What's new

Stupid Pet Peeves

You can't pigeonhole evolution this way.

Yes, that was my point.

Plus, evolutionary psychologists have plenty of studies on this.

Evolutionary psychology is like chiropracty. There is a small vein of legitimate, useful work by serious practitioners, but most of it is hyped-up and does not stand up to close scrutiny. I mean, you can find evolutionary psychology reasoning males are associated with blue and women with pink, even though that association is less than 150 years old. This happens all over the place in EP.

And you are fully incorrect in implying that other female primates, or pretty much any species, do not put on a display of fertility.

What about makeup indicates fertility in any sort of useful evolutionary measure?

Dimorphism has many evolutionary reasons in the sense of mating but with increasingly higher intelligence that can take on multiple reasons over the course of life.

Again, that was my point.
 
What about makeup indicates fertility in any sort of useful evolutionary measure?
Look younger. Look more attractive to opposite sex through creating an illusion of unblemished symmetry.

Both pretty easily identifiable indicators of the concept of "fertility."
 
Look younger. Look more attractive to opposite sex through creating an illusion of unblemished symmetry.

Both pretty easily identifiable indicators of the concept of "fertility."

Youth has very little to do with fertility. 45-year-old women are something like 7% less fertile than 20-year-old women. It's swamped by other measures of fertility evaluation.

Unblemished symmetry is fine, but most make-up women wear introduces what would be blemishes (eye shadow, odd lip colors, etc.) in a person without make-up.
 
Youth has very little to do with fertility. 45-year-old women are something like 7% less fertile than 20-year-old women. It's swamped by other measures of fertility evaluation.

Unblemished symmetry is fine, but most make-up women wear introduces what would be blemishes (eye shadow, odd lip colors, etc.) in a person without make-up.
Symmetry is maintained.

And perception drives the sexual aspect of evolution much more than anything else. A more colorful male peacock is no more fertile than a less colorful one, but it's the one perceived by the female as being more desirable.

Now, let me ask you. In human society the world over, are younger women of a child bearing age considered more desirable than older women of child bearing age?
 
Yes, I thought about attaching the "soft science" moniker, but I'm talking to you and know you know.

There is a study that shows women who wear red lipstick are approached by men in a bar quicker than one who wears brown lipstick or none. This is a valid, reproducible experiment. Theorists think things like lipstick and curled eyebrows trigger fertility instincts in [most] men. It's no different than a peacock's tail or other utterly useless dysmorphic traits.

You can run through the gamut of reasons for why women keep up appearances and there are plenty. So thanks for the micro view correction that you always take. I was suggesting more of a macro take but realize that's not a fair judgement to the individual.
 
Okay, you've convinced me with some valid points. I'll back off a bit on my "women hate themselves" stance and go with the "women are competing for men and it is in their nature" stance more often. It's true that if I was trying to get and keep a man or woman, I'd wear makeup more often than I do just because it is part of the game. I suppose I fight those impulses now because I'm old and don't care, but it isn't right to think all women should feel the same way. Who can fight evolutionary psychology and fertility urges after all?
 
There is a study that shows women who wear red lipstick are approached by men in a bar quicker than one who wears brown lipstick or none. This is a valid, reproducible experiment. Theorists think things like lipstick and curled eyebrows trigger fertility instincts in [most] men.

Screw fertility. That lipstick just means she's DTF. And that's why they're approached.
 
After spending a weekend driving in Idaho, I’ve decided they’re assholes. Not a single time did someone move over out of the left lane when I came up behind them.
 
After spending a weekend driving in Idaho, I’ve decided they’re assholes. Not a single time did someone move over out of the left lane when I came up behind them.

I don't eat potatoes because it's obvious they make Idahoans retarded.

I've complained about them for years and everytime I meet an Idahoan I ask them why. The only good answer I've been given is that they only maintain the pavement in the left lane there (2 lane highways). Those *******s come here and head straight for the passing lane for no reason.
 
A guy I worked with, who was from Idaho, moved back recently. The joke was that when he moved that the average intelligence level in Utah and Idaho went up.
 
Symmetry is maintained.

Of course. Symmetry is achieved with foundation, and adding blemishes does not add more symmetry (and even then, there is a history of adding asymmetry to make-up, such as beauty products).

