"Don't waste my time with these issues.They are not relevant to this site"
Quite so, but you ought to have told this to Dot when he asked about Testosterone levels ect. in black men, that or ignored him. Please bear in mind that the less relevant an issue is to your site the more likely someone will think you are wrong about it and say so.
"Don't waste my time with these issues. They are not relevant to this site"
Quite so, its what you should have said to Dot when he asked about the T. levels of black men, that or ignored him. Please bear in mind; the less relevant an issue is to this site the more likely someone might think you're wrong about it and say so.
If you wander off your turf expect a challenge.
Comments on Decaprio, face shape studies and gracilization are as relevant to this site as this page is, if it's a wasting your time perhaps it you ought to be taking it down. I admit to going on a bit - sorry - I was thinking out loud. The site design encourages comments. You answered all my points. Although I made them forcefully I didn't want them to be true, I don't look like DeCaprio. Anyway, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Ingrid: No, you have not understood the article. I have made nothing close to the claim you think I have made. First, a little bit of background.
Feminine and masculine women are found in all populations. If the population size is in the tens of millions, then you are looking at a large number of feminine and masculine women. So the overrepresentation of Eastern Europeans among high-fashion models has nothing to do with the frequency of feminine or masculine women among them.
Eastern European women are also overrepresented among pornstars, nude models and prostitutes, especially the ones who are more in demand. So obviously it is not true that their appeal is limited to male homosexual fashion designers.
We should consider the possibility that this across-the-board overrepresentation is because they are more beautiful than other women, but does this greater beauty result from their more ethnically mixed nature or exotic looks? Clearly no. The top models have Northern European features. See how many well-ranked Eastern European fashion models you can find with ethnically mixed features. Look up, for instance, the top-fashion-models section within this site (see top right column) and note the features of the women with Eastern European last names. A number of them hardly even look Slavic. I also have a number of Eastern European women in the attractive women section of this site, and a friend of mine who was very confident that he could figure out who is Eastern European from looking at the face missed some of them. Similarly, blonde Eastern European prostitutes are the ones in demand, not those who look as if they have a large part of their ancestry from Azerbaijan or Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan or something like this. I have never gotten the impression of anything special about attractive Eastern European women; they are generally similar to attractive Northern European women.
The explanation we are looking for is simple and parsimonious. Few women will participate in pornography, nude modeling, prostitution, or starve to model for homosexual fashion designers, and the poor ones are more likely participants. So the question is where in the world do we find a large number of poor women with strong international appeal? It is necessary to find a large supply of poor women so that one can be selective. Strong international appeal is an obvious requirement for pornstars, prostitutes and nude models. Similarly, appeal to homosexual fashion designers is an obvious requirement for fashion modeling. And what is common to both strong international appeal and appeal to homosexual fashion designers? Northern European features involving color and fine facial features. So is the answer now obvious? If Alexandra/Ali Michael were Eastern European, do you think she would have given up like she did?
As an off-topic issue, you are mistaken about basic skull shapes being associated with masculinization and feminization. Seen from the side/profile view, we have many types of heads (crania is a better term; the cranium is the skull minus the face): elongated (dolichocephalic), roundish (brachycephalic), heads in between these two types (mesocephalic), etc. Sex hormones affect head shapes, but they do not cause these basic types of head shapes. For instance, masculinization tends to make the forehead more sloping and deform the back of the head as in some flattening of the upper back of the head.
Honestly, I understand the article. However, I am very offended at it claiming that European women are only attractive to homosexual male fashion designers who want them to look like prepubescent lanky tall boys. That is a huge insult. Eastern European women are known to possess beautiful curves, full lips, wide open eyes or beautiful wide slitty eyes, fuller breasts and buttocks, smaller waists, high cheekbones, long legs, and more feminine brachycephalic to mesophalic and well porportioned head shapes. The farther north you go you will find women with longer faces, more dolichocephalic(masculine) skull shapes, lower cheekbones, tall lanky but missing full breasts and buttocks, less defined waists, longer noses(more masculine). Eastern European women are known to probably be mixed with many different backgrounds dating back in ancient history, as mentioned above. Eastern European women can look graceful and slender as well as curvy and seductive. There are soo many ranges. That is what makes Eastern European women so mesmerizing and beautiful. Remember that the demand for women to be thin in the fashion industry was here before the Eastern European women. They want women with beautiful features that are thin, which is wrong. The point I am trying to make is that if they wanted models that look like boys they wouldnt need eastern european women because they posess more feminine features than women of the north. Eastern European women have exotic features, that is the reason they are so in demand.
