Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucbvax!mtxinu!unisoft!fai!sequent!crg5!szabo
From: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Incest avoidance
Message-ID: <21530@crg5.UUCP>
Date: 11 Apr 91 07:49:27 GMT
References: <8987.27f748d9@jetson.uh.edu> <1991Apr2.035304.11461@leland.Stanford.EDU> <21487@crg5.UUCP> <1991Apr5.213834.13967@informix.com>
Reply-To: szabo@crg5.UUCP (Nick Szabo)
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc
Lines: 29

In article <1991Apr5.213834.13967@informix.com> herbach@informix.com (Martin Herbach) writes:
>...I read recently of a study (sorry, no citation)
>showing that a "beautiful" feature (e.g. nose) is one with "average"
>characteristics...[could incest avoidance work the same way]

This is quite an interesting idea.  I hope a sociobiologist gets
ahold if this one and can work on it.

Sociobiology looks at sexual attractiveness, which is related
to but not the same thing as the defintion of beauty used for the
"similar features" theory of beauty in psychology.  Sexual attractiveness
is related to a whole host of features having to do with reproductive
strategies, but a major contribution of sociobiology has been in 
explaining why young women are considered by men more sexually attractive 
than old.  Those women who, from their outward appearance, look most 
likely to be fertile (age, health) are considered the most attractive 
by men.  This may seem gratuitously obvious, but no other theory of 
human behavior or culture explains this phenomenon.  From the Structuralist,
Cognitive, etc. points of view, there is nothing to explain why Miss America,
Playboy centerfolds, love goddesses, top models, etc. are 16-26 years old 
(or, in modern times, heavily covered with makeup or surgery to make them 
look that way).


-- 
Nick Szabo			szabo@sequent.com
"If you want oil, drill lots of wells" -- J. Paul Getty
The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any
organization I may be affiliated with.