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> You seem to forget that being attractive and having more kids are in no way correlated. Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly

by Zikes 12y ago

> You seem to forget that being attractive and having more kids are in no way correlated. Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I hope you've just phrased it poorly. I'm not saying we're not selecting for intelligence or beauty, I'm saying we're not selecting for the same intelligence and beauty every generation. A few thousand years ago intelligence was being able to tie a pointy rock to the end of a stick, and that sure played a role in natural selection. "Intelligence" as I intended to convey is broadly defined, it's not just the modern definition of IQ but the skills to survive and thrive in the environment of the time.

diminoten 12y ago
> Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I hope you've just phrased it poorly. I have not worded it incorrectly. Attractive people may have kids, but so do ugly people, and ugly people have kids with attractive people, too. There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. Your "common knowledge" is failing you here. But wait, so you're trying to tell me that this sentence: > In many ways we are already selecting for those traits and have been for countless generations Is supposed to have meant this: > I'm saying we're not selecting for the same intelligence and beauty every generation. ?
- Zikes 12y ago
  > There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attractants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attr... And yes, my two sentences are one and the same. A trait is a category, such as hair color. We can select for that trait without always selecting specifically red hair, for example. In fact, at one point we selected against red hair in some cultures [1]. Similarly, as I described earlier, intelligence today is often defined as IQ or literacy while intelligence in the past might have been toolmaking, memory (for verbal history/storytelling), or navigational skills. That's why I don't see any ethical quandaries about genetic modifications for beauty, because it's highly unlikely to lead to homogeneity and even if it did, if everyone is beautiful then nobody is, which means people would immediately find new definitions for beauty and pursue those instead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Prejudice_and_discrimination_against_redheads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Prejudice_and_discrim...
  - diminoten 12y ago
    Did you just link to the peafowl to try and show that in humans, attractiveness and offspring are related?

by Zikes 12y ago

diminoten 12y ago

> Attractiveness plays absolutely no role in reproduction? I honestly don't know how to respond to that, I hope you've just phrased it poorly. I have not worded it incorrectly. Attractive people may have kids, but so do ugly people, and ugly people have kids with attractive people, too. There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. Your "common knowledge" is failing you here. But wait, so you're trying to tell me that this sentence: > In many ways we are already selecting for those traits and have been for countless generations Is supposed to have meant this: > I'm saying we're not selecting for the same intelligence and beauty every generation. ?

Zikes 12y ago
> There is currently no known link between attractiveness and offspring. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attractants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peafowl#Plumage_colours_as_attr... And yes, my two sentences are one and the same. A trait is a category, such as hair color. We can select for that trait without always selecting specifically red hair, for example. In fact, at one point we selected against red hair in some cultures [1]. Similarly, as I described earlier, intelligence today is often defined as IQ or literacy while intelligence in the past might have been toolmaking, memory (for verbal history/storytelling), or navigational skills. That's why I don't see any ethical quandaries about genetic modifications for beauty, because it's highly unlikely to lead to homogeneity and even if it did, if everyone is beautiful then nobody is, which means people would immediately find new definitions for beauty and pursue those instead. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Prejudice_and_discrimination_against_redheads https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_hair#Prejudice_and_discrim...
- diminoten 12y ago
  Did you just link to the peafowl to try and show that in humans, attractiveness and offspring are related?