Reading your responses is time well spent, so I rattled your cage about N. European psuedo-feminisation in men (It was genuinely my point of veiw, it seemed plausible from what I knew). I don't think you can take umbrage at this observation which is relevant to this site; Swedish women are the most beautiful in the world. (Even Swedish female bodybuilders juiced to the gills look more feminine than their fellow competitors) Swedish women are in demand all over the world as models, non Swedish men of the highest status men often marry them. Sexual selection is the obvious explaination (counterbalanced by some kind of selection for men as you say) perhaps we might find some support for the expectation of a higher ratio of Y-chromosome to X-chromosome variability http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15978763 Irish women do not seem to be in as much demand http://vetinarilord.blogspot.com/2005/12/y-chromosome-variation-and-irish.html
In Pakistan the houses with the smallest highest windows (where the women are) belong to the wealthiest families advertising the fact that their women are the most secluded. (incidently, marrying cousins is a common practice in the middle east). As you say this can only have a bad effect on the quality of both sexes though Razib on gnxp did not thank you for this observation. Marrage practices explain a lot and vary a lot even within those called polygyny As I understand it Dr. Frosts explaination for relaxed sexual selection of women in some African populations involves on hoe farming so you have a point, sexual selection for women would not automaticaly loosen selection for men.
Roy: Your criticism of the Booth et al. study using American soldiers is that it was done on an unrepresentative sample. The authors compared numerous demographic characteristics of their sample with those of men in the general population in the same age range and found them to be similar. Besides, the sample is from 1965-1971 but you cited an article by Peter Frost who is mentioning the shortcomings of a decades-earlier sample. The major shortcoming being addressed by Frost is the intelligence distribution, which is not an issue in the Booth study. Frost reiterates that the IQ cutoff for joining the U.S. army, presumably 90, eliminated from consideration the majority of African-American men. However, during 1965-1971, American men aged 30-48 were overwhelmingly white, including in the army. Additionally, the relationship between testosterone and IQ is at best weak. Hence, the results of the regression analysis presented would be unaffected by including lower IQ African-Americans. Even if it were affected, the effect would be so small that the conclusion would not change.
You are interested in a study showing white men having 15% higher testosterone than sub-Saharan African men. Frost himself has cited some, but he dismisses them because they involve sub-Saharan African populations who are not sufficiently masculine or are older populations. So if Frost is going to pick his masculine sub-Saharan populations and ignore the rest, then it is only fair that I be allowed to pick the more masculine European male populations rather than all whites. I pick Nordics. You mentioned a study where the English men had a 2D:4D of 0.98 and Jamaican men had a 2D:4D of 0.93. I mentioned a study where Finnish men had a 2D:4D of 0.93. This ratio reflects prenatal testosterone exposure, which is not strongly related to testosterone levels in adulthood, as you have cited. Prenatal testosterone exposure is a combination of self production and maternal contribution. Finnish women are more feminine than West African women and hence to arrive at a 2D:4D similar to that of the most masculine West African populations, Finnish male fetuses are producing higher testosterone levels than the West African male fetuses. In reality it is not clear how comparable cross-ethnic 2D:4D comparisons are and anyone familiar with the literature on 2D:4D ratio would know better than to make much of individual studies, but if I am dealing with Frost or you then I might as well use similar reasoning. Heck, I can even go ahead and argue that the 0.95 2D:4D in Swedish men is indicative of high fetal testosterone production on their part comparable to the Finns’ and higher than the Jamaicans’ because Swedish women are more feminine than Finnish women and are raising the Swedish male average even though the fetal testosterone production is similar.
Regarding baldness, again, it is a non-issue. I already mentioned that male-typical androgen levels are required for male pattern baldness, and levels in the effeminate range of the human male are enough, and hence saying that DHT is a culprit is basically reiterating this point, but the main issue is the genetic susceptibility to baldness. Unless you have evidence that the majority of instances of genetic susceptibility to baldness not involving androgen production are related to masculinization or a more manly look, don’t bring baldness or hair thickness into the picture. My discussion of a combination of baldness, body hair and muscularity issues has been in the context of an odd mix of hypermaculine and hypomaculine features in the same individual, not in terms of a straightforward judgment of a man’s masculinity.
