beauty can be cold and aloof.

Beauty is truth? The truth is often mundane and disappointing - boy did Keats get that one wrong!

[Miguel]

Why do you keep doing this? We all know you are way smarter than your "Is blah evidence for god?" posts, and we know that you don't believe a word of it...

You can't fool us (some of us, at least!). :)

Why do you enjoy so much throwing bones into the pack of wolves?

Seriously, I mean, is it for laughs? 'Cause I get kind of annoyed reading the comments (both sides of the 'discussion'. One side, I understood it when I was 10, the other is the usual stupid).

You might think it's funny and obviously sarcastic, but if you spend some time reading religious pages (or going to mass), you'll think they are being funny and ironic, until you realize they aren't joking...

[Jordy]

Very Possibly. Our appreciation for beauty can not be explained by evolution, much like our appreciation for music. I heard it was Albert Einstein who said that music is proof of the existence of God.

[Jay]

"hardwired with a basic sense of morality, which I think is more a sign there is a God"
Bull crap.

We are hard wired for morality, because generally it is better for the "herd". If every alpha male killed all the others without any remorse or discrimination, it doesn't help the species survive in a place where there are more dangerous animals roaming. Instead we have a herd mentality to live in small communities that protect each other.

Look up studies of brain size in monkeys correlating with community sizes. Most "amoral" acts are committed by people on other people outside their immediate community. Crime within small towns or tribes is extremely low.

[Borjan]

Bonus philosophical question: If all creatures with brains have an innate and individual sense of beauty, is that evidence of God? - Scott

No. It's evidence of innate and individual sense of beauty and could be considered evidence for genetic inheritance. Anything else is jumping to conclusions...

[Jason]

My theory is we stopped evolving soon after we discovered agriculture, because agriculture led to invention of producing alcohol as a way to preserve grains and foods, and once you have alcohol we'll hump anything that moves.

Actually evidence exists that we discovered pot because it naturally grows in early human trash piles, so we might have ended evolution at this point. It would also describe why we invented farmer to start with. "Man, I don't feel like looking for food, can't we make it grow right here?"

[Jay]

"hardwired with a basic sense of morality, which I think is more a sign there is a God"
Bull crap.

We are hard wired for morality, because generally it is better for the "herd". If every alpha male killed all the others without any remorse or discrimination, it doesn't help the species survive in a place where there are more dangerous animals roaming. Instead we have a herd mentality to live in small communities that protect each other.

Look up studies of brain size in monkeys correlating with community sizes.

Notice that thin models are often selected to be attractive to women, or to make clothes look attractive. Often they