GameBanshee Forums

[QUOTE=C Elegans]Oh, I am extremely interested in that. I think you misunderstood what I meant. That something is interesting and meaningful, is not the same as saying it is necessary to explain a phenomena. What I meant was that in order to explain the phenomena Fiona posted in the first post, ie an increasing awareness of men raising a child that they are not the biological father of, you don't need to look back at evolution, you can look at our species as we are today. If we want to explain why we have an appendix, we absolutely need to look at phylogenesis (the evolutionary development of the species) because it has no function today, but if we want to explain why people are unfaithful or why people lie, we don't need to use phylogenetic explanation models.[/QUOTE]
I did misunderstand you, and I apologize. I misread the words "not necessary". My excuse is that I'm used to hearing that term misapplied by people who aren't using it in its real technical sense. In Texas, "not necessary" means "not desirable" or "don't mess with it" or "don't do it". I should have known better when you used that term. But I was shocked by the possibility that you might wish to avoid research because of its potential for misuse.

I was recently accused of being unmoved by the wonders of scientific discovery right after I posted a message in which I thought I made it clear that I have loved scientific discovery ever since I was a little kid. I did asdmit that I'm jaded and cynical, but even so, that insinuation put me on the defensive. So that's one reason why my last message might have seemed so
emphatic and so heavily reliant on a rhetorical style.

On the positive side, I enjoyed reading your reply, and I'm glad to see that my rhetorical questions motivated you to explain your feelings about pure science.


[QUOTE=C Elegans]For the issue of females rating the attractiveness of males, let me describe what I believe is the background for the information Lestat reports...

The first study is the British-Japanse study...where they used masculinized and feminized versions of the same face... The study showed that both heterosexual men and heterosexual women rated feminized faces of the opposite gender as most attractive... [However] Feminized male faces were rated by women as more "warm", "honest", "cooperative" and "having higher quality as a parent". An interesting finding was that men did not rate feminised women faces as "better parent", instead it was the neutral female faces that got the highest rating for "good parent"...

it should also be noted that other attractiveness studies based on rating of faces, have shown that symmetrical faces are rated as more attractive, and also that average faces...

The second study reports that women change part of their attractiveness ratings depending on menstrual cycle phase... In the follicular phase (before ovulation), where chances to get pregnant are larger, women tend to rate less feminine male faces as more attractive for short-term relationships than in the lutheal phase (after ovulation, when conception risk is lower)... The ratings for long-term relationship attractiveness did not change (they still preferred slightly feminised male faces)... the result of this study supports the view that women's rating of men's attractiveness and their sexual behaviour, change depending on how fertile they are... the results of this study can be interpreted so that a solution to this trade-off situation is polyandry, ie women choosing different partners for different purposes. This is how the authors interpreted their results...[/QUOTE]
I was indirectly referring to those studies when I said, "It's a fairly common notion that our female ancestors were driven to choose the most masculine men they could find to impregnate them but at the same time they chose the most nurturing males they could find to stick around for years and help raise their children." As you suggest, those studies have received wide acceptance, and many people interpret the results to mean that women are predisposed to seek different mates for different purposes. Of course, there are many other factors that affect their behavior, and women are able to make conscious choices.

I also suggested that if their attraction to different males for different purposes reflects some sort of "biological" drive, then my opinion is that women don't think about the reasons why they feel the way the do; all they know is how they feel.


[QUOTE=C Elegans]let me say that how unhappy we are about scientific findings has no relationship to how correct they are. I used to be quite unhappy that intelligence measure in g-factor has shown to be at least 50% genetically determined. I have accepted it now, but when I was a student, I always wanted to think that intelligence was exclusively due to learning, that anyone (who was healthy of course) could become really, really smart and talented in the right environment. This is not true.[/QUOTE]
Does this mean you used to believe that two children who were raised in the same environment and given the same education could be expected to have about the same level of intelligence? If so, then clearly you have never raised two cats of different breeds at the same time. (Dare I say that you don't seem to like cats, or at least, you're annoyed when people go on and on about cats?) I currently have a female Bombay and a male Tuxedo. They have grown up in the same environment, and I think it's fair to say that I have given them the same educational opportunities (yes, cats can be given opportunities to learn). The Bombay is a smart little cat. For example, if an object or a piece of furniture is too high for her to jump on, she finds an easier, more indirect way to get on top of it (by climbing on top of other things in "steps"). The Tuxedo, on the other hand, is the dumbest cat I've ever seen. He can't even find his own food bowl; I have to put him in front of it. (Even if "he's training me to feed him", as the vets have suggested, I wouldn't expect him to go hungry when I'm not at home and I've left out food for him, but he won't eat when I'm gone.) He uses a brute force approach to everything. I suppose he doesn't choose indirect routes mostly because he doesn't have to; but if nothing but an indirect route is available--for example, if a place he wants to go to is inaccessible by a single leap--he is utterly incapable of finding a way. The difference in intelligence between the two kittens is very clear to me, and since I can't attribute it to "environment", I figure it must be due to genetics.

part I

I am sorry for the lenght of this, but Fiona's post appeared to contain several misunderstandings of both my post and the studies I referred to, so I wanted to clarify thouroughly, especially since several other people may be interested in the topic of this discussion.

Fiona wrote:However I do not see the relevance of the last sentence. From what you report women rate attractiveness in the same way as men. They apparently agree about what constitutes a more masculine or a more feminine face. They associate such faces with different characteristics. All of those characteristics are stereotypical.

You don't see the relevance of the sentence about symmetry and immunocompetence? Well, I'll try to explain. It has been shown in attractiveness studies that people rate symmetric faces as more attractive assymmetric faces. Then it has been found (in animals orginally, later in humans) that body and face symmetry (this is measured in a special way) is related to efficiency of the immune system. An effective immune system is a high fitness trait, ie it is more likely that you and your offspring survive healthy if you have a good system. The interesting this is that people cross-culturally rate symmetric looks as more attractive than assymmetric looks. If many different cultures share a value, although these cultures vary widely in practises and custums, it is an indication that this value may be genetic rather than socioculturally learned. Also, studies have showed that women prefer the smell of symmetric men to that of assymmetric men (you use t-shirts or pieces of cloths that the women smell on, then they rate how pleasant and sexy they find the smell). Since the study is blind, ie the women do not know how the man whos' body scent they smell look, it is highly unlikely that this preference is affected by cultural stereotypes.

Yes, men and women rate attractiveness the same way and they rate masculinity/femininty the same way. Nobody has said differently, so I am not sure why you feel the need to make a point out of this. Furthermore, nobody has made any claims regarding the relative proportions of the influence of genetic or socioculturally learned factors on the face rating behaviour either. Try not to read in things that are not in my posts.

It is possible the stereotypes arose because they reflect something in our genes or in our evolution or whatever. It is equally possible that they reflect the media versions of these things which we are all bombarded with. After all it is a cliche that the plainer girl next door is the better mother. What more does your "interesting finding" say

Contrary to what you write above, the study does not support that the plain girl next door would be a better mother, it reports than men rate neutral, ie neither masculinized nor feminized, female faces, as better mothers. Neutral does not mean "plain" here as you can see if you re-read my post above, it means a face that is neither masculinized nor feminized.