If Burt Lancaster has Sophia Loren’s lips, he would look odd but still not effeminate. Regarding the citations of the figures I displayed in reference to Weston et al., I mentioned that they are taken from the feminine vs. masculine page. Look there.
Anyway, don’t waste my time with these issues. They are not relevant to this site.
Roy: You cited an unpublished study that reported blond hair as a correlate of exposure at high prenatal estrogen levels (inferred from 2D:4D) to suggest that the finer facial features of Northern European men might reflect reduced masculinization. Since this is an unpublished study, I don’t know whether the higher 2D:4D (more feminine) was found in [British] men or women or both, but let us look at what published studies say.
The first one is an international comparison.
Population (P = Poland; S = Spain; E = England; H = Hungary [EH = ethnic Hungarians, HG = Hungarian Gypsies]; G = Germany; Z = Zulu; J = Jamaica; F = Finland) and sex differences (f = female and m = male) in mean 2D:4D with standard error bars). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10828555
In this study, Finnish men had the lowest 2D:4D among the white men and all men sampled, and the male-female gap was greatest among the Finnish.
Another study on a Lithuanian sample found 2D:4D ratios lower than in most white/other populations and did not report higher 2D:4D values in individuals with lighter hair: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18041401
The 2D:4D literature in general is not very good and one shouldn’t make much of an individual study here and there. Finger lengths are affected by many factors apart from sex hormones, and some men are going to have higher 2D:4D than many women in spite of being more masculine than women in general just as the typical man who is shorter than the majority of women still has much higher testosterone levels than the majority of women.
Nevertheless, the general find is that Nordic men, except for the odd Danish find, have the lowest 2D:4D in Europe, and two studies show the greatest male-female gaps among the Scandinavians.
This literature should be seen in light of other evidence. Northern European men are on average taller and more muscular than other European men. The most massive white bodybuilders and white men who dominate strong man championships are usually Northern European. If you look at the history of warfare within Europe, the general picture is one of the dominance of Northern Europeans. Defeat for Northern Europeans has typically been at the hands of other Northern Europeans (e.g., the Northern European-derived Franks from France, led by Charlemagne, defeating the Saxons of Germany). The Roman patricians were of Northern European descent. The nobility in Classical Greece was of Northern European descent (Northern Europeans comprised 25% of the Greeks then; reported by J. Lawrence Angel, and he documented from skeletal remains that the Nordics in ancient Greece were taller and more muscular than other European types there). So even some famous periods of Southern European military dominance had Northern Europeans as the people primarily responsible. Then there is the centuries-long occupation of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks, but a big reason for their success was the Janissaries, their army, which comprised of kidnapped European boys raised as Muslim and turned against the Europeans, but they still couldn’t advance north of Austria.
So it is unlikely that the finer facial features of Northern European men reflect greater feminization. Selection for more feminine women doesn’t mean that the men will get more feminized also. The requirements for hunting large game and fighting for resources in Northern Europe would have selected for masculine men. After all why was there a shortage of men? Because the men were disproportionately dying while hunting big game. Even if harsh conditions prevented men in Northern Europe from supporting multiple wives, this doesn’t mean that the better off men did not get some on the side or that the women who did not have much of a choice but to settle with a less desirable man because there weren’t enough men around didn’t try to get their children secretly fathered by more desirable men.
Frost talks about the higher prevalence of polygyny in Africa, but what does polygyny do? If some men are taking multiple wives then some men are ending up with no women. So, many men will try to ensure that their wives are not taken by higher status men, i.e., they will tend to restrict how much of their women they expose in public. Of course, the men with multiple wives/harems will try to prevent lower status men from secretly dallying with their women. And, if there are plenty of men around, then women will be more restrictive with their sexuality. This will tend to lead toward the situation you see in the Middle East (extreme case). How conducive is this system to strong sexual selection? The women have little choice and the men don’t need to develop myriad abilities that one would normally need to court desirable women (obviously because the women will not be doing much choosing); all the men need is wealth/power to convince a prospective father in-law. One is even looking at war/treachery to acquire wealth/resources or at worst stealing other men’s women.
