Evolution Making Women More Beautiful?
A new study says attractive couples are more likely to produce girls.
Go to any bar in any city at any given time and you'll likely see the same pattern: hordes of Katherine Heigls making small talk with rows of Seth Rogens (pre-weight loss, of course). Perhaps this was why Knocked Up struck such a reverberating tone and enjoyed so much success—afterall, how many times (a day!) do we see attractive women giving schlubby (but lovable) men a shot? Katherine Heigl
Well, it looks like science (once again!) is behind this phenomenon. New research suggests that evolution is making women more attractive and leaving men as frumpy as they've always been.
While we've always assumed women are so much hotter now due to gym memberships, breast implants and gift certificates to Sephora, several studies suggest that stunning ladies are not only more likely to have more children, but also more likely to have daughters. Thus gifting the world with more good-looking women.
Markus Jokela, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, followed 1,244 women and 997 men throughout four decades and found that beautiful women had 16 percent more children than average-looking ones. Previous studies, by Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, say pretty women are 26 percent less likely to have sons. Children Conceived In Summer Score Low On Indiana Test
Come to think of it—Brad and Angelina's biological brood include two daughters to one son, right? Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner have two daughters, Nicole Kidman had a girl, and so on and so forth.
Kanazawa explains this trend by saying:
Physical attractiveness is a highly heritable trait, which disproportionately increases the reproductive success of daughters much more than that of sons. If more attractive parents have more daughters and if physical attractiveness is heritable, it logically follows that women over many generations gradually become more physically attractive on average than men.
Scientists then explain that men more than make up for their subpar looks by providing for the family. "Rich men tend to havemore wives and many children," they say.
While we don't discredit the research gone into such studies, we just wish "science" didn't have to always reinforce a woman's relevance by looks and a man's by his bank account. Which, to be honest, really doesn't sound much like evolution at all.