However, to me and the rest of the scientific community, the interesting finding in the first study is what is not stereotypic. This I already reported, but I post it again, with my comments in italics for clarity:
1. Both men and women generally rate feminised and not neutrual faces are more attractive. It is not a common stereotype that women would think male faces that are feminine are more attractive than neutral or masculine male faces. A common stereotype is that straight women prefer masculine men and straight men prefer feminine women. This stereotype was rejected by the this study, as well as the Fisherian "run-away" hypothesis of sexual selection.
2. Men rated neutral female faces as having better parental qualities than feminine or masculine female faces. It is a common stereotype that feminine characteristics are related to "evolutionary need for a good mother". This stereotype was rejected by this study

Since this is
1. not consistent with common stereotypes
2. not consistent with the existing Fisherian "run-away" sexual selection hypothesis
3. this was shown in two different cultures with different beauty ideals (the UK and Japan) and
4. since other studies have shown other attractiveness markers ("average"-studies and symmetry studies)
the authors discuss their findings in relationship to what is known previously, and suggest an interpretation, as you always have to do in the Discussion part of a scientific article. It is already known from many previous studies that attractiveness of face shapes are the same cross-culturally. Many other markers such as unspotted skin, healthy looking teeth and certain body proportions (not the size, that varies a lot, but the proportions) for males (hip/shoulder ratio) and females (hip/waist ratio) are also known to be cross-culturally valid. They do not discuss the relationship between or the respective influence of sociocultural and genetic factors, because the study does not investigate the causality of this behaviour. They discuss their finding in an evolutionary context, since ratings of attractiveness, due to it's cross-cultural consistency and its' strong relationship to smell, is very likely highly influenced by selection during phylogenesis. (It sort of makes sense that humans who live today are the product of successful adaptiation to evolutionary pressure, otherwise we wouldn't exist, huh?) Do you really think yourself that humans would be the only species on earth not affected by sexual selection?

If you are not interested in scientific findings about attractiveness and partner selection, even though the findings reject some old gender stereotypes, then I can only say it's your loss, as VonDondu and I are just discussing, many people are not interested in science and if you are one of them, so be it.

Also, it is not likely that attractiveness ratings are influenced solely by evolutionary factors or media pressure, obviously it is affected by both. Almost all human behaviour is influenced by the interaction between genetic, biological and environmental factors. How media messages can affect beauty ideals, was cleary shown in the famous study of pre- and post-Western television on Fiji, where no women thought they were overweight before, but 5 years after the introduction of Western TV a huge part (was it 30%? I have to check) of the girls suddenly started dieting and rated themselves as "too fat". However, it appears to me that are polarising sociocultural and genetic/evolutionary factors. Firstly, we can certainly not exclude that evolutionary factors overlap with sociocultural factors since genetics and environment are in constant interaction - our society and our behaviour today is unlikely to be totally unrelated to our evolutionary background. Why do you think society is like it is? Or that humans are like they are? Secondly, because something is influenced by a sociocultural factor like media messages, it does not automatically exclude that is is also influenced by phylogenetic properties.

It is a big leap from a change in ratings of attractiveness to a change in sexual behaviour, is it not ? Maybe women who are fertile are just generally more randy. It could equally be that they are less randy when they are fertile and therefore don't judge men as prospective partners but rather than on some other criteria (eg aesthetic)

As I wrote in my post above: "The reason why I don't like the simplified version Lestat referred to is...
<snip>
it must be noted that although these studies demonstrate some interesting findings, there are many factors that determine who a woman get children with, and we have no idea how large the effect of face preference during different periods in the menstrual cycle, is. We don't know how rated attractiveness of computer images of faces related to real partner choices. Maybe it would only explain 1% or less of the variation in reality, that we don't know.

The idea that women are less randy and therefore judge men not as prospective partners but for instance on purely aestethic criteria, is contradicted by the observatation than women were asked to rate their willingness to have a long- versus short-term relationship with the man on the picture, so they question forced them to consider the man as a prospective partner, long or short term.
Furthermore, I already mentioned other studies that show that women in long term couple relationships report more extra-pair sexual contacts in the follicular (ie more fertile) phase. Thus, it is not likely that women are less randy during the follicular phase.

Taking all data together and adding that a very common side effect of hormonal contraception is decreased sex-drive, it is likely that women are more and not less randy when they are more fertile. However, if they are "just generally more randy", why do they rate only the masculinised faces are more attractive for short-term relationships? Why don't they rate all male faces as equally attractive?

part II

I can't quite follow this. Do you mean that women find assymetrical faces more attractive in the long term ? In that case what do you mean when you say that symmetry is more attractive? I assume this is from different studies but I can't understand how you are reconciling it. I may not have understood your point.

No, I will try to clarify. High immunocompetence and rated long-term attractiveness is contradictory to each other in the women's ratings is a summary of the findings that
A) High immunocompetence is related to high symmetry. In males, high immunocompetence is also related to secondary male sexual features, ie masculine looks.
B) Women rate male faces with a feminine look as generally more attractive than neutral or masculine looks. Women also rate male faces with feminine looks as more attractive for long-term relationships.
C) Thus it is a contradiction (ie you have to do a trade-off) in what the woman can gain here: she cannot get a partner with would increase the chance of her offspring getting a high immunocompetence, and a partner that she finds attractive and likable. So, the authors suggest that the finding that women prefer the high immunocompetent (ie masculine looking) male faces when they are more fertile and only for short-term relationships, means that having different types of relationships with different types of men, may be beneficial to women in an evolutionary perspective, ie it increased the chance for survival.

I am sorry that you cannot see any stereotypes in the interpretation offered. I do not know of many polyandric societies (I gather that it is practised in, I think, Tibet, where a woman marries two or more brothers. That may be apocryphal).

It is practised in Tibet and elsewhere, there are and have been several societies. However, it sounds like you are misunderstanding what I meant. I am not saying I found no stereotypes in your first post that was commenting what you and Lestat's had read. What I am saying is that the stereotypes you describe are not relevant or applicable to the studies I posted, the studies I believe are the basis of what Lestat wrote he has read elsewhere.

Again, I quote from my post above:
This is how the authors interpreted their results, and I can in no way see any of the stereotypes you posted. The authors suggest females may benefit evolutionary from polyandry (having more than one male sexual partner) and I totally fail to see how any of the interpretation suggests "male oriented world view", "trying to explain female behaviour in terms of the importance of men" or assumptions that "women are intrinsically duplicitious" (which what you claimed in your post that was a comment to what you had read).

In societies where monogamy is the expectation polyandry is not acceptable, mostly. If women are biologically constrained to "solve" the trade off in this way they are presumably "biologically" duplicitous. As I said, this is an age old stereotype.

Neither is polygamy. I don't get what you mean by "biologically duplicitious". All evidence supports the view that homo sapiens sapiens did not evolve to live in monogamous core families. Our species has not changed genetically and thus not our genetic predisposition, for at least 20000 years. The concept of monogamy and core family is something that developed at the same time as the concept of private property. The smallest reproductive and survival-fit unit was no longer a group, but a core family. You say that if science demonstrates that women benefit evolutionary from having multiple male partners, that supports and age old stereotype of female duplicitousness. I think, on the other hand, that the idea that non-life long monogamy is a sign of "duplicitousness" is an old religious stereotype. Why let an old religious stereotype make the moral judgement of a behaviour that is scientifically demonstrated to be beneficial for the survival of the entire species, both men and women? What do you think about the studies showing that men's sperm cells compete with each other in utero in the woman? Why would specific "killer" sperm cells exists if women were supposed to live in life long monogamy? Obviously, these sperm cells did not come into existence by media bombardment, and it is very strong evidence that it has been beneficial for women to have more than one sexual partner.

