The Biology of Beauty

[tame_deuces]

Well, believing genetics alone is responsible for beauty bias is insane. Believing culture alone is responsible is also insane.


I find it interesting that a picture of Jessica Alba was posted next to a painting earlier as to show how the cultural definition of beauty has changed- Study the picture and the painting you will in fact observe not only differences but also similarity in traits (look at the nose, facial traits surrounding the eyes, hair, shape of forehead and breast shape).

[ALawPoker]

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Well, believing genetics alone is responsible for beauty bias is insane. Believing culture alone is responsible is also insane.

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I don't think anyone has claimed that culture doesn't play some small difference. Obviously different cultures find slightly different things more or less beautiful. OP asked which was "more" responsible. To me it's pretty clear that culture's role is pretty insignificant and anyone thinking it is critical is just taking biology's role for granted.

I just see cultural differences as variance, based on whatever preferences humans have the hardwired predisposition to embrace.

Thinking "culture" is critical strikes me as some sort of perception bias. When you're in 4th grade, you know who the cool kids are, the bullies, the nerds, etc. All the kids are so different to you and it's obvious. Cause that's the spectrum you're exposed to. That's your world. But when you look at them as an adult, they're just kids, and remarkably similar. It's not as natural to notice what makes each kid tick or who is likely to be friends with whom. But it doesn't change the fact that these small differences were ones we once interpreted as huge deals.

It seems we will always interpret differences between whatever we're exposed to as important deals. Like I said in another post, that seems like a prerequisite in order to have a will to live. But it doesn't change the fact that billions of years of trial and error have molded the way we're wired. I know I couldn't be turned on by a rock no matter where I lived.

Incidentally, I think beauty and attraction (and in general, interpreting various smells and sights as pleasant) is an obvious sign that we still have room to improve as a species. That sort of primitive sense seems like an inefficient substitute for merely having the capacity to consciously assess the situation for what it is.

[madnak]

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I don't think anyone has claimed that culture doesn't play some small difference. Obviously different cultures find slightly different things more or less beautiful. OP asked which was "more" responsible. To me it's pretty clear that culture's role is pretty insignificant and anyone thinking it is critical is just taking biology's role for granted.

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"Small" is relative. There are women whom you find super-hot whom you would be completely turned off by given a different environment, and vice versa. That seems pretty "large" to me - obviously it's a bit "small" if your basis for comparison is women with three noses (who probably could be attractive based on environmental concerns), or fish, or protozoa, or rocks. Hell, given the level of variance involved in sexual preference, I wouldn't be surprised if some people actually are attracted to rocks - there are definitely those who are attracted to fish, and whether that's genetic or environmental is anyone's guess.

But that's irrelevant.

The important thing is that neither genetics nor the environment have any meaning independently. Asking which is "more responsible" for a given trait is like asking which factor in 5x15 is "more responsible" for the product of 75. You're basically saying, "if I take one away from 15 then I get 5x14=70, but if I take one away from 5 then I get 4x15=60, and 70 is close to 75 than 60 so obviously the 5 is more important than the 15." A well-constructed argument, and well-expressed, but also nonsensical.

[madnak]

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Human nature influences culture much more than the other way around.

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I'm very interested in your response to my post above. On what basis do you say that one has "more" of an influence? Can you credibly and coherently defend that position? And how do you respond to the argument that even the expression of our genes depends almost exclusively on environmental concerns? Are you just assuming relatively normal conditions in the womb/etc?

[vhawk01]

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Human nature influences culture much more than the other way around.

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I'm very interested in your response to my post above. On what basis do you say that one has "more" of an influence? Can you credibly and coherently defend that position? And how do you respond to the argument that even the expression of our genes depends almost exclusively on environmental concerns? Are you just assuming relatively normal conditions in the womb/etc?

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I'm just basing it on the idea that every time we study some aboriginal society or some native tribe in some remote area we find that they do pretty much everything the same way that we do them. There are some superficial differences, of course, but it just seems like if you sum up all of human action and interaction, human nature plays a dominant role.

[madnak]

I still say it's relative, and not a useful distinction except with respect to a particular standard. Playing along though, what about things like belief? Would you say that what a person believes depends more on nature than nurture?

[ALawPoker]

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That seems pretty "large" to me - obviously it's a bit "small" if your basis for comparison is women with three noses (who probably could be attractive based on environmental concerns), or fish, or protozoa, or rocks.

