Unnatural Selection

Birth Control Pills May Alter Choice Of Partners ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2009) — There is no doubt that modern contraception has enabled women to have unprecedented control over their own fertility. However, is it possible that the use of oral contraceptives is interfering with a woman's ability to choose, compete for and retain her preferred mate? A new paper published in the October issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution reviews emerging evidence suggesting that contraceptive methods which alter a woman's natural hormonal cycles may have an underappreciated impact on choice of partners for both women and men and, possibly, reproductive success.

Human females are only fertile for a brief period during their menstrual cycle, just prior to ovulation. Many scientific studies have established that partner preferences of both women and men vary significantly according to predictable hormonal fluctuations associated with the natural menstrual cycle. Ovulation is associated with a profound shift in some female physical characteristics, behaviors and perceptions related to mate attraction.

Ovulating women exhibit a preference for more masculine male features, are particularly attracted to men showing dominance and male-male competitiveness and prefer partners that are genetically dissimilar to themselves. This is significant because there is evidence suggesting that genetic similarity between couples might be linked with infertility. Further, some studies have suggested that men detect women's fertility status, preferring ovulating women in situations where they can compare the attractiveness of different women.

The oral contraceptive pill alters the hormonal fluctuations associated with the menstrual cycle and essentially mimics the more steady hormonal conditions associated with pregnancy. "Although mate choice studies in humans have routinely recorded pill use during the last decade to control for its confounding effects, little effort has been invested in understanding the consequences of such effects of the pill," offers study author Dr. Alexandra Alvergne from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield.

Dr. Alverne and colleague Dr. Virpi Lumma reviewed and discussed new research supporting the conclusion that use of the pill by women disrupted their variation in mate preferences across their menstrual cycle. The authors also speculate that the use of oral contraceptives may influence a woman's ability to attract a mate by reducing attractiveness to men, thereby disrupting her ability to compete with normally cycling women for access to mate.

Of particular interest is the fact that women taking the pill do not exhibit the ovulation-specific attraction to genetically dissimilar partners. "The ultimate outstanding evolutionary question concerns whether the use of oral contraceptives when making mating decisions can have long-term consequences on the ability of couples to reproduce," suggests Dr. Lummaa.

Taken together, an increasing number of studies suggest that the pill is likely to have an impact on human mating decisions and subsequent reproduction. "If this is the case, pill use will have implications for both current and future generations, and we hope that our review will stimulate further research on this question," concludes Dr. Lummaa. (sauce)

That's just insane. I don't even know why somebody would investigate that. They also linked it to women losing interest in genetically dissimilar mates. This is a bad, badwrong thing. This will hurts fertility as women are more likely not expanding the genepool (blonds only dating/reproducing with blonds, etc).

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

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FOR the female half of the population, it may bring a satisfied smile. Scientists have found that evolution is driving women to become ever more beautiful, while men remain as aesthetically unappealing as their caveman ancestors.
The researchers have found beautiful women have more children than their plainer counterparts and that a higher proportion of those children are female.

Those daughters, once adult, also tend to be attractive and so repeat the pattern.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6727710.ece

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It doesn't make me feel anything, because what they are saying is stupid. People don't become more beautiful, just your image of them changes. In 50 years maybe what's perceived as "beautiful" is something else entirely. As a genetic trend, if there was a limited population of males then perhaps only the pretty ones will be mated with, but in a society such as ours ugly people are still able to make babies too.

The gender of the offspring is determined by the male, so if this article weren't a load of bullshit they should have found that couples with an attractive husband but plain wife should be just as unlikely to have sons as couples were both male and femal were attractive. And the notion that significantly different proportions of X sperms and Y sperms are produced in attractive males compared with unattractive one seems prepostrous by itself.

As much as you would rather it not be, beauty is an objectively quantifiable attribute. Symmetric features, proper fat distribution, muscle tone, and other attributes that signal a healthy partner are able to be judged and examined. Diverse ranges of make up for hiding the lines and imperfections of faces mainly caused by the 8+ hours a day of oxygen deprivation on the facial skin caused by the fucking make up in the first place, also loads of make up has chemicals in it. Wider variaties of clothes being available for hiding the fat or skinny fat bodies of women who have no idea about eating properly or exercise, even the ones who arent fat are pretty unhealthy and shapeless because of it. There are many more that I can't mention in the context of shitty hair, straighteners, conditioners..

It's the synthetic estrogen in plastic and our water. It's making men feminine and impotent and women hotter. Cosmetic surgery will end up reversing this trend at a much faster rate than it has come about.

Beauty is mostly an opinion, and does change between generations. BUT there are always more favorable physical traits (why we don't look like homo erectus or homo habilis). Certain physical characteristics seen as attractive are seen that way because they indicate health and fertility. An example, Men like women with a high hip to waist ratio, because those women have fewer health complications during childbirth. Enlarged breast (not DDs necessarily, even A) indicate the health of the woman and even subtly hint if she is pregnant or even on her period. If breast were not enlarged beyond the minimum (like most mammals) it would be harder for men to tell. This isn't meant to defend the article, but certain traits are seen as "beautiful" in the eyes of evolution. Of course MANY traits are subjective cultural standards.

Today's ugly women would probably be pretty decent looking by yesterday's standards if beauty keeps increasing in women. I've always thought something along the lines of what's in this study. You watch old movies and see pictures of women from back around WWII and none of them are as hot as women today.

Actually, they're basing it on the idea proposed from an old study suggesting that attractive women tend to have more children, which is a pretty flawed premise to begin with.

Of COURSE beauty is an evolutionary advantage. All other things being equal, a man will always choose a beautiful woman over a plain one, right? The better question is why there are ugly women around to begin with.

Beautiful women are rare as fuck and getting rarer. The next scientific and rational step is: Let's help nature and cull all the ugly people.