At the point of interpretation we move out of the realm of science and so long as we accept the facts as far as they are known, scientists have no more claim to "expertise" than the rest of us. With all due respect to the views expressed in your signature, you take rather too much upon yourself, imho

I disagree. Scientific findings are most accurately interpreted by experts in the field, not by laymen who do not know even the basics and no background. If you hold the opinion that laymen have the same right to claim expertise of scientific findings, I would like to hear your arguments for that view.

Women also tend to feel better when they are in the "follicular" phase, since they don't have cramp etc. Maybe they go out more? That might well lead to more sexual partners but not for the reasons you are suggesting.

Women feel better in the follicular phase? Do you have references to support this claim? And how do you define follicular versus luteal phase? With all due respect, but it seems that this paragraph illustrates clearly why it's a good idea to have a deep knowledge of the field if you are interpreting scientific data from that field. The follicular phase starts at day 1 of the menstrual cycle and go on until ovulation. Many women don't feel that great during menstruation. The luteal phase starts right after ovulation and go on until the first day of menstruation. The luteal phase includes the period when some women have premenstrual symptoms, but as I have posted previously, in a recent British study, men actually report more PMS symptoms than females, and only about 3-5% of women experience PMS-symptoms that they rate as significantly interferring with their life quality.

Maybe women are more outgoing during the follicular phase than the luteal. If so, why is that?

"Symmetric men may have more sexual partners because they also go out more - after all they are not likely to be looking after the kids. Nothing propinks like propinquity, as my father used to say. Again the explanations seem designed to explain things in terms of female reproduction and that is arguably a stereotypical approach underpinned by a "male oriented world view".

Again I ask you, maybe symmetrical men are more outgoing than assymmetrical, but why so? Besides, why shouldn't symmetrical men be at home looking after the kids? You are mixing things up here I believe: symmetrical men are not unsocial, they have higher immunocompetence. Masculine looking men also have higher immunocompetence. But a man can be symmetrical and feminine looking, that's not a contradiction. Besides, we don't know if women's rating of masculine looking men as violent, dominant and having less social skills, reflects real behaviour or not.

I don't understand the meaning of your fathers' saying. I do however think you are reading far too much into the authors' interpretation of these studies. I do not at all understand how you mean they are "designed to explain things in terms of female reproduction and that is arguably a stereotypical approach underpinned by a "male oriented world view"". Can you please point out to me exactly what in the authors or my interpretation of data that is "male oriented" and provide an alernative interpretation which you do not think is "male oriented"?

The rest of your post actually acknowledges that the studies you cite have very little to do with what we are discussing. Since science can't help us very much can we acknowledge that and move on ?

This I don't understand at all. You posted an OP about an increasing number of fathers learning that they are not the biological fathers of their children. Then Lestat posted a short description of the article he had read, DW posted that she was interested in the article and you commented to Lestat that you had also read something similar to what s/he had read, and you further wrote "The theory you have referred to strikes me as yet another attempt to fit the facts into a male oriented world view". I have replied to yours and Lestats' comments, and countered your opinions of "male oriented stereotypes" with scientific data that contradicts common Western stereotypes and that may provide an explanation why it is common that women would choose to reproduce with another man than they are living with.

If this is not what you wanted to discuss, I have to ask you to clarify what you wanted to discuss, and what it is we should acknowledge that "science can't help us very much with"?

VonDondu wrote:I did misunderstand you, and I apologize. I misread the words "not necessary". My excuse is that I'm used to hearing that term misapplied by people who aren't using it in its real technical sense. In Texas, "not necessary" means "not desirable" or "don't mess with it" or "don't do it".

No problem, I actually assumed you misunderstood me, but I wanted to clarify to be sure.

On the positive side, I enjoyed reading your reply, and I'm glad to see that my rhetorical questions motivated you to explain your feelings about pure science.

Thank you, I sincerely hope that you and other people get something out of my last long posts addressing the issues I discuss with Fiona!

I was indirectly referring to those studies when I said, "It's a fairly common notion that our female ancestors were driven to choose the most masculine men they could find to impregnate them but at the same time they chose the most nurturing males they could find to stick around for years and help raise their children." As you suggest, those studies have received wide acceptance, and many people interpret the results to mean that women are predisposed to seek different mates for different purposes. Of course, there are many other factors that affect their behavior, and women are able to make conscious choices.

These studies have not only been replicated, but the results have also been validated in studies of smell, hormonal levels and levels of other chemical substances that influence human behaviour. An interesting new study also show that females who rate themselves as very attractive are more attracted to both symmetric and masculine looking male looks, than females who do not rate themselves as attractive. Furthermore, it has been shown that men care less about symmetry than females when rating attractiveness in the opposite sex. Why people find certain people attractive and why we choose the partners we do, is of course still a big unknown jigsaw like all other human behaviour, but these studies provide at least one very important piece in this jigsaw.

I also suggested that if their attraction to different males for different purposes reflects some sort of "biological" drive, then my opinion is that women don't think about the reasons why they feel the way the do; all they know is how they feel.

As the late paleontologist Stephen J Gould said, why withhold judgement when a massive body of scientific evidence shows the same? It is totally accepted that people, if allowed to choose themselves, choose partners based on both conscious and unconscious cues and assessments. Nobody goes around thinking "ah, this man I'm attracted to really has a good immune system" or "this woman I'm in love with really manage to increase my production of oxytocin". Yet other interesting studies have shown that women have very individual odeur preferences in men, and that these differences are related to differences in genetic variations. Women like the scent of men that are similar but not the same, as their fathers. Surely nobody goes around thinking "what a lovely smell his major histocompatability complex has, he must have the perfect human leukocyte antigen for my own genotype".

Does this mean you used to believe that two children who were raised in the same environment and given the same education could be expected to have about the same level of intelligence? If so, then clearly you have never raised two cats of different breeds at the same time. (Dare I say that you don't seem to like cats, or at least, you're annoyed when people go on and on about cats?)

Yes, that's what I believed before I started university and studied psychology and medicine. And I have not raised any species apart from invertabrates. I have nothing special against cats, I neither like or dislike them more than any other pet animals, but you are right I am annoyed with people who go on about cats in a specific way. What annoys is when people read mystical things into cats (or other things, but at least in Sweden it is common that people who identify themselves as "cat-lovers" read mystical properties into their pets as well as attributing an exaggregated level of intelligence to them). Also, I dislike when people raise their pets in a way that is clearly unhealthy to the animal, and that I've seen a lot with cat owners in Sweden, simply because cats are by far the most common pet to have.

The difference in intelligence between the two kittens is very clear to me, and since I can't attribute it to "environment", I figure it must be due to genetics.

The same has been found in several large so called "twin-adoption-studies". If you take two MZ (monozygotic, identical) twins and place them in two totally different homes, they will show extremely similar cognitive abilities. If you take two DZ (dizygotic, not more genetically similar than any siblings) twins and do the same, they will differ much more. Also, the other way around, if the MZ and DZ twin pairs grow up in their original families, ie the same environment, the MZ pair will be much more similar than the DZ pair. So, unfortunately I had to give up my ideas that "everybody is equally talented and intelligent, it's just a question of opportunity". But I used to like the thought when I was a teenager, because it made me feel the world was more fair than it actually is.

