Posts Tagged
Sexual selection

The Importance of Beauty
by David Sims
KNIGHT Dunlap (1875–1949; pictured) was an American psychologist who made a special study of human beauty. He wrote, “Whatever its importance for the individual, beauty is for the race and for civilization of such profound importance that no other fundamental consideration…

Human Variation
Human variation — that is, inequality — has always existed in fact, and science demonstrates it every single day.
HUMAN VARIATION (Academic Press, N.Y.) is edited by R. Travis Osborne and Clyde E. Noble (pictured), psychologists of international repute based at the University of Georgia.…

Why Europeans Are So White-Skinned
… and other possible outcomes of sexual selection in European populations
by Peter Frost
DID SEXUAL SELECTION alter the appearance of Europeans in a number of ways, and not simply by diversifying hair and eye color? (ILLUSTRATION: Figure 1. Distribution of skin color in Africa and Eurasia…

Emotional Fragility: A Sexually Selected Trait?
ROISSY RECENTLY drew up a list of female skills for attracting males, and although it is clearly weighted toward succeeding in short-term relationships, the rank order seems about right for getting married too. One quick way to see what has mattered to men is to look for sexually dimorphic traits. As…