The article seems to be missing the confounding factor that physical attractiveness is also fairly well correlated with other markers of success such as wealth.

The article seems to be missing the confounding factor that physical attractiveness is also fairly well correlated with other markers of success such as wealth. Some of the reasons for that are fairly obvious e.g. if you're healthy, your brain works better. But beyond that, this sort of selection isn't just occuring in dating. You're more likely to get a job, have a solid friendship group, be received better by strangers, etc, if you're more attractive. It's a feedback loop, particularly for women. I'm sure you can find a few outliers, like say pre-hair-transplant Elon or whatever. They're still not actually _ugly_ for the most part though.