And perception drives the sexual aspect of evolution much more than anything else. A more colorful male peacock is no more fertile than a less colorful one, but it's the one perceived by the female as being more desirable.

Sexual selection can indeed be a prominent force, and I'm glad to see you have abandoned the notion of equating make-up with fertility.

Now, let me ask you. In human society the world over, are younger women of a child bearing age considered more desirable than older women of child bearing age?

The context of the question made me think you feel the answer is obvious, but gosh, "the world over" is a big place. In every patriarchal society that I know of, men frequently (but certainly not universally) prefer younger women. Is that an attraction to those they can dominate? Why would this not be universal, if it were biologically driven? In matriarchal society, would older women prefer and bed younger men (for that matter, don't many do so now)? How do you separate power differential influences from sexual desirability in human behavior?

There are a lot of factors to consider before you can conclude that a sexually preferred mate age (or any other such characteristics) is directly related to fertility.

Pharyngula recently discussed this very notion in a post about the origin of breasts (there are not titillating pictures, but I am still not linking it directly):

Here’s another example of a fallacious interpretation. It’s from that infamous interview of Jordan Peterson with Vice.

There is so much wrong with so much of this interview, and I’m only picking on this one tiny part. But here are a few difficulties: red is a popular lipstick color, but how does he explain these other colors, which can also be quite attractive? What about the implicit racism in that claim — it’s a white trait to have a greater contrast in color between the lip and the face? What about the men — why do we have a *****-mimic between our nose and our chin?

Where is Peterson’s evidence? This is another example of the Desmond Morris effect: he simply asserts that his interpretation is the obvious one, therefore it must be true.​
 
There is a study that shows women who wear red lipstick are approached by men in a bar quicker than one who wears brown lipstick or none. This is a valid, reproducible experiment. Theorists think things like lipstick and curled eyebrows trigger fertility instincts in [most] men. It's no different than a peacock's tail or other utterly useless dysmorphic traits.

I agree, except that the introduction of make-up in our history is so rare that we haven't had enough generations for it to have had a biological preference built up. Make-up plays a role in certain types of sexual signalling (among other things), but the interpretation of signals can be taught, and choice of make-up colors and styles varies from culture to culture. Unless you think your bar study was also conducted in the Ural mountains, the Kalahari desert, the Pacific islands, etc., the differential from redness seems to be an artifact of culture, not biology.
 
I don't eat potatoes because it's obvious they make Idahoans retarded.

I've complained about them for years and everytime I meet an Idahoan I ask them why. The only good answer I've been given is that they only maintain the pavement in the left lane there (2 lane highways). Those *******s come here and head straight for the passing lane for no reason.

Eat potatoes you nimrod.
 
I agree, except that the introduction of make-up in our history is so rare that we haven't had enough generations for it to have had a biological preference built up. Make-up plays a role in certain types of sexual signalling (among other things), but the interpretation of signals can be taught, and choice of make-up colors and styles varies from culture to culture. Unless you think your bar study was also conducted in the Ural mountains, the Kalahari desert, the Pacific islands, etc., the differential from redness seems to be an artifact of culture, not biology.

That is not entirely true, but I agree with your cultural POV. However, makeup has been a part of humanity since recorded history and we don't know when it actually originated. Your example of differences between cultures is explained by traditional evolution, where species start to differentiate. But sure, humanity is different from lower intelligence species, who often learn behavior due to culture all the same.
 
That is not entirely true, but I agree with your cultural POV. However, makeup has been a part of humanity since recorded history and we don't know when it actually originated. Your example of differences between cultures is explained by traditional evolution, where species start to differentiate. But sure, humanity is different from lower intelligence species, who often learn behavior due to culture all the same.

We agree that make-up is often used as a sexual signal by various cultures (I'm sure you also agree that it is used as a different kinds of signal in other cultures, for example religious devotion in India).

There's an easy test to check if this is cultural or biological. Do biologically Indian children raised from a very young age by US parents use make-up in ways Indians do or in ways Americans do, and vice-versa? I'll admit I have not read any studies, but my guess is kids learn to use make-up according to where they were raised, not where their ancestry is from.
 
This has been said before in this thread, I am sure multiple times, but people not knowing the difference between "regime" and "regimen". Today heard it multiple times on NPR while they were discussing the Trump/Kim meeting. I would think journalists would know better.
 
Back
Top