@C.Elegans.Another long post.I'm afraid

As I said I did not read one article along the lines Lestat described and what I have read is not scientific. I didn't read it here:

http://www.reviewevolution.com/viewersG ... ion_05.php

either, but this kind of article is quite common.

We seem to have been talking at cross purposes. I do not have access to academic journals but did find one of the studies you are talking about here:

http://webs.uvigo.es/avelando/articulos/femininity.pdf.

I could not find the other one but I did find this:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1438928/posts

It is on a similar topic and it refers to the study you cited, so I assume it is a later contribution to the same field.

I thought this might also be relevant, and I trust you will see it as acceptable research, though it is not crucial if you do not

http://psychology.unn.ac.uk/nick/2d4d_f ... mmetry.htm

To go back to your "part 2" post.


You said that "other attractivenes studies based on rating of faces, have shown that [...] average faces are rated as more attractive. This study specifically does not confirm that. While I accept that this may be trading on the ambiguity of the word "attractive" it is no more so than in the rest of this thread. You omit to mention that the authors connect the feminisation of features with a more youthful appearance, as well as with symmetry and immunocompetence. Since it is my contention that cultural factors are important to the interpretation of such data, I think this is a telling omission. Youth is valued highly in our culture and I believe this is also true in Japan, where a lot of Western mores have been adopted (although I cannot demonstrate this with a scientific paper; it is based on the observation of clothes; media; economic arrangements etc} In a later post you said that studies have shown that people rate symmetric faces as more attractive, and that symmetry is related to immunoefficiency. Amongst many other things. You do not show how the studies have controlled for the influence of other factors. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc is also a well known fallacy.

In additon my third link notes that assymetry is more common in children in rapid periods of growth. I would find it strange if it were asserted that children are less attractive than adults. Again there is scope to trade on the ambiguity of the word but definitions are also part of the real world and of the interpretation of data in science.

Later in the same post you said "when women were in the follicular phase, they rated more masculinised phases as more attractive than when they were in the lutheal phase........Thus, the result of this study supports the view that women's rating of men' s attractiveness and their sexual behaviour, change depending on how fertile they are".

In context I assumed that you were using follicular as synonymous with fertile.This was not unreasonable since you said later that "studies show that women [..]are more prone to have extra-pair sexual contacts when they are in the follicular phase." It seemed to be implicit in the whole debate that they have such contacts when they are fertile. I can only think of 4 reasons to use a long word where a short one will do. The long word may be more precise and precision may be important to the argument; the user may not be a native speaker of the language being used and may not have a confident grasp of idiom; the user may wish to blind the other party and the audience with science (in "the Book of the Fallacy Madison Pirie characterises this as a fallacy because it tries to induce an unearned respect for what is said and so make acceptance of the argument easier. It is essentially a subtle argument from authority); or the speaker might be showing off. In this case I thought it courteous to adopt the terms you chose to introduce and so I was surprised when, in a later post, you challenged my use of these words. You said "Women feel better in the follicular phase ? Do you have references to support this claim? And how do you define follicular versus luteal phase? With all due respect, but it seems that this paragraph illustrates clearly why it's a good idea to have a deep knowledge of the field if you are interpreting scientific data from that field". You go on to define the word in its strict sense and to make some other points. You do concede that my point that women don't feel that good during menstruation. As the study you referred to defines the fertile period as days 9 to 15 in the menstrual cycle you have not answered my point; you have merely changed the subject using a spurious authority to do so. For clarity I will revert to the ordinary language and if the problem arises again I would be grateful if you would define how you are using long words.

Two other points on this part of your post. The study does not support the view that women's sexual behaviour changes with their cycle. It has nothing to say on the subject. You appeared to accept this when you said we have no idea how large these effects are nor how they relate to real partner choices.

Secondly you say that there is a contradiction within women's ratings between high immunocompetence and rated long-term attractiveness. I asked you to elaborate and you did so in a later post. Once again your argument seems to me to be fallacious. The contradiction, as explained by you, lies in
the "fact" that women "cannot get a partner who would increase the chance of her offspring getting a high immunocompetence and a partner that she finds attractive...." This is circular. It takes the premise that women want high immunocompetence (part of the question) and uses it to justify its own conclusion. It is only a contradicton if you accept the premise.The hidden premise is that women must be driven by biology in the way predicted by a stereotypical interpretation of the data. In short their behaviour is all directed towards survival of the offspring. There is no evidence for this in anything you have said. As I proposed much earlier, this is an attempt to validate those things which men value about themselves. You denied the implications I saw in this, but you have not shown where I am wrong. I therefore cannot accept your later assertion that stereotype has no relevance or applicability to the interpretation proposed by the authors to explain their data.

You ask me to try not to read in things which are not in your posts. I will if you will. I did not say that you had made claims regarding the relative proportions of the influence of genetic or socioculturally learned factors (how could you when the study of facial attractiveness you cited specifically admits the importance of cross cultural differences). My contention is that stereotypic thinking is informing the interpretation of the data. I have given reasons why I think this is true, and examples of some factors I believe to be relevant and some alternative hypotheses which might explain the facts before us. You have not answered any of those points and the responsibity to discharge the burden of proof now lies with you, imo.

Later you challenge my characterisation of what you described as an "interesting finding". You do this by saying that "the study does not support that the plain girl next door would be a better mother". I did not say it did: it could not because it did not touch on quality of parenting. You also say that "neutral does not mean "plain" here" and suggest I have not read your post properly. The study says that men rate feminised faces as more attractive; the neutral face as less attractive. It follows that the neutral face is "plainer", does it not ? What is your point?

As to the study's results challenging common stereotypes, I do not think they are as simplistic as you suggest. What you characterise as common stereotypes are indeed often seen in the interpretation of results in the field of evolutionary psychology etc. They follow from the assumptions made. In the wider world I have often heard it said that young women prefer "feminised" men and this is a source of regret to boy who see their girlfriends lusting after "boy bands". This is mere observation and I do not have studies to support it, but it may fit with your own experience.

I read somewhere that the attractiveness marker hip/waist ratio is not universal. I believe the study focussed on a remote group in Peru, though I cannot find the reference. Does your own observation about Fiji not have some relevance here? You seem to dismiss the possiblity that attractiveness in that culture was differently perceived by both genders before the influence of TV. How does this demonstrate cross cultural validity. How is the influence of other factors controlled ?

You say that the women were forced to judge men by particular criteria. How did the researchers manage that, and how did they control for it ? You repeat that women report more extra-pair contacts in the follicular (ie more fertile phase) (which did you mean, btw) and therefore it is unlikely they are less randy. How does that follow. If they are out more the question of opportunity arises. Less randy does not mean not randy at all.

You go on to say that if women are just generally more randy why do they rate only the masculinised faces as more attractive for short-term relationships. Two points. In the first place, are you sure the studies say that? I thought the finding only applied to the odour study, not the facial attractiveness one. If you are using other evidence please cite it. Secondly, surely only adolescent boys believe that a randy woman has no discrimination when choosing a sexual partner. This is stereotypic thinking of a very high order indeed.

