5 ms·

Why eggheads get the girls and birdbrains don't

28 points by mgcreed 17y ago

edw519 17y ago
I think "Revenge of the Nerds" got it best: - That was wonderful. - You did things to me you've never done before. (gasps) - You're that nerd! - Yeah. - God, you were wonderful. - Thanks. - Are all nerds as good as you? - Yes. - How come? - Cos all jocks think about is sports. - All we ever think about is sex.
blhack 17y ago
Nay. Women are attracted to power. Famous scientists, authors, and artists wield power. In addition to this, the attraction to "intelligence" is like gravity...omnipresent, but weak in relation to something like the strong nuclear force (looks). (as with most statements, append the phrase "within reason" to this).
- timr 17y ago
  If you're going to use stereotypes as if they're facts, at least throw in a few others for balance: women are attracted to starving-artist types; gregarious, life-of-the-party types; literary types; sensitive brooding mysterious types; bad-boy types, and so on. These are all theories that I've heard from other guys -- it seems like every guy has his own preferred stereotype for what "women" find attractive. You're only doing yourself a disservice if you believe that women are a monoculture, universally attracted to a single trait. (I think that goes for intelligence, too, but at least the researchers here are just trying to show that intelligence can be an aphrodesiac, not that it's always attractive.)
  - lionhearted 17y ago
    The problem with generalizing is that you're generalizing, but that doesn't mean it's totally useless and everything is relative either.
  - blhack 17y ago
    (as with most statements, append the phrase "within reason" to this).
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    it depends...are you optimizing your socializing to be attractive to attractive women of average intelligence? this will be different from someone trying to attract intelligent women of average looks. (attractive and intelligent is a null set :P) but I would guess that women of IQ 100 would be a quite homogeneous group within any one geographic area.
- geezer 17y ago
  You can't readily apply results of this study to humans
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- potatolicious 17y ago
  "... but weak in relation to something like the strong nuclear force (looks)." On the contrary, every single "ladies man" I've ever known in my life has not been the best looking, far from it. Looks certainly help, but to use your analogy I would say looks is more like gravity - omnipresent but ultimately outweighed by other factors.
  - dagw 17y ago
    Yup, I've seen the same thing. The guys I know who get the ladies aren't the good looking ones, they're the self(over) confident ones who can talk a good game and aren't worried about being shot down.
    - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
      it's not just that. I've known quite a few of this archetype and the thing they all have in common is tenacity. they're always on the clock with one girl or another. cast a wide net seems to be the strategy. I think anyone can do this it's just that most aren't willing to put that much effort into casual sex. casual sex quite honestly isn't worth a lot of effort. edit: it's also worth noting that in my experience this type has low self esteem and the constant need for sex is a form of ego affirmation.
      - dagw 17y ago
        Sure it could seem like an ego affirmation exercise. Then again playing sports, performing music, putting up your artwork on your web page and submitting code to an open source project can all be a form of ego affirmation as well.
        nazgulnarsil 17y ago
        not disparaging people's choices at all. it's just been my experience that promiscuity often goes hand in hand with unhappiness even though I have no idea which way the causation arrow points.
roundsquare 17y ago
> Alternative theories to the mating mind include that our large brain evolved because it was advantageous for hunting or living in social groups, and cultural creativity was simply a fortuitous byproduct of the struggle to survive. Isn't this part of the same theory? Traits that are good for survival should be more attractive (i.e. being attracted to traits that are good for survival increases your chances of survival which means that such attraction should evolve).
- nollidge 17y ago
  Not necessarily. Consider the peacock's tail - not good for survival, but sexually selected for. Just because something "should" evolve doesn't mean it does. Evolution is haphazard, and adaptations are usually merely good enough, not perfect.
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    True, but I guess my point is that I wouldn't consider it a completely distinct theory as the article suggests it its. But its a good point, its possibly intelligence is attractive for reasons not having to do with evolution.
btn 17y ago
Are there any reasons to believe that we can generalise the behaviour of birds to humans? The article claims that we can, but I don't see why, especially given that "they're not as complex as humans".
- btilly 17y ago
  You're absolutely right. If you're going to generalize to humans, wouldn't you be better off trying to generalize from close relatives? Let's try that. In many mammals the selection is clearly for winners of dominance fights who collect harems. We clearly don't do that. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, have a lot of selection for sperm production. We don't do that either. If we don't behave like these close relatives, then why would one assume that we behave like bower birds?
  - roundsquare 17y ago
    I wouldn't be overly dismissive of this. It is (hopefully) the first of many experiments. They just wanted to start with something where they could easily determine intelligence and mating. Designing this for humans will be much more difficult... but I'd be interested to see if they can come up with a reasonable experimental design.
  - barry-cotter 17y ago
    Eh, we clearly do have selection for sperm production. We have the second biggest balls in proportion to body size of any primate, which strongly suggests that only the (bonobo?) chimpanzees fuck around more than us.
    - btilly 17y ago
      Reference, please. I find that claim rather dubious considering that the common chimpanzee and bonobo are recognized as different species, which would make us at best third in the balls department. And we're not really comparable - the difference in size between us and them is about a factor of 3. (Chimps weigh in at 4 oz, we are 1.5 oz. The average male chimp is 100 pounds, we weigh somewhat more than that.) In fact I'd bet we lose to the anubis baboon. http://www.springerlink.com/content/ktvkuqv460200j70/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/ktvkuqv460200j70/ probably has the data for a definitive answer on that but it is behind a pay wall. If you're looking for amusing evolutionary sexual trivia, humans have far larger penises relative to body size than any other great ape.
lunchbox 17y ago
This looks like another case of correlation != causation. Physical health (e.g. absence of disease) of the male birds is one possible lurking variable: good health keeps one's brain performing better, and it also makes one more attractive to the other sex.
- DrJokepu 17y ago
  I agree with you in that correlation is not causation but I think you're overcomplicating things a bit in your example; birds don't have a healthcare system, they're either completely healthy and fit or get killed by a predator or by their inability to migrate or some other external factor relatively quickly.
kristianp 17y ago
The study showed that males who were able to problem solve in order to remove red objects from their nests, got the most mates. In this case the smart birds got the girls, but it doesn't follow that smart humans have the same sexual selection.

