Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

[Aptrgangr]

Ten Politically Incorrect Truths About Human Nature

Why most suicide bombers are Muslim, beautiful people have more daughters, humans are naturally polygamous, sexual harassment isn't sexist, and blonds are more attractive.
By:Alan S. Miller Ph.D., Satoshi Kanazawa Ph.D.

Human nature is one of those things that everybody talks about but no one can define precisely. Every time we fall in love, fight with our spouse, get upset about the influx of immigrants into our country, or go to church, we are, in part, behaving as a human animal with our own unique evolved nature—human nature.
This means two things. First, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are produced not only by our individual experiences and environment in our own lifetime but also by what happened to our ancestors millions of years ago. Second, our thoughts, feelings, and behavior are shared, to a large extent, by all men or women, despite seemingly large cultural differences.
Human behavior is a product both of our innate human nature and of our individual experience and environment. In this article, however, we emphasize biological influences on human behavior, because most social scientists explain human behavior as if evolution stops at the neck and as if our behavior is a product almost entirely of environment and socialization. In contrast, evolutionary psychologists see human nature as a collection of psychological adaptations that often operate beneath conscious thinking to solve problems of survival and reproduction by predisposing us to think or feel in certain ways. Our preference for sweets and fats is an evolved psychological mechanism. We do not consciously choose to like sweets and fats; they just taste good to us.
The implications of some of the ideas in this article may seem immoral, contrary to our ideals, or offensive. We state them because they are true, supported by documented scientific evidence. Like it or not, human nature is simply not politically correct.
Excerpted from Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters, by Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa, to be published by Perigree in September 2007.

1. Men like blond bombshells (and women want to look like them) Long before TV—in 15th- and 16th- century Italy, and possibly two millennia ago—women were dying their hair blond. A recent study shows that in Iran, where exposure to Western media and culture is limited, women are actually more concerned with their body image, and want to lose more weight, than their American counterparts. It is difficult to ascribe the preferences and desires of women in 15th-century Italy and 21st-century Iran to socialization by media.
   Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her. There is evolutionary logic behind each of these features.
   Men prefer young women in part because they tend to be healthier than older women. One accurate indicator of health is physical attractiveness; another is hair. Healthy women have lustrous, shiny hair, whereas the hair of sickly people loses its luster. Because hair grows slowly, shoulder-length hair reveals several years of a woman's health status.
   Men also have a universal preference for women with a low waist-to-hip ratio. They are healthier and more fertile than other women; they have an easier time conceiving a child and do so at earlier ages because they have larger amounts of essential reproductive hormones. Thus men are unconsciously seeking healthier and more fertile women when they seek women with small waists.
   Until very recently, it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, since the size of a woman's breasts has no relationship to her ability to lactate. But Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe contends that larger, and hence heavier, breasts sag more conspicuously with age than do smaller breasts. Thus they make it easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) by sight—suggesting why men find women with large breasts more attractive.
   Alternatively, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason they prefer women with small waists. A new study of Polish women shows that women with large breasts and tight waists have the greatest fecundity, indicated by their levels of two reproductive hormones (estradiol and progesterone).
   Blond hair is unique in that it changes dramatically with age. Typically, young girls with light blond hair become women with brown hair. Thus, men who prefer to mate with blond women are unconsciously attempting to mate with younger (and hence, on average, healthier and more fecund) women. It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.
   Women with blue eyes should not be any different from those with green or brown eyes. Yet preference for blue eyes seems both universal and undeniable—in males as well as females. One explanation is that the human pupil dilates when an individual is exposed to something that she likes. For instance, the pupils of women and infants (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not.
   The irony is that none of the above is true any longer. Through face-lifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, and color contact lenses, any woman, regardless of age, can have many of the key features that define ideal female beauty. And men fall for them. Men can cognitively understand that many blond women with firm, large breasts are not actually 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their evolved psychological mechanisms are fooled by modern inventions that did not exist in the ancestral environment.(...)

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[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Text posted by Aptrgangr

Pupil dilation is an honest indicator of interest and attraction. And the size of the pupil is easiest to determine in blue eyes. Blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because it is easiest to determine whether they are interested in us or not

Interesting explanation.
That changes from the classical explanation that "Blue eyes preference because a Nordish Elite ruled in the far past the whole mankind"

[Chauntecleer]

Interesting read. Even though I don't find myself more attracted to blue eyed women.

[Errigal]

Women's desire to look like Barbie—young with small waist, large breasts, long blond hair, and blue eyes—is a direct, realistic, and sensible response to the desire of men to mate with women who look like her.

The Barbie doll's history is interesting. The American habit of taking credit for other's inventions and the love/hate relationship between Jewish-Americans and "Aryan" Germans comes up yet again. The same dynamic which shaped Hollywood.

Barbie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bild Lilli doll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

What a strange (to say the least) article, dumping together such disparate and unrelated things like bottle blonds, love affairs of politicians and Muslim suicide bombers.

An essay construing a pretty naive and reductionist view of the human nature, but masquerading - allegedly - as extremely non-naive.

[Jejunity]

This is worthless. Where are the citations?

[Menydh]

Utter nonesense.

This one is a jewel

It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing.

because by the same logics Afghan women are on their way to become ultra-blonded.

[Señor Malo]

Originally Posted by Mynydd

Utter nonesense.

This one is a jewel

It is no coincidence that blond hair evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, probably as an alternative means for women to advertise their youth, as their bodies were concealed under heavy clothing./QUOTE]because by the same logics Afghan women are on their way to become ultra-blonded.

Yes, one must admit that the author's argument is absolutely dumb

[svin]

I've just noticed that both authors have Ph.D.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by svin

I've just noticed that both authors have Ph.D.

Having PhD these days does not inoculate anyone against bullshitting, due to the awful degradation of the system of the high education.

What is also amazing is the emergence of a new brand of political correctness. The funny thing about this new political correctness is that the its proponents proudly state how "politically incorrect" they are.

Soon it will become politically correct to be "politically incorrect."

[Susi]

I have like, 5 PhDs. Seriously. So whatever I say is true...

Maybe they're honourary doctorates? Actually the doctoral candidate who is my TA in one of my classes.. I find her a little.. stupid. ><

[Kernunnos]

Originally Posted by Truth-Finder

Interesting explanation.
That changes from the classical explanation that "Blue eyes preference because a Nordish Elite ruled in the far past the whole mankind"

Only in the last three centuries.

We shall not forget that roman empire was mostly dinarid and alpinid, at least at the beginning, when romans where still real romans.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Breha

Only in the last three centuries.

And again, debatable.

We shall not forget that roman empire was mostly dinarid and alpinid, at least at the beginning, when romans where still real romans.

Romans must have been an amalgamation of Mediterranoid, Alpinoid and Dinaroid. Don't forget that it is from an Eastern Mediterranean people, the Etruscans, that they borrow heavily on one side. On the other side, the Hellenics.