August 4, 200620 yr LONDON - When Hollywood's golden couple, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, had their first child, it was a girl. When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes had a baby, and Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin had a baby, they also were girls. Coincidence? Perhaps not. Research from the London School of Economics indicates that physically attractive couples are 36 percent more likely than unattractive couples to produce a girl as their first child. The research - led by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa and published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology - is based on the study of 3,000 young American adults in 2001 and 2002 who were taking part in an investigation called the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. After hours of face-to-face discussions, interviewers ranked the attractiveness of participants using a five-point scale ranging from "very unattractive" to "very attractive." Asked whether rankings were subjective, Kanazawa argued that physical attractiveness is an objective quantitative measure, just like height and weight. "Standards of beauty are both innate and culturally universal, and everybody agrees on who is beautiful and who is ugly just like they agree on who is tall and who is short," he said. The biggest factor is facial features, he said. He said there are computer programs that can precisely measure someone's physical attractiveness. Kanazawa then compared the percentage of boys and girls born to the participants who were very attractive with the sex ratio of babies born to everyone else. He discovered that 56 percent of first babies born to very attractive parents were girls, while fewer than half of the babies born to parents in each of the other categories were girls. Why does this occur? Kanazawa said that the study supports the evolutionary theory that parents tend to produce offspring who benefit from their own attributes. Parents who have traits likely to be more beneficial to boys - such as large size, strength, and aggression - are more likely to have boys. Parents who have traits likely to be more beneficial to girls - such as physical beauty - are more likely to have girls. Kanazawa believes that men value physical appearance more than women do when seeking a partner, and so beauty, in general, is a better attribute to pass on to girls than to boys. "Physical attractiveness is good for both men and women, but it is much better for women than for men," he said. Mark Thomas, senior lecturer at the biology department of University College London, told the Sunday Times newspaper that Kanazawa's findings do seem to conform with research on sexual evolution. Kanazawa said his research also explains why women, on average, are better-looking than men. "Because physical attractiveness is heritable - and because physically attractive parents have more daughters and less attractive parents have more sons - the average level of physical attractiveness among women increases over time relative to men," he said. "In my study I demonstrate that more men than women are average-looking, while more women than men are either attractive or very attractive," he said. Kanazawa said that this is the evolutionary consequence of attractive women having more daughters. Previous research by Kanazawa published in 2005 showed that parents engaged in professions such as nursing, teaching, and counseling - or those with empathetic "female" brains - were more likely to have daughters. Those engaged in more masculine professions such as math, science, and engineering were more likely to have sons. At the time, researchers explained that babies of people with masculine professions might encounter more testosterone in the womb and so would be more likely to be male. http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0803prettywomen-ON.html
August 6, 200620 yr Wow, this is pretty funny. Not in a "Ha ha", that's actually funny, but more of a stupid funny. Are we supposed to actually believe there is some kind of actual real biological sense to this research?
August 6, 200620 yr I guess my first child's gonna be a girl... haha :) makes me think about my family- first born son, and im the only girl is that good or bad?
August 6, 200620 yr How can they classify anyone as a beautiful or ugly? Indeed, 'Beautiful' like 'coolness' is something which can't be measured. Someone someone says is beautiful could be ugly to someone else
August 6, 200620 yr Indeed' date=' 'Beautiful' like 'coolness' is something which can't be measured. Someone someone says is beautiful could be ugly to someone else[/quote'] actually, there is a general agreement on what makes a preson beautiful or ugly. It's basicly that ppl who are more simetrical are more attarctive. And there's a certain ratio in which the parts of your body )including your face, are suppose to divide. It's that number 1.618. like here: (i think this is what they meant in the article) a face that fits this ratio would be more atractive... as would a semetrical face... there were studies that proved this where they took a bunch of ppl, different ppl, and gave them pictures and they were asked to rate them from the most attractive to the least attractive, and the results were very similiar, and fit what i said
August 6, 200620 yr actually, there is a general agreement on what makes a preson beautiful or ugly. It's basicly that ppl who are more simetrical are more attarctive. And there's a certain ratio in which the parts of your body )including your face, are suppose to divide. It's that number 1.618. like here: (i think this is what they meant in the article) a face that fits this ratio would be more atractive... as would a semetrical face... there were studies that proved this where they took a bunch of ppl, different ppl, and gave them pictures and they were asked to rate them from the most attractive to the least attractive, and the results were very similiar, and fit what i said Indeed there are some universal beauty standards, but it's only part of what we consider beauty.Atleast the same weight carries the cultural perception of what is beautiful, and of course there are our own peronal preferences. I personally see 100 times more beautiful girls in a bus to school, than thoose presented in Miss contests.Btw, beauty is more than just raw physical attraction, like how polite person is, and such. Btw, to me, Chris' face doesn't seem too simetrical really.
August 7, 200620 yr it is rather semetrical but the point is that beauty is subjective, but in a way, u can "measure" the attractiveness of a person.
August 7, 200620 yr i`m my parent`s 1st born and i`m a girl and i guess they were good lookin (my mom had guys chasing after her). so if it`s true than i should have a daughter too. we`ll see in a few months :D
August 7, 200620 yr what about David and Victoria Beckham?Gwen and Gavin? Just curious..... i`m not sure about victoria beckham being attractive :cool:
August 7, 200620 yr I think you will have a boy.... I just do... a son to look out for you ! we will see... and you will call him chirs I think !
August 7, 200620 yr i think that article is bullshit but i was just trying to say that there are ways to determine who is attractive and he isnt- it is a global thing in some ways it's funny because in most cultures ppl want their first born to be a son. That's how it is in judaism and in the islam
August 8, 200620 yr hey daryl! it might be a son but i wouldn`t call him chris. the name`s too popular. btw, i see your practicing your spanish (UN GATO on your avatar :D )
August 15, 200620 yr i`m not sure about victoria beckham being attractive :cool: Well , she may not be gorgeous but she is considered good looking
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