28 points by mgcreed 17y ago

I think "Revenge of the Nerds" got it best: - That was wonderful. - You did things to me you've never done before. (gasps) - You're that nerd! - Yeah. - God, you were wonderful. - Thanks. - Are all nerds as good as you? - Yes. - How come? - Cos all jocks think about is sports. - All we ever think about is sex.

blhack 17y ago

Nay. Women are attracted to power. Famous scientists, authors, and artists wield power. In addition to this, the attraction to "intelligence" is like gravity...omnipresent, but weak in relation to something like the strong nuclear force (looks). (as with most statements, append the phrase "within reason" to this).

timr 17y ago
If you're going to use stereotypes as if they're facts, at least throw in a few others for balance: women are attracted to starving-artist types; gregarious, life-of-the-party types; literary types; sensitive brooding mysterious types; bad-boy types, and so on. These are all theories that I've heard from other guys -- it seems like every guy has his own preferred stereotype for what "women" find attractive. You're only doing yourself a disservice if you believe that women are a monoculture, universally attracted to a single trait. (I think that goes for intelligence, too, but at least the researchers here are just trying to show that intelligence can be an aphrodesiac, not that it's always attractive.)
- lionhearted 17y ago
  The problem with generalizing is that you're generalizing, but that doesn't mean it's totally useless and everything is relative either.
- blhack 17y ago
  (as with most statements, append the phrase "within reason" to this).
- nazgulnarsil 17y ago
  it depends...are you optimizing your socializing to be attractive to attractive women of average intelligence? this will be different from someone trying to attract intelligent women of average looks. (attractive and intelligent is a null set :P) but I would guess that women of IQ 100 would be a quite homogeneous group within any one geographic area.
geezer 17y ago
You can't readily apply results of this study to humans
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
potatolicious 17y ago
"... but weak in relation to something like the strong nuclear force (looks)." On the contrary, every single "ladies man" I've ever known in my life has not been the best looking, far from it. Looks certainly help, but to use your analogy I would say looks is more like gravity - omnipresent but ultimately outweighed by other factors.
- dagw 17y ago
  Yup, I've seen the same thing. The guys I know who get the ladies aren't the good looking ones, they're the self(over) confident ones who can talk a good game and aren't worried about being shot down.
  - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
    it's not just that. I've known quite a few of this archetype and the thing they all have in common is tenacity. they're always on the clock with one girl or another. cast a wide net seems to be the strategy. I think anyone can do this it's just that most aren't willing to put that much effort into casual sex. casual sex quite honestly isn't worth a lot of effort. edit: it's also worth noting that in my experience this type has low self esteem and the constant need for sex is a form of ego affirmation.
    - dagw 17y ago
      Sure it could seem like an ego affirmation exercise. Then again playing sports, performing music, putting up your artwork on your web page and submitting code to an open source project can all be a form of ego affirmation as well.
      - nazgulnarsil 17y ago
        not disparaging people's choices at all. it's just been my experience that promiscuity often goes hand in hand with unhappiness even though I have no idea which way the causation arrow points.