A variant of a polygynous system is that few people are married, one is expected to be faithful while married, but unmarried individuals are free to have sex with multiple unmarried partners, and only a minority of well-off men get to have multiple wives. In this system, most men and most women get a shot at reproduction and no sex has a large number of individuals that face death without reproduction. So no especially strong sexual selection here.
Now what happens in Northern Europe? Men die disproportionately while hunting big game. So the surviving men are being selected for masculinization. There is an excess of women. The women are forced to be less restrictive with their sexuality because an interested but rejected man will simply move onto another woman. The men are not especially motivated to restrict the sexual opportunities available to women because there are so many of them. The only advantage of restricting women’s sexuality for men is increasing the certainty that who they think are their biological children are indeed so, but this comes at the great cost of undermining one’s sexual pleasure. Diminishing one’s sexual pleasure by restricting women’s sexuality when there are plenty of women around doesn’t make any sense, and no red-blooded man would be so inclined. So the women have full partner selection choice, even though limited, but no matter how limited the choice, women will be more selective than men in a comparable situation. They simply have to, given their limited childbirth capacity. This is a crucial point. Even with a shortage of men, women will still be significantly selective, and the men are of course being selective because there are so many women to choose from, and the men are typically not in a position to support multiple wives. Choice for women means that they are free to try to secretly get their children fathered by men more desirable than their husbands and not come close to risking assault/death in the process. How can you beat this when it comes to strong sexual selection under natural conditions?
Burts face is far more masculine overall, his lower lip can't take that away - point taken
(I am not carping, I admit you are right I just am curious; if someone looking like Burt had lips like a young Sophia Loren (unlikely as that would be) could that alone make him rather effeminate.
You seem to have destroyed Weston et al I will study your criticism carefuly it spells out some things I didn't get from looking at the face shape illustrations.
I knew the Khoi-San have almost the broadest cheekbones in the world but I forgot the ancestral population had a wide range.
Erik consider giving references for what you say on this site many people will assume you have less to back it up than you ovoiusly do
I was trying to paraphrase an argument of Dr. Frost's I altered the meaning by using "lack of baldness" instead of "thick hair" which is what I meant. Baldness is very relevant to masculisation in a negative sense though. Bald men are seen as less assertive and total lack of baldness is seen as a sign of aggressiveness in my opinion. Baldness is said to be related to high DHT and perhaps estrogen, it often goes with thick body hair which you think relevant in the context of masculinisation and muscularity at another site where you also mention scalp hair worls. From 16th cent. skinhead German mercenaries to Mohawk Indians to Marines and cage fighters short hair is associated with intimidation. Monks shaved the top (the very opposite of the Mohawk) to simulate baldness; so you are rightbaldess is
Women have thicker hair than men and thicker hair diameter,judging by the height of his hairstyle Burt inclines towards the feminine condition in both these
cont.
Higher IQ men are much less likely to be influenced by high T to engage in risky behaviour, need I say more.
John Manning from The Finger Book (2008)
"A Californian study of African-American and Caucasian students (Ellis,L and Nyborg,H 1992 Racial/Ethnic variations in Male Testosterone Levels: a Probable Contributer to Group Differences in Health Steroids 57:72-5) showed 15% higher testosterone concentrations in the former than the latter. This was after socio-economic status and lifestyle factors were taken into account."
Prenatal testosteronisation may not have much of a correlation with T levels in adulthood still, white men in north-east England have mean ratio of 0.98, the mean for Jamacan men 0.93.
The results of studies are all over the place; very well then show me one that has whites having 15% higher T levels than blacks.
(I am in the UK and have been reading this site since the first week it was up)
(Question)
How can I admit to ignorance of regression analysis yet not be convinced by your - logicaly valid - arguments about Rohrmann et al ?
(Answer)
The belevability of the conclusion indicates whether - given logical validity in the arguments - it was reached from true premises.
Its what I meant by saying you are too trusting, many people dislike studies showing certain racial differences, biological scientists doing the studies and providing your premises included.
Lower DHT in black men might result in more T being coverted to estrogen via aromatase, would rise with increased bodyfat? Estrogen promotes cancer - agreed.
The Booth study would not have the potential for unwelcome racial results being massaged and strikes at the heart of Peter Frost's "wild speculation", very well chosen study, you are indeed familiar with this area.
