Beautiful parents have more daughters

[Cruzan]

Researchers have established that very attractive people are 36 per cent more likely to have daughters than sons and that the world's females are becoming better-looking than men as a result.

The report, from the London School of Economics, may provide an insight into the biological forces that lead the most striking people to produce first-born daughters.

It postulates that differing "evolutionary strategies" lead parents to produce the sex that would most benefit from their own characteristics.

So while the children of aggressive, scientific parents tend to be boys, who can outwit their competitors when it comes to finding a mate, the children of beautiful, empathic parents tend to be girls, who can take their pick from the gene pool and then hang on to their man.

"These may be stereotypes but they are also fact," said Dr Satoshi Kanazawa, the evolutionary psychologist who led the research.

"We have shown that beautiful parents have more daughters than ugly parents because physical attractiveness is heritable and because daughters benefit from this more than sons."

More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/07/31/nbeauty31.xml

[liontamer]

1. And what about beautiful scientific parents?

:eyes:

[flygal]

26. My sister and her husband both have PhD's in science

and two girls. I think this study is ridiculous.

[idgiehkt]

46. lol

never heard of an 'agressive scientific parent' before.

[Sherman A1]

2. Interesting

[Horse with no Name]

3. Oh please all the little people

Please step aside for I am one of the chosen beautiful people here to repopulate the earth with my lovely two daughters--and my lovely granddaughter.
:evilgrin:

[LostinVA]

17. I have a niece amd a sister -- does that count???

[w4rma]

4. Maybe having daughters convinces parents to take better care of their

own looks?

[jobycom]

5. Label me skeptical. How do you measure attractiveness when every culture

defines it in a different way? Does evolution constantly adjust to keep up with cultural concepts of beauty? All the article says about it is "The research, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, was carried out using young Americans, who were analysed by height, weight and apparent age - factors that can be used to judge basic attraction levels without subjectivity. Only first-born children were included."

It doesn't explain how these factors define "basic attraction levels."

I'm wondering if, rather than finding that "attractive couples" have more daughters, they have discovered that certain physical characteristics or parents affect the gender of the child, and at this moment those physical characteristics are considered attractive. For that matter, I'm not sure they've proven even that. Was this study done before pregnancy, after pregnancy, or was this just a case of looking at a sampling of parents and analyzing children already born? If the latter, I can't imagine any way to exclude bias from such a study.

[Heidi]

8. I don't believe height, weight and apparent age are "non-subjective"

measurements for attractiveness. Lots of people prefer shorter over taller, curvier to thin, and vice versa. I'd like to know exactly what height, weight and apparent age the subjects were benchmarked against.

[CTLawGuy]

19. not every culture, every PERSON

everyone has certain things that he or she finds attractive in others. That's even harder to deal with.

[jobycom]

21. Yes, but there are similar factors that do have some objectivity

I have an acquaintance (mother of a former classmate of my daughter's) who is a prof at UTexas who works on beauty. I beleive she is a child psychologist of some type. She runs experiments where she shows infants a series of pictures of faces, and measures their response,such as how long they look before turning away, whether they smile or cry or make any other response. She's done this for many years, and with thousands and thousands of children. She says that there are certain features which the majority of children respond positively to. There is a certain facial pattern they prefer. Obviously there is much deviation, or individuality, in most children, but there are also certain features children would overwhelmingly respond positively to, and these features aren't based on race or culture or any other factor. These are serious, well-funded studies with a lot of acceptance amongst her peers.

But the article doesn't talk about any objective measurement. It talks about height, weight, apparent age. Anyone who has studied art knows how culture has changed its definition of beauty on those features. It seems more likely to me that, if they have discovered anything, they have discovered that certain physical builds and age groupings produce more daughters, but the conclusion that it is based on beauty as some form of evolutionary survival doesn't seem to follow. They haven't proven that, they've only speculated on it, even if their numbers are accurate in some objective way.

There have also been studies linking gender to the age difference in parents. At least that is quantifiable.

[marions ghost]

31. right

good points.

What is beautiful? To me, it would not be the Hollywood standard, that's for sure...with its brittle hard-looking women and vacuous smug-looking men. You have to be beautiful on the inside to be truly beautiful on the outside. We all know the technically beautiful person who is repugnant because of their personality. There's no objective standard. This finding may indicate SOMETHING, but I'm not sure it's about something so slippery as 'beauty.'

[Marr]

32. Exactly what I was thinking- there are simply too many variables

at work here to say that their numbers indicate anything specific. Perhaps they've demonstrated that very thin couples are more likely to have boys. Or that people who can afford good skin care products and healthy diets are more likely to have girls.

But considering how they apparently haven't even considered the sea of variables their study is floating in, I suspect their entire methodology may be flawed from top to bottom.

[charlie]

6. By what mechanism, I wonder?

Gender is determined by sperm. How do "beautiful" women sort out the X from the Y?

The notion that "beauty" can be objectively quantified is kinda dodgy, too.

[LiberalPartisan]

9. Actually, beauty is quantifiable

It's based on the number Phi 1.618... the basis for the Golden Mean/Golden Ratio


Check it out:
http://goldennumber.net/neophite.htm
http://goldennumber.net/beauty.htm
http://goldennumber.net/face.htm

[charlie]

10. I know about the Golden Ratio

Such proportions applied to human physiognomy can be an objective measure of beauty? I don't think so.

[Tsiyu]

7. Could this only be a way to trick men into marrying ugly women

since many men desire that male heir, even in this day and age?