Continued

I do not see why you would conclude that I am not interested in science from anything I have posted. This seems to be no more than an argument ad hominem; another attempt to make your contention seem stronger than it is. Nor did I say that our behaviour is likely to be totally unrelated to evolution. But it sort of makes sense that scientists who live today are the product of successful adaptation to their culture, otherwise they wouldn't have jobs, huh? Do you really think that scientists would be the only human group on earth not affected by cultural assumptions?

I agree that human behaviour is influenced by genetic,biological, enviromental and psychological factors. However the way these things interact is not clear, as you seem to agree. If you mean that a person cannot do anything which is not possible because of evolutionary history then of course it is true. It doesn't have much content though. I will concede that I cannot spit as far as the moon, if that helps. Why do I think society is like it is? I have no idea, but I do not think it is simple. Why are human beings like they are ? Neither you nor I know much about what they are like, never mind why they are like it. I find Stephen J Gould and Stephen Rose useful in trying to consider these issues, as they are robust in resisting what Gould describes as "just so stories" (otherwise creation myths) which are said to be underpinned by evolutionary psychology etc. I do not know where you stand, however. Are you persuaded by the modularity arguments (eg Pinker) or by other interpretations you might like to cite? What is the evidence that humans ( I will not adopt the word you used for the reasons given above) did not evolve to live in monogamous core families ? How can you know what happened 20000 years ago ? Living in a group does not necessarily lead to multiple sexual partners, and we have no way of finding out what the standards of sexual behaviour were then. This is a familiar type of assertion used by neo-darwinists to justify certain types of social policy. It is not science and it could not be. There is quite literally no data on which to reach a conclusion. The concept of private property may have emerged after man was man. Or it might not.How do you know that early man was not proprietorial about his weapon or his living space ? Why would a social animal adopt the "smallest reproductive and survival fit unit" as a matter of course ? This is not logical. Why would the majority of human societies adopt a moral standard which is at odds with their biological interest and with the normal behaviour of a majority of the members of the species? How did religion become so powerful that it could impose such an unlikely set of standards, if it did not chime with existing practice ? If it did happen that way I would suggest that the evolutionary inheritance may not be very important. We will never know. These are really speculations with no evidence behind them.

Simlarly you say that the existence of "killer" sperm cells is strong evidence that it has been beneficial for women to have more than one sexual partner". No, it isn't. Firstly, you said in the preceding sentence that this pattern was beneficial for the survival of the species and therefore for both men and women. The "killer sperm" is surely maladaptive in that case. Secondly the "kiler sperm" presumably exists with all the other sperm and you said that sperm compete in the womb. Do you mean they only compete with "foreign" sperm. That is not my understanding and I would be interested in a reference. If you do not mean that then their exisence has nothing to say about extra-pair sexual contact at all.

I did not say that layman have the same right to claim expertise on scientific findings and this is another fallacy; that of the straw man. I did say that that they are equally competent to interpret the data once they have it. We will have to agree to disagree about this, I think.

I am fascinated to hear that more men report PMS symptoms than females. Self report is notoriously unreliable but that is astonishing. 3-5% of women experience PMS-symptoms "that they rate as significantly interfering with their life quality"? So what? Self report; interpretation of the word "significantly"; cultural expectations of stoicism; embarrassment - there are a host of possibilities which could account for that finding, In any case it does not show that my point is invalid.

symmetrical men shouldn't be at home looking after the kids as much as assymmetical men if we accept the evidence referred to in the studies. As in "There is also evidence that males of high genetic quality have a tendency for lower parental investment (Waynforth 1998)" Your premise is that symmetry and masculinity are both related to immunocompetence, and the studies make it clear immunocompetence is what they mean by "genetic quality". At least that's how I read it. And of course you are right, we do not know whether any of this relates to real behaviour. I rather think that supports my premise.

Turning to a slightly different point. It is a very long time since I studied psychology and statistics. I have some questions about the data in these studies.
1. The chi square did not used to be a popular measure for reasons which are set out here:

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc ... i_tut.html

The main problem is sample size. The ANOVA type of analysis cannot abolish those problems so sample size is very important for that type of investigation to (see:

http://www.statsoft.com/textbook/stpowa ... power_doe1
and

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc ... i_tut.html

for example.

The facial attractiveness study used a total sample of 103 subject in two countries, all of whom were students in the age range 19 to 23. A further 20 subject rated "cooperation,assertiveness and good parenting"It is not clear in the study how they were shown to be representative of the wider population. As I contend that culture etc are important confounding factors this is relevant. perhaps you have access to the raw data and more statistical information than appears in the published paper?

2. Similarly the odour study I cited (not the same as yours, I know) used 48 male subject who were assessed as "dominant" using an 11 item questionnaire corresponding to narcissism. They each provided an odour sample. There were 30 "fertile" females and 35 in other phases of their cycle. They each ranked 10 pads on three dimensions. The initial analysis found a difference between the fertile and infertile groups. A secondary analysis then appear to have been done which showed that difference did not exist when the groups were subdivided to separate single women from those in long term relationships. The report does not say where the samples were drawn from but it does give a mean age of 20, which tends to suggest they were also students. It would be helpful to know the actual size of the sample and how it was perceived to be adequate. In particular the experiment designer should choose a sample size which will answer his question within certain confidence limits before the work is done. How was the robustness of the result affected by the subdivision in the second analysis? They used paired t-tests but when I studies this subject this would not have been accepted as an adequate sample size for this test. Power analysis and other techniques were not readily available then, and I do not know how they answer the objections. Can you help ?

@Fiona: I would like to address this issue first, since this unfortunately is the most relevant part of your posts:

[quote="Fiona]I did not say that layman have the same right to claim expertise on scientific findings and this is another fallacy; that of the straw man. I did say that that they are equally competent to interpret the data once they have it. We will have to agree to disagree about this"]

I don't understand the difference between "claiming expertise on scientific findings" and "being equally competent to interpret data". "Data" and "findings" are merely synonyms in my post, "scientific data" and "scientific findings" is the same. The data, or the findings, are the actual results of your study. It's what you have found, the data you have. The interpretation is what your data means in the larger picture.
You accuse me of committing a strawman, but since this question is IMO the basis of our entire discussion, I ask you to clarify what you mean. If you claim that laymen are equally competent to scientists in interpreting data, then you also claim that all background knowledge and all contexual knowledge about a field, is meaningless for interpretation of data. What you are saying is that although a layman lacks background knowledge in the field and also has no idea about the hundrereds or thousands of scientific findings that are related in different ways to the current findings.

To me, this opinion is absurd, and this is what I referred to when I posted you are not interested in science. In my opinion you seem to be interested in doing personal interpretions of selected scientific data, which you read about in the popular media. This is not the same as being interested in science. Please note that it is not an ad hominem not to be interested in science. All human beings have the right to be interested or not interested in science.

Your reply to me contains several misunderstandings of facts and you also question data in a basic way that makes the discussing very long and tedious for me. It's a long way to go from basics such as definition of terms, to interpretation of data in a field where little is known and there are hundreds of other studies to take into consideration. I bring this up because you ask a lot of questions, and whereas I gladly spend time digging up scientific information and references to anyone interested, I am honestly not prepared to spend time on this discussion if you hold the opinions I described above, since the discussion loose all interested for me if that is the case.

One example is your suggested interpretation of the phrase "rate as significantly interfering with their life quality" in relationship to PMS symptoms. If you had some knowledge in this field, you would know the figures come from DSM-IV, the diagnostic manual used worldwide, and that rating of symptoms as well as assement of how significantly disturbed your life quality is, is done together with a professional according to a structured system including both subjetive and objective criteria.