Here it comes:
It is not wild speculation to point out that Booth et al being done on men who had served in the US army, was done on a unrepresentative sampling http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/05/iq-interaction-between-race-and-age.html
US army induction tests.
Roy: You mentioned lack of baldness in Burt Lancaster. How is this relevant to masculinization? Male pattern baldness results from a combination of genetic susceptibility and androgens, but if genetic susceptibility is there then even men with low testosterone levels will become bald.
You also mentioned that Burt has thicker lower lips that Leonardo and hence is not a good example of a masculine male face but this point is irrelevant. Faces are shaped by many factors apart from sex hormones and it is the overall appearance that matters. A more overall masculine face is not necessarily more masculine looking on every count; it simply needs to look more masculine in the majority of feature comparisons.
You cited a study showing that “sexual selection gives men relatively shorter upper faces for their breadth compared to females,” better stated as men have wider face for the same upper face height, where upper face height is roughly the distance between the point where the forehead meets the nose and the upper lip. You cited this find because this is how Leonardo differs from Burt. The authors (Weston et al.; Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face) have chosen to present their data in a poor manner, and it is misleading. Their find can be summed up in this figure showing that men have wider faces but similar upper face height compared to women. Their example contrasts a normal woman with an effeminate man. On the other hand, I have cited studies (see the feminine vs. masculine page) where masculinization makes the face shape narrower (example 1, example 2). So why the difference? The studies that I cited used European individuals whereas the Weston et al. study used Southern African populations, and I wonder if this is relevant because the Khoi-San people appear facially less sexually dimorphic than Europeans, and sexual dimorphism of individual features is not necessarily similar across populations. But importantly, in the studies that I cited, the results are shown for face shape, which is evaluated after adjusting for face size, and face size was adjusted by computing centroid size. But Weston et al. have a poor proxy for face size, namely the basicranial or basion-nasion length (shown by the distance between ba and n in this figure) rather than computing the centroid size from several such inter-landmark distances. In addition, even for the same face size, the basion-nasion length is increased with masculinization. Their statistics comprise of comparing how all combinations of the relative growths of two inter-landmark distances change from childhood to adulthood in men and women. So what they found is that the absolute width of the male face at the level of the cheekbones is greater than in the female whereas the absolute height of the upper face is similar. Since sexual selection acts on how all parts of the face fit together, it is clear that they should evaluate changes in a particular feature in relation to the rest of the face (e.g., face size as in centroid size). For instance, increasing the length of the lower jaw in men will make the face look overall narrower.
Another issue is that the upper face height metric used by the authors comprises of nose length + distance between nose tip and upper lip. In both illustrations that I have shown, where the comparisons keep face size constant, you can see that the distance between nose tip and upper lip increases with masculinization. One of these figures even shows that the region where the nose meets the forehead moves slightly upward with masculinization. The nose length comprises of the bony part plus the soft cartilage part. For the same face size, the cartilage part is longer and the bony part shorter in men, corresponding to the air intake part being larger in men.
Leonardo DiCaprio is clearly much more effeminate than Burt Lancaster.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s appeal among many women results from his being cast as a romantic lead in big films such as the Titanic, and it would be naïve to believe that Hollywood simply caters to the demands or preferences of the public. For instance, there is a strong market for Christian-themed movies in the U.S., but how many such films do the big-budget Hollywood studios churn out? I would be surprised if very many feminine and attractive young adult women would be interested in men with the looks of Leonardo DiCaprio.
I have already mentioned that studies examining women’s preferences for facial masculinity in men reveal results all over the map: a preference for above average masculinization, normal faces or below average masculinization, but studies examining specific features such as chin length or the physique have found a preference for above average masculinization. There is bound to be an upper limit of masculinization beyond which appeal to women diminishes, but this article does not deal with this topic; it address how shape varies with varying levels of masculinization.
Typo: Thanks for pointing out the typo. I corrected it.
Roy: If you are going to criticize some point, then don’t sign off as “evo and proud” because at first I assumed that you were describing yourself. Link to the criticism.
Here are the two links on testosterone and ethnicity by Peter Frost you were referencing –
The first link explains the context or why it is important for Peter Frost to maintain that West/Central Africans and African-Americans have higher testosterone levels than white men.