roundsquare 17y ago

> Alternative theories to the mating mind include that our large brain evolved because it was advantageous for hunting or living in social groups, and cultural creativity was simply a fortuitous byproduct of the struggle to survive. Isn't this part of the same theory? Traits that are good for survival should be more attractive (i.e. being attracted to traits that are good for survival increases your chances of survival which means that such attraction should evolve).

nollidge 17y ago
Not necessarily. Consider the peacock's tail - not good for survival, but sexually selected for. Just because something "should" evolve doesn't mean it does. Evolution is haphazard, and adaptations are usually merely good enough, not perfect.
- roundsquare 17y ago
  True, but I guess my point is that I wouldn't consider it a completely distinct theory as the article suggests it its. But its a good point, its possibly intelligence is attractive for reasons not having to do with evolution.

btn 17y ago

Are there any reasons to believe that we can generalise the behaviour of birds to humans? The article claims that we can, but I don't see why, especially given that "they're not as complex as humans".

btilly 17y ago
You're absolutely right. If you're going to generalize to humans, wouldn't you be better off trying to generalize from close relatives? Let's try that. In many mammals the selection is clearly for winners of dominance fights who collect harems. We clearly don't do that. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, have a lot of selection for sperm production. We don't do that either. If we don't behave like these close relatives, then why would one assume that we behave like bower birds?
- roundsquare 17y ago
  I wouldn't be overly dismissive of this. It is (hopefully) the first of many experiments. They just wanted to start with something where they could easily determine intelligence and mating. Designing this for humans will be much more difficult... but I'd be interested to see if they can come up with a reasonable experimental design.
- barry-cotter 17y ago
  Eh, we clearly do have selection for sperm production. We have the second biggest balls in proportion to body size of any primate, which strongly suggests that only the (bonobo?) chimpanzees fuck around more than us.
  - btilly 17y ago
    Reference, please. I find that claim rather dubious considering that the common chimpanzee and bonobo are recognized as different species, which would make us at best third in the balls department. And we're not really comparable - the difference in size between us and them is about a factor of 3. (Chimps weigh in at 4 oz, we are 1.5 oz. The average male chimp is 100 pounds, we weigh somewhat more than that.) In fact I'd bet we lose to the anubis baboon. http://www.springerlink.com/content/ktvkuqv460200j70/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/ktvkuqv460200j70/ probably has the data for a definitive answer on that but it is behind a pay wall. If you're looking for amusing evolutionary sexual trivia, humans have far larger penises relative to body size than any other great ape.

lunchbox 17y ago

This looks like another case of correlation != causation. Physical health (e.g. absence of disease) of the male birds is one possible lurking variable: good health keeps one's brain performing better, and it also makes one more attractive to the other sex.

DrJokepu 17y ago
I agree with you in that correlation is not causation but I think you're overcomplicating things a bit in your example; birds don't have a healthcare system, they're either completely healthy and fit or get killed by a predator or by their inability to migrate or some other external factor relatively quickly.

kristianp 17y ago

The study showed that males who were able to problem solve in order to remove red objects from their nests, got the most mates. In this case the smart birds got the girls, but it doesn't follow that smart humans have the same sexual selection.