Another example is that you seem to believe it's a fallacy that I did not mention that it is thought that feminisation is associated with youthful appearance. No, I did not because studies show youthful apperance is also rated as attractive cross culturally. Thus, it makes no difference for the interpretation of data. The preference for neotonous features (ie features related to childhood and youth) is much more well studied and an older finding than the feminisation-finding. This you would know if you had done some reading in this scientific field.
You cannot expect me to post exactly everything in a scientific publication since scientific languages are far more dense in information than ordinary language. It would take at least 3 times as much space to post the content of a scientific article in layman language. Thus, I can only say to you as I have previously said to others: read the scientific literature yourself. Any university library will give you access to Pubmed, Psychlit, Social Sciences index and other databases.

Yet another example is that you thought follicular and fertile was the same thing although I posted it was the phase when women are more likely to get pregnant. And also, you continue to claim that "plain" in the sense of "the girl next door" has the same meaning as sexually dimorphic "neutral". Etc, etc.

I will comment further on the content of your posts later, but I would like to read your reply to the issue of no need for expertise knowledge in order to interpret scientific data.

part I

I am afraid my reply will be even longer, although I at this stage refrain from posting links and extensive comments regarding the scientific evidence for sperm competition ("killer sperm"), evolutionary benefit of non-monogamous reprodouction behaviour, etc.

Fiona wrote:http://www.reviewevolution.com/viewersG ... ion_05.php
either, but this kind of article is quite common.

This article seems to be commenting a TV series about evolution. As you say it is not scientific and also, should not be confused with scientific data or scientific interpretations. There is all reason to critisise the article and the TV series, but that should not be confused with reasons to critisise the scientific findings I posted. If the article is correct in it's description of this TV-series, both the TV-series and the article show exactly the major flaws in simplifying and popularising science is the way I have critisised in many previous post. It would take far too long time to comment everything in the article, I'd just like to summarise the whole thing with: read scientific literature if you want to know something about science (as opposed to popular speculations derived from simplified interpretation of scientific data), at least read textbooks, do not rely on popular media such as TV, newspapers, the internet.

I could not find the other one but I did find this:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1438928/posts
It is on a similar topic and it refers to the study you cited, so I assume it is a later contribution to the same field.

Yes, the odeur study you linked to is one of several similar studies. It must be noted though, that this particular study you linked to, Havlicek et al, Women’s preference for dominant male odour: effects of menstrual cycle and relationship status (2005) cannot yet be found in neither Pubmed/Medline or Embase. Your link is to the online publication, and Biology Letters is a very new (2003) online journal that is peer-reviewed but has not yet recieved an impact factor rating (ie we don't know the quality of this journal yet). I point this out because below, you quote from Havlicek et al, and I find this quote very strange. One explanation may be that the authors actually made a writing error, online publication is usually a preliminary form of publication, the article has not gone through final proof reading etc yet.

I thought this might also be relevant, and I trust you will see it as acceptable research, though it is not crucial if you do not
http://psychology.unn.ac.uk/nick/2d4d_f ... mmetry.htm

I cannot find this study neither in Medline, Embase, Social citation index nor Psychinfo. If the article is not published and peer-reviewed, I will not see it as acceptable research until that is done. Not that there seem to be anything wrong with the study, but if an article is not peer-reviewed you can actually write whatever you like in it, so I will not draw any conclusions from this article until I have seen that it's published in peer-reviewed press.

You said that "other attractivenes studies based on rating of faces, have shown that [...] average faces are rated as more attractive. This study specifically does not confirm that. While I accept that this may be trading on the ambiguity of the word "attractive" it is no more so than in the rest of this thread.

The study by Perret et al, Effects of sexual dimorphism on facial attractiveness, Nature 1998, does not support the "attractiveness-of-average" hypothesis and neither me nor the authors ever said it did. On the contrary, both the authors and therefore I, mentioned the "average-hypothesis" because it is an existing hypothesis that has been demonstrated in several cross-cultural studies. Again, this is to put the specific findings of Perret et al. in a broader perspective, and to show that there are, I quote "the results indicate that judgements of male attractiveness reflect multiple motives". All of this (preference for average, feminsation, less preference for feminisation during follicular phase, waist-hip/hip-shoulder ratio, symmetry, smell of variation in hormones and genetic polymorphisms) are parts of what is likely an extremely complex jigsaw of various mechanism that influence partner and mating selection. You have to understand that one does not exclude the other, just as genetics, biology and sociocultural factors do not exclude each other.

You omit to mention that the authors connect the feminisation of features with a more youthful appearance, as well as with symmetry and immunocompetence.
<snip>
In a later post you said that studies have shown that people rate symmetric faces as more attractive, and that symmetry is related to immunoefficiency. Amongst many other things. You do not show how the studies have controlled for the influence of other factors. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc is also a well known fallacy.

The first part of this I already explained, neotonous features such as large eyes and high cheekbones are rated as attractive cross-culturally by both men and women and thus, do not change the results or the interpretation of the results of the Perret et al study.

What I do not understand here is the second paragraph. People rate symmetric faces as more attractive. Symmetry is related to high immunocompetence, and it's also believed to be related to less prenatal stressors and a lot of other things. When you suggest symmetry studies should be controlled for influence of other factors, what factors do you refer to? Subjects are asked to rate attractiveness of computer manipulated images that have been altered with respect to symmetry. Subjects have no other cues for their rating than this image. What do you mean they should control for? Do you mean sample characteristics, factors in the subjects who do the ratings? If so, that's already done since they use random samples, cross cultural sampes and in odeur studies, some studies have investigated genotype for genes related to the immune system (but that's not a controll, that is an experiment variable). Or do you mean factors in the presented stimuli? If so, what factors?

And what has cum hoc ergo propter hoc to do with anything? Symmetry is a phenotype (ie a feature that can be observed in the individual). People rate symmetric people as more attractive. First, we don't know why. Then it turnes out that the symmetric phenotype is related to higher immunocompetence, which is turn can be linked to genes (genotype). Furthermore, it turns out that symmetric men have more sexual partners and more offspring. Also, women prefer the smell of symmetric men to that of assymmetric men. So, we have a series of factors that covariate. Symmetry and disease are in bi-directed correlation to each other, ie high symmetry is associated with higher immunocompetence with makes you ill less often, and if you are ill less often you will remain more symmetric since illness reduces body symmetry (Waynforth, Fluctuating assymmetry...1998). Let's now look at the causality for the other factors:
1. We can exclude that more offspring cause people to rate others as more attractive, since this is not known in neither face or odeur studies. Computer images have no offspring.
2. We can also exclude sociocultural factors causing people to rate symmetric people as attractive, since the symmetry preference, like the neotonous preference, is validated cross-culturally. As I wrote previously, if something is observed regardless of sociocultural variation, genetic factors must play a role because there is nothing else than genes and environment that affect us. (Unless we introduce magical components, but I'd like to keep this scientific.)

So what is the causality problem that makes you mention the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy? Has someone claimed that something incorrect regarding what causes what? If so, can you please point that out?

In additon my third link notes that assymetry is more common in children in rapid periods of growth. I would find it strange if it were asserted that children are less attractive than adults. Again there is scope to trade on the ambiguity of the word but definitions are also part of the real world and of the interpretation of data in science.