You said that you are not familiar with regression analysis. So how can you be so sure that Peter Frost has refuted my arguments? Let us look at his arguments.
Frost has a strange interpretation of age-adjusted values. When someone talks about reporting values that have been adjusted for age, it means that all ages have been taken into consideration. Just because the authors choose to present the hormone level statistics by three broad age groups, it doesn’t mean that the hormone values are adjusted for membership in one of the three age groups. A related point by him is that “the black-white difference in t levels shrinks after 24 years of age, is gone by the early 30s, and seems to reverse at older ages,” but given that the literature has shown results all over the map and null finds, how can he use one study, using non-representative sampling, to insist on this statement so definitively? And the reason he brings out this point is because of his misinterpretation that the age adjustment was by broad age group rather than all ages. This mistake also prompts him to invoke [small] differences in median ages between the groups.
He ignores various kinds of adjustments on the data. For instance, let us say that over a 10-year period, an adult man reduces his average daily production of testosterone but also gains percentage body fat, and that the percentage increase in body fat is greater than the percentage decrease in testosterone. Thus, at the end of the 10-year period, this man would be producing more testosterone when adjusted for level of body fat even though his actual testosterone values have declined. And again, the sample is cross-sectional.
He does not address the higher estrogen levels in African-American men, something that numerous studies have reported. He also does not address higher AAG levels in white men, which is an indicator of greater conversion of testosterone to DHT (roughly conceptualize DHT as a more potent form of testosterone). He has pointed to higher rates of prostate cancer among African-American men as suggestive of higher testosterone levels but it is known that estrogens are a major culprit in up to half of prostate cancers.
Rohrmann et al. indicated that they only had access to 1479 out of 1998 blood samples. Frost speculates that the unavailable samples had been removed for further study after they were found to have been infected by a herpes virus (sexually transmitted). Then he figured that the African-Americans, being more promiscuous, were more likely to have gotten infected, and inferred that their greater promiscuity was a result of higher testosterone levels i.e., the higher testosterone African-American men were disproportionately not analyzed. This is wild speculation, but more importantly it reflects Frost’s unfamiliarity with the literature.
Look at the following from Booth et al. (1999). They examined testosterone levels and various behaviors in a random sample of 4,393 men that had served in the U.S. army during the years 1965 and 1971. The average age was 37 and the age range was 30-48. These men were representative of American men in the same age group. The first dataset indicates the percentage increase in the likelihood of sexually transmitted disease and promiscuity with increasing testosterone levels. The testosterone levels are reported in nanograms of testosterone per deciliter of blood (ng/dl). The great majority of men lie in the 300-1000 ng/dl range. We observe that with every 200 ng/dl increase in testosterone, the likelihood of having experienced a sexually transmitted infection increased by 16.5%, which is appreciable.
Percentage increase in behavior(s) for a range of increase in testosterone levels in men.
But what proportion of the variation in sexually transmitted infections and promiscuity was accounted for by testosterone? Here is where regression analysis enters in, but you don’t have to worry about understanding it. Just look at the R2 values below.
The R2 value explains the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable (behavior) accounted for by the variable(s) entered (age and testosterone in our case). For sexually transmitted infections, this value is a mere 0.006 or 0.6%, and for promiscuity this value is a mere 0.010 or 1%. In other words, testosterone is accounting for very little of the variance in promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases in the sample (because too many factors affect these variables, which in turn suggests that it is a naïve assumption on Frost’s part to assume that greater promiscuity in African-Americans is due to higher testosterone levels). So even if we assume that all unavailable blood samples in the Rohrmann et al. study were removed due to herpes infection and that African-Americans were strongly overrepresented in the omitted samples, it wouldn’t follow that the omissions have prevented the average testosterone levels in African-American men from registering above the white average.
Frost has made weak arguments, and I will have more to say in other replies to your comments.
"Attractive non European faces are closer to European norms than the average of their respectve ethnic groups"
Yes and no.
Evidence suggests the statement holds true for women's faces, as one would expect given the sexual selection north European women have been subjected to. However it is hardly a corollary for the same to be true of men, if anything tight sexual selection for women brings relaxed selection for men. http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/02/origins-of-black-africans.html
Not having gone through all the pages of the "attractive women section" my immediate thought was that the difference is that the women in the "attractive women section" generally has a very innocent and young look to them, where the women on this page looks more "adult" so to speak... the women in then "attractive women section" almost looks too young compared to the women on this page.