:sarcasm:

[B Calm]

11. I've seen some pretty wacky posts, but this one is hilarious...

[kdmorris]

12. So, according to this study

scientific and empathic are opposites. This seems to indicate that the sperm(X sperm only need apply) and the egg somehow "know" that "physical attractiveness is heritable and because daughters benefit from this more than sons". So what do the Y sperm do when they belong to "scientific, aggressive" men? Hang out in the scrotum and talk amongst themselves?

[thepurpose]

13. My poor kids!! I'm ugly as hell.

[twiterpatted]

14. I have four beautiful daughters, and my wife and I both have very large

butts, therefor, fat ass people make beautiful daughters.


Seriously, my ass is huge.

[fasttense]

15. Beauty is not quantifiable

I've seen so many shows and studies that try to define beauty and they don't even question their own biases. For example they give being slender as a trait for beauty. Well look a hundred years ago in Europe and you would get No One to agree with that. Being thin, especially for women was considered very unattractive. In the early 1900s, there was a woman who died from some unknown illness in her early teens. She was considered exceptionally beautiful and lovely by everyone who knew her. She was so loved by her parents and brother they had her stuffed. It is in a museum right now. But they showed it on TV the other day and she looked like a slightly overweight middle aged woman. She was rather hefty and had a large mole above her lip. She had a round fleshy face. This woman was considered beautiful back then but by today's standards she would be considered unattractive. I'm sticking with my definition for beautiful - beauty is as beauty does.

[dweller]

16. 2 beautiful daughters!

but no butt. . .

:shrug:

dp

[CTLawGuy]

18. this isn't bullshit or anything

1. What is "attractive" is obviously objectively definable...
2. on top of that the biological processes that define the sex of the child can perceive who is "attractive" or who is "scientific"....

[formernaderite]

20. so us average looking folks have equal numbers of both

worked in my family...two and two.

[WinkyDink]

22. Genetics? And here I thought the demise of male beauty was due to

low-slung baggy pants, backwards baseball caps, fugly tats, beer guts, and deliberately bald heads.

[LWolf]

23. I am not as beautiful as my mother.

She had a daughter. Me. I only had sons. I must be smarter than Mom. :eyes:

[ecstatic]

24. Beauty does NOT help women "hang on to their man!"

LMAO. Just look at people like Halle Berry etc. It's even harder for the most beautiful women because the men tend to be very insecure and the women are not able to accept when they're getting played for fools!

[devilgrrl]

29. Ask Uma Thurman...

apparently she wasn't beautiful enough for Ethan Hawke.

What a stupid article. :nuke:

[grace0418]

45. It seems to me that beautiful women actually have a harder time. This is

not a scientific theory, mind you. But it seems to me that if your man loves you because of your personality, intelligence, humor, shared interests and values, etc. (as opposed to your looks) it's not going to matter as much as you age. A man who marries a woman largely because she's gorgeous is probably going to be more likely to stray as she ages and gets less "attractive"-- a la Donald Trump.

Of course, women who are beautiful, smart, intelligent and funny have it made I guess. :)

[Pale Blue Dot]

25. April fools, right?

This can't be real. No credible scientist would attach him/herself to such a thing. There is nothing measurable in the hypothesis.

[SmokingJacket]

27. This is EASY to explain!

BOYS WEAR YOU OUT!!!!!!!!!!!

I've aged, taken to drink, don't sleep enough, don't dress as well, and neglect my hygiene since having my two incredibly active, non-stop sons.

I still have good bones, though. ;-)

[xmas74]

36. Girls wear you out too.

I have one and I'm more worried about her future then I ever would be if I had a son. My best friend has two sons and she is more worried about her daughter.

Let's face it-kids in general wear us all out!

[LeftHander]

28. What do ugly, red state, inbred mutants give birth to...?

Republikids.


:that was really awful...but it is friday...:

[Marr]

30. I seriously doubt this- the premise is full of holes.

There are too many variables at play here. For instance, all three of their criteria for "attractiveness" (height, weight, apparent physical age), are affected by income and diet. Their whole construct seems flawed to me.

[jeanarrett]

33. I have four daughters and one son.

My son is non-scientific and cute as hell.

My daughters are all super smart and uglier than shit.

:sarcasm:

Now what?!!!???

Oh, and I've got a fat ass too and their dad is bald.

[Fountain79]

34. Hey...some men like fat asses n/t

[jeanarrett]

35. Really?

Did I mention I was single. . .? ;)

[Seabiscuit]

37. People actually waste their time with such worthless studies????

OMG!

[Lilith Velkor]

41. Of course they do

How else are they gonna rationalize their sexist beliefs?

[sarge43]

38. So, where did it all go wrong with George and Laura Bush? n/t

[Dora]

39. I think evolutionary psychology is a crock of shit.

That's all.

[Susang]

40. Hardly a scientific study

Since they only studied Americans and their first born children's height, weight and age. :eyes:


The research, published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, was carried out using young Americans, who were analysed by height, weight and apparent age - factors that can be used to judge basic attraction levels without subjectivity. Only first-born children were included.

[Arugula Latte]

42. Well, that explains Brangelina's little Shiloh Pitt ...

;)

[crim son]

43. My mother, who is beautiful like her mother (who was stunning)

had four daughters and no sons. We are, alas, a mixed bag!

[miss_american_pie]

44. I have no words

to describe how offensively sexist that is.