"Attraction" as used in the face and odeor studies, refers to sexual and/or "romantic" attraction, ie the questions the subjects answer are formulated as referring to long and short term relationship and sexual attraction. Thus I don't think it is strange if adult people find other adults more attractive than children. The condition when romantic and sexual love and drive is directed towards prepubescent children is called pedophilia, it is classified as a psychiatric disorder and it has a low prevalence.

part II

Fiona] In context I assumed that you were using follicular as synonymous with fertile.This was not unreasonable since you said later that wrote:are more prone to have extra-pair sexual contacts when they are in the follicular phase."
<snip>
I can only think of 4 reasons to use a long word where a short one will do. The long word may be more precise and precision may be important to the argument; the user may not be a native speaker of the language being used and may not have a confident grasp of idiom; the user may wish to blind the other party and the audience with science (in "the Book of the Fallacy Madison Pirie characterises this as a fallacy because it tries to induce an unearned respect for what is said and so make acceptance of the argument easier. It is essentially a subtle argument from authority); or the speaker might be showing off. In this case I thought it courteous to adopt the terms you chose to introduce and so I was surprised when, in a later post, you challenged my use of these words. In this case I thought it courteous to adopt the terms you chose to introduce and so I was surprised when, in a later post, you challenged my use of these words.

"Follicular phase" is the standard medical term for the period between 1st day of menstruation and ovulation. It is not equal to fertile, but it usually includes the period when conception is most likely (ie about a week before ovulation), and over the whole period, conception is more likely compared to the luteal phase. Since I do not expect SYM readers to be professionals in biology or medicine, I posted an explanation the first time I mentioned the word. Above in my post where I quote from the articles, you can see that I wrote "In the follicular phase (before ovulation), where chances to get pregnant are larger", which in my opinion, although I am not a native English speaker, should be sufficient for any layman to understand. After I explained what "follicular phase" meant, I went on and used "follicular phase" instead of "the period when it is more likely that a woman can become pregnant". This is the reason why I asked you to please read my posts more carefully. If you indeed did not miss but actually read my explanation above, I do not understand how your misunderstanding of this occured.

In any case, various studies have used various periods within the follicular phase, some studies use two points of measurement during the follicular phase, other use only one point in each phase, some use only the most fertile period (ie towards the end of the follicular phase). That's why I lumped it all together by using the expression "follicular phase". The reason why it makes sense to include also the menstruation period in the follicular phase and refer to it as "more fertile" than the luteal phase, is due to proportions of hormones, and some women can get pregnant if they have unprotected sex during menstruation, especially if they have a short menstrual cycle.

You do concede that my point that women don't feel that good during menstruation. As the study you referred to defines the fertile period as days 9 to 15 in the menstrual cycle you have not answered my point; you have merely changed the subject using a spurious authority to do so.

The face studies I have quoted used one measurement in the most fertile period (end of follicular phase) and one in the luteal phase. However, many other studies which results I have mentioned (smell studies, reports on sexual behaviour etc) have used the entire follicular and/or luteal phase as sample period. You suggested that a reason why women have more extra-pair sex during follicular phase may be that they go out more and that they don't have cramps. I critisised your suggestion by explaning that some studies include the whole follicular phase ie also menstruation, when many women report PMS symptoms (although they can't have any when they have menstruation), thus demonstrating that subjectively experienced PMS cannot be a significant factor in this.

Let me explain something about PMS. PMS is not a defined diagnosis, it is a term that includes everything from PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, the defined condition that significantly affects women's life quality and functional level) to subjectively reporting only one of about 20 different symptoms that include feeling tired, tense, down, having headache. About 27% of women report having at least one PMS symptoms, but the funny thing is that recent studies show that males report more PMS symptoms than females, so the specific effect of these symptoms on females in luteal phase, is doubtful. PMDD on the other hand is a real medical condition, but it affects only 3-5% of women, so it should not have a significant effect on studies of healthy subjects, especially not since it is classified as a psychiatric disorder, and subjects participating in behavioural experiments such as rating of faces or reports of their sexual behaviour, routinely undergo screening to exclude psychiatric disorder.

The study does not support the view that women's sexual behaviour changes with their cycle. It has nothing to say on the subject. You appeared to accept this when you said we have no idea how large these effects are nor how they relate to real partner choices.

The face study of course says nothing about sexual behaviour since it does not investigate that. That's why I mentioned another study, that showed women in long term relationship have more extra-pair sexual contacts during follicular phase. One very important thing when interpreting scientific findings, is to put many small pieces together and see what it means and does not mean. What data supports or falsifies what? This is one of the main reasons why I reject the idea that laymen are equal to experts in interpreting scientific data.

Secondly you say that there is a contradiction within women's ratings between high immunocompetence and rated long-term attractiveness. I asked you to elaborate and you did so in a later post. Once again your argument seems to me to be fallacious. The contradiction, as explained by you, lies in
the "fact" that women "cannot get a partner who would increase the chance of her offspring getting a high immunocompetence and a partner that she finds attractive...." This is circular. It takes the premise that women want high immunocompetence (part of the question) and uses it to justify its own conclusion. It is only a contradicton if you accept the premise.

You conveniently skipped both the study data and the detailed explanation in point A and B and choose to quote and critise the summary I made under point C? Besides, it is all in the study I posted? Let's start all over again. What are the results of the studies?
Study 1. Women rate feminised male faces as more attractive than neutral (sexually dimorphic neutral, NOT plain as your "girl next door") or masculinised faces. Besides, they associate feminised faces with more positive characterists but masculinised faces with negative characteristics such as less good parent, dishonesty, more violent.
Study 2. Women who do not use hormonal contraception, rate more masculinised phases are more attractive, but only for short term relationships, during the most fertile period of the more fertile period of the menstrual cycle (ie last half of the follicular phase). Ratings for long term attractiveness do not change.

Contradition: Women rate the feminised faces as more attracted and associated with more desirable features for long-term relationship. Why do they alter preference in the follicular phase, and only for short-term relationship? Well, since we know that the masculinised face features are related to higher immunocompetence, it's a trade-off between increased fitness (higher immunocompetence for your offspring due to inheritance from father) and characteristics women find likable and attractive at all other times.

What is so difficult to understand with this? You can even choose between two alternatives:
1. Regardless of immunocompetence, there is a contradiction between short-term and long-term attraction.
2. Since several studies have shown that women rate both the smell of symmetric men as more attractive than that of assymmetric men, and symmetric faces as more attractive than assymmetric, there is strong evidence to accept the premise that women are attracted to features associated with immunocompetence.
So either way: it's a contradictory situation.

Again, I would like to ask you to try to reconsider your feminist patos. Whereas I understand these issues are very important to you, your conclusions appear to get farther and farther from what is actually shown in the studies we are discussion. In this paragraph:

The hidden premise is that women must be driven by biology in the way predicted by a stereotypical interpretation of the data. In short their behaviour is all directed towards survival of the offspring. There is no evidence for this in anything you have said. As I proposed much earlier, this is an attempt to validate those things which men value about themselves. You denied the implications I saw in this, but you have not shown where I am wrong.