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Why should my basis be anything else? If biological factors made me a fish then I'd be attracted to fish. I guess you'd rather I narrowed my thoughts to only those that defend your position.

It will always "seem" large based on the instincts of our condition, but our condition is ultimately molded by biological factors. To a dog, slightly different anal scents (which I can't even differentiate) are the entire spectrum of all that is attractive.

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A well-constructed argument, and well-expressed, but also nonsensical.

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I guess "sense" is ultimately in the eye of the beholder, especially when you're looking for nitty ways to not let go of an argument.

If you don't think debating which is "more" responsible is worthwhile, then you should have ignored this thread since that's what OP asked. I think it's pretty clear that our condition is near entirely biologically driven but we just interpret ourselves as having more control over it than we actually do. But I agree it is a tedious debate.

[Splendour]

There are definitely some generational and cultural influences on the perception of beauty and it even reaches over into fashion statements.

The movies of the 50's and 60's seemed to emphasize chests, the 70's and 80's and 90's legs and buttocks and the current generation seems to be all about the stomach hence all the belly button piercings.

We had the long skirts in the Victorian Age which subsequently turned into the flat chested flappers of the 1920s with their hats and long one row beads. In the 50's the bikini came in to fashion, in the 60's the mini-skirt came in to fashion. In the 70's we had men in polyester a la John Travolta Saturday Night Fever Style.

If you go to the Middle East the women are covered from head to toe with only their eyes visible sometimes.

Fashion/culture are definitely at work. Pamela Sue Anderson is a prime example. She had implants when it was time to be big and when big went out of style she put in smaller implants. Hip over health, aren't we lucky?

[madnak]

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That seems pretty "large" to me - obviously it's a bit "small" if your basis for comparison is women with three noses (who probably could be attractive based on environmental concerns), or fish, or protozoa, or rocks.

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Why should my basis be anything else?

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I just named 4 bases for comparison, dude. I can make arguments for each of them being more valid depending on the situation. Why not just take it to its logical conclusion and say that everything biological is about the same - after all, a bacterium is far more similar to a human being than 99.9999% of the universe is. Using the whole universe as a context, the difference between a human and a bacterium is minute.

Why not use that context? Because it's not very useful. We're humans and the perspective that makes the most sense is the perspective that has value for us - such a perspective will necessarily be biased toward the planet earth, and toward an anthropocentric view.

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If biological factors made me a fish then I'd be attracted to fish.

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You haven't responded to my point that some humans are attracted to fish. You think human attraction is mostly biological - do you believe that these people are attracted to fish at a biological level, then?

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I guess you'd rather I narrowed my thoughts to only those that defend your position.

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I'd rather you narrow your thoughts to whatever population is useful depending on the purpose of the analysis. It seems that the context mentioned in the OP implied that the subject was human women.

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It will always "seem" large based on the instincts of our condition, but our condition is ultimately molded by biological factors. To a dog, slightly different anal scents (which I can't even differentiate) are the entire spectrum of all that is attractive.

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That's oversimplistic at best, but the spectrum of scents is large in the context of canine attraction. To say that "all scents are the same" in terms of canine attraction is absurd.

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I guess "sense" is ultimately in the eye of the beholder,

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Then the question of whether biology or environment is "more responsible" for attraction is also subjective...

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especially when you're looking for nitty ways to not let go of an argument.

If you don't think debating which is "more" responsible is worthwhile, then you should have ignored this thread since that's what OP asked.

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You decide whether to post on a thread based on whether you agree with the assumptions of the OP? Well, I guess that's one way to do it. Regardless, the OP's use of "more" doesn't strike me as some of bull-headed attempt to suggest that nature is objectively always more important than nurture, but that the criteria according to which healthy human beings select other healthy human beings are more frequently biological than cultural. My response to the OP was perfectly acceptable given that interpretation.

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I think it's pretty clear that our condition is near entirely biologically driven but we just interpret ourselves as having more control over it than we actually do.

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What does control have to do with anything?

[ALawPoker]

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We're humans and the perspective that makes the most sense is the perspective that has value for us - such a perspective will necessarily be biased toward the planet earth, and toward an anthropocentric view.

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Fine, from that perspective there is really nothing we disagree on. From the perspective that we accept our natural bias, then 100% of our difference is nurtured. That's fairly obvious, and highlights the pointlessness of this whole discussion.

Interpreting the differences as big is critical. But ultimately no one really disagrees that the biological molding came first.