Friday, November 5, 2010

Thoughts on selection...

In this day and age in the western world, we've removed most of the evolutionary pressures on the human species. Infants that would have died at birth in earlier eras...and still do in poorer countries...are nurtured, survive and breed. More and more, it might seem that natural selection no longer effects us.

Which is why it's quite important to study the one potent force that remains: Mate selection.

 Male mate preference tends to be a static thing. Nice breasts indicate good fat reserves, essential to conception. Broad hips indicate a wide birth canal. Those feminine curves are all about reproductive health. In some cultures, its a nice ass sought not nice hips...many African women tend to put more fat on the buttocks than the breasts.

Female mate selection can be, as this article indicates, far more interesting.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101103-attractive-women-men-faces-skin-color-evolution-diet-health/

We like to talk about falling in love as some kind of sacred thing, but it's really all about instincts. Like any other female, the human woman is looking for a male who is strong and healthy...and thus has the best chance of getting her pregnant and having a healthy kid.

Of course, we're a bit more complicated than that, because we demand a lot more of our mates than ten seconds of half babies, but...

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