...you say that "their behaviour is all directed towards survival of the offspring". But nobody except you, have suggested that. On the contrary, the authors suggested multipe motives for female partner selection. I am sorry Fiona, but it appears as highly biased behaviour from your side to make up statements by yourself and then repeatedly accuse me and the studies of being "stereotype" and "male oriented" for the statements you yourself have made up.

part III

My contention is that stereotypic thinking is informing the interpretation of the data. I have given reasons why I think this is true, and examples of some factors I believe to be relevant and some alternative hypotheses which might explain the facts before us. You have not answered any of those points and the responsibity to discharge the burden of proof now lies with you, imo.

I have so far debunked your suggestions of "general randiness" as an explanation models for the data we are discussing. I have also commented that I find no evidence for your ideas about these scientific studies being "stereotype" and having a "male oriented worldview". If I have missed to reply to some of your alternative suggestions, please point that out to me.

It follows that the neutral face is "plainer", does it not ? What is your point?

No, as I said before you are mistake, neutral in sexually dimorphic meaning does not mean neutral in other qualities. For instance, a face can be highly symmetric but still sexually dimorphic neutral.

What you characterise as common stereotypes are indeed often seen in the interpretation of results in the field of evolutionary psychology etc. They follow from the assumptions made. In the wider world I have often heard it said that young women prefer "feminised" men and this is a source of regret to boy who see their girlfriends lusting after "boy bands". This is mere observation and I do not have studies to support it, but it may fit with your own experience.

I don't understand this paragraph. Are you suggesting that he "wider world" where you have heard it said that young women lust after boy bands, contradicts or provide an alternative to the scientific studies showing cross-cultural preference for neotonous features?

I read somewhere that the attractiveness marker hip/waist ratio is not universal. I believe the study focussed on a remote group in Peru, though I cannot find the reference.

Cite, please. The cross-cultural nature of the hip/waist ratio is the most researched and most replicated of all attractiveness and "beauty" variables.

Does your own observation about Fiji not have some relevance here? You seem to dismiss the possiblity that attractiveness in that culture was differently perceived by both genders before the influence of TV. How does this demonstrate cross cultural validity. How is the influence of other factors controlled ?

What do you mean? The hip/waist ratio-ideals in this area are the same as in the rest of the world, and hip/waist ratio is not related to absolute size, it is a ratio, ie a relative measurement of hip and waist. The Fidji (and other similar) study showed that eating disorders and girls ratings of themselves as fat, occured after Western TV was introduced. As you can see in my post above, I clearly write that I post it to show "how media messages can affect beauty ideals". I never said this study was related to cross-cultural validation, you are mixing things up. Again I have to ask you to please read my posts more carefully. And why is it relevant whether one or both genders were influenced by TV?

You say that the women were forced to judge men by particular criteria. How did the researchers manage that, and how did they control for it ? You repeat that women report more extra-pair contacts in the follicular (ie more fertile phase) (which did you mean, btw) and therefore it is unlikely they are less randy. How does that follow. If they are out more the question of opportunity arises. Less randy does not mean not randy at all.

Please read the method section of the article for the first issue, it's all there and I am growing weary of your unwillingness to actually read the study your are critisising for so many things. If you believe you are better suited to critisise this particular study than the editors of Nature and the scientists who peer-reviewed the study, please at least read the study first, ok?

I meant both of course - the follicular phase is the more fertile phase compared to the luteal phase. And yes, I find it unlikely to the absurd, that in order to press the results of these studes into your feminist ideology, we should introduce a factor that was not investigated (how randy women were) and then we should think that they are less randy when they have more sexual partners, because there is chance that they have more opportunities because they may go out more in the follicular phase than in the luteal phase because they may have cramps although only 3-5% of women have PMDD. Sorry, this sounds very far from a serious argument. And why at all argue with the finding that women have more sexual partners during the follicular phase that the luteal? Is that also, in your worldview, a male oriented stereotype?

You go on to say that if women are just generally more randy why do they rate only the masculinised faces as more attractive for short-term relationships. Two points. In the first place, are you sure the studies say that? I thought the finding only applied to the odour study, not the facial attractiveness one. If you are using other evidence please cite it. Secondly, surely only adolescent boys believe that a randy woman has no discrimination when choosing a sexual partner. This is stereotypic thinking of a very high order indeed.

This paragraph is totally confusing to me. You critised the studies that demonstrated women changed face-preference for short term relationships during the follicular phase and were more prone to have extramarital sex during follicular phase, and suggested that women may just be "generally more randy". (With no comment as to why they would be more randy) In response to the Penton-Voak Menstrual cycle alters face preference-study, you wrote: "It is a big leap from a change in ratings of attractiveness to a change in sexual behaviour, is it not ? Maybe women who are fertile are just generally more randy.

Thus, if you remember, it was you and not the studies that suggested increase in extra-pair sexual partners and ratings of less feminised faces as more attractive during the more fertile phase was due to "general randiness".

You keep repeating the words "male oriented" and "steretypic", and I agree that several of your posts, like the quote above, include references to unfunded stereotypes. However, the stereotypes you mention are not related to the results of the studies we are discussing. The interpretation you suggest above, that "randy woman has no discrimination when choosing a sexual partner" is completely your own words. The authors of the menstrual-cycle-and face and menstrual-cycle-and-smell interpreted the results as meaning that women may, like previously shown on men, also benefit from having more than one partner, and since some traits that are beneficial for survival do no co-vary in the same man, women may be affected by different selection criteria depending on whether they are going to reproduce, or if they are going to take care of their offspring. These selection mechanisms are not conscious and there is cross-cultural consistency and may thus be the result of evolution.

You on the other hand have repeatedly referred to the religious stereotype that it is in some way bad that women, like men, benefit evolutionary from non-monogamous relationships. In order to avoid stereotypes, I think one must first and foremost look at facts, not at personal ideology. Stereotyping is the act of having unfunded, overgeneralised images of something, leading to incorrect attributions. If an image is correct, we don't call it stereotyping even if it is generalised, the statement "all women have a vagina" is not generally viewed as stereotyping although a few women may lack a vagina due to injuries and disease. In order to assess whether something is stereotyping or not, we must first observe: what is reality? Thus, to critisise these studies on the basis that religious stereotypes say it's bad for women to benefit from multiple partners, seems highly strange to me.

How can you know what happened 20000 years ago ?

Two words: protein homology.

Do you mean they only compete with "foreign" sperm. That is not my understanding and I would be interested in a reference.

Yes I mean with other men's sperm, seach Medline and you will find 450 references to "sperm competition" and one study that does not support it.

symmetrical men shouldn't be at home looking after the kids as much as assymmetical men if we accept the evidence referred to in the studies.

Why not? What evidence do you have for this statement?

As in "There is also evidence that males of high genetic quality have a tendency for lower parental investment (Waynforth 1998)"

If this was your source, I must tell you that this was the reference I mentioned in part I, the faulty one in the online publication. You see, Waynforth 1998 does not at all say this, Waynforth says that symmetric men have more offspring. Not a word about their parental qualities. So this is an incorrect reference. Please read Waynforth 1998 here:
http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/medi ... TPBJCA.pdf

Fiona, I don't understand what it is you are critising. You conceed that genetic, biological and environmental factors all influence human behaviour. So why is it so important to you to critisise these studies showing that partner preferences and selection is affected by multiple motives, among them evolutionary factors? Do you reject that humans, both men and women, must have some drive to ensure the survival of themselves and their offspring? Do you reject that humans, both men and women, have sexual selection behaviours like all other species?