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'''Beauty''' in humans or animals refers to | '''Beauty''' in humans or animals mostly refers to an aesthetic appearance that is often sexually attractive to the opposite sex. Broadly, one can distinguish two aspects of beauty: | ||
# Objective beauty | # Objective beauty (See also: [[:Category:Aesthetics]]) | ||
## Mathematical/geometric beauty such as symmetry, smoothness, elegance, or more generally, simplicity. | ## Mathematical/geometric beauty such as symmetry, smoothness, elegance, or more generally, simplicity. | ||
## Exaggerated, arbitrary and sexually dimorphic beauty, such as large female breasts or male penises, highly specific shapes of noses (e.g. upturned nose in females) or chin, i.e. [[Few millimeters of bone|few millimeters of bone]], dimples on back or cheeks, and also complex coloration patterns in birds. | ## Exaggerated, arbitrary and sexually dimorphic beauty, such as large female breasts or male penises, highly specific shapes of noses (e.g. upturned nose in females) or chin, i.e. [[Few millimeters of bone|few millimeters of bone]], dimples on back or cheeks, and also complex coloration patterns in birds. These kinds of beauty cannot fully be explained by simplicity because they seemingly have unnecessary specificity or complexity. Either there are functional constraints or correlated characters<ref>Price T, Langen T. 1992. ''Evolution of correlated characters.'' [[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21236041 Abstract]]</ref> preventing a simpler shape, or sexual selection lead to arbitrary shapes becoming sexually attractive. | ||
# Subjective beauty | # Subjective beauty | ||
## Individual preferences resulting from individual emotional experiences or individual development of circuitry for inherited sexual preferences. | ## Individual preferences resulting from individual emotional experiences or individual development of circuitry for inherited sexual preferences regarding aesthetics. | ||
Objective beauty is largely [[Sexual selection|sexually selected]], i.e. our ancestors tended to choose objectively beautiful mates and hence our species evolved to be beautiful, and possibly reinforced by feedback loops like [[Fisherian runaway]] or sensory bias<ref>Fuller, R. C., Houle, D., & Travis, J. 2005. ''Sensory Bias as an Explanation for the Evolution of Mate Preferences.'' [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/444443 Abstract]]</ref>. Furthermore, objective beauty plays a greater role than subjective beauty. | |||
Objective beauty is largely [[Sexual selection|sexually selected]], i.e. our ancestors tended to choose objectively beautiful mates and hence our species evolved to be beautiful, and possibly reinforced by feedback loops like [[Fisherian runaway]] or sensory bias<ref>Fuller, R. C., Houle, D., & Travis, J. 2005. ''Sensory Bias as an Explanation for the Evolution of Mate Preferences.'' [[https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/ | |||
Not just looks, but also behavior can be beautiful, e.g. attractive behavior has elegance, poise and wittiness. The opposite is awkwardness and violation of norms etc. | Not just looks, but also behavior can be beautiful, e.g. attractive behavior has elegance, poise and wittiness. The opposite is awkwardness and violation of norms etc. | ||
Beauty is often perceived to be associated with various positive traits [[Scientific_Blackpill#Attractive_people_are_perceived_much_more_positively_than_they_really_are|to unreasonable degree]]. | Beauty is often perceived to be associated with various positive traits [[Scientific_Blackpill#Attractive_people_are_perceived_much_more_positively_than_they_really_are|to unreasonable degree]]. | ||
== See also == | |||
* [[Fisherian runaway]] | |||
=References= | =References= | ||