I think all of the women on this page is at least 7 or above on a scale of 10.
I personally think that the maturity or adultness of the women on this page makes them a lot more interesting.
Christopher Walken might be a better choice for the least masculine face. Top catwalk models may be masculine but I don't think Leonardo DeCaprio could have made it as a top leading man if he looked effeminate. The most striking thing about him is his very short upper face which is appealing to women (see Sexual selection for less threatening looks in men) above. A study on female assesment of male face shape (Johnston ,Victor S. et al 2001) found that moderately masculine features are associated with an attractive , exciting, virile, healthy and protective man. When the shape became too masculine their perception turned negative and the man was seen to be threatening, volatile, controlling, manipulative, and selfish. (quoted from Fair Women, Dark men ) Laurence Tierney had a long upper face and conformed to the perceptions in real life. Maybe you could put find someone to replace DeCaprio
I totally agree that you people are not looking closely enough at the feminine beauty of rebecca romijn, also, she was great as mystique very curvy and graceful
"East Asian Manga is full of characters with face shapes shifted toward European norms;"
Uhh, how do you know this is an indicator of east asian beauty standards? The anime art style typically looks like a caricature of european features, and I've read from the works of a number of cultural anthropologists that east asians don't really view them as looking more foreign.
Have you also ever addressed the issue of skin color here? I've been looking for some unbiased analysis of that.
"the models in magazines catering to the African-American community have faces shifted toward European norms, and so on."
That's hard to say as to whether that's really due to europeanization and little else. It could be that black models in african-american magazines have lower testosterone levels due to greater european ancestry.
Really, the only major problems I see with the typical attractiveness of black women are their larger mouths (though that's not really much of an ethnic trait) and their greater masculinity. It'd be interesting to see a study that takes those factors into account, compared to their other ethnic features.
A son who looked like a Greek god could father any amount of children. The most attractive daughter would be far more limited, however for much of evolutionary time in northern Europe men died off; being around as a live provider was a big selling point while the women had to look special to get a mate. This might lead one to think that the looks of men in northern Europe have been far less important than that of women until very recent times http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/03/questions-on-polygyny-and-changing.html
The risk of having a plain daughter would have outweighed the benifits of a greek god son (doesn't hold true for a polygamous society) The article does not seem to take into account the tendency for offspring to favour the father's looks and physical size -Insulin Like Growth Factor 2 - over the mother, (who contributes the personality mainly).
Mothers can compensate for the fathers looks to a lesser extent than the article suggests.
"Don't waste my time with these issues.They are not relevant to this site"
Quite so, but you ought to have told this to Dot when he asked about Testosterone levels ect. in black men, that or ignored him. Please bear in mind that the less relevant an issue is to your site the more likely someone will think you are wrong about it and say so.
If you wander off your turf expect a challenge.
"Don't waste my time with these issues. They are not relevant to this site"
Quite so, its what you should have said to Dot when he asked about the T. levels of black men, that or ignored him. Please bear in mind; the less relevant an issue is to this site the more likely someone might think you're wrong about it and say so.
If you wander off your turf expect a challenge.
Comments on Decaprio, face shape studies and gracilization are as relevant to this site as this page is, if it's a wasting your time perhaps it you ought to be taking it down. I admit to going on a bit - sorry - I was thinking out loud. The site design encourages comments. You answered all my points. Although I made them forcefully I didn't want them to be true, I don't look like DeCaprio. Anyway, thank you for sharing your knowledge.
#1 and #8 would look really nice with a brazilian wax
Ingrid: No, you have not understood the article. I have made nothing close to the claim you think I have made. First, a little bit of background.
The explanation we are looking for is simple and parsimonious. Few women will participate in pornography, nude modeling, prostitution, or starve to model for homosexual fashion designers, and the poor ones are more likely participants. So the question is where in the world do we find a large number of poor women with strong international appeal? It is necessary to find a large supply of poor women so that one can be selective. Strong international appeal is an obvious requirement for pornstars, prostitutes and nude models. Similarly, appeal to homosexual fashion designers is an obvious requirement for fashion modeling. And what is common to both strong international appeal and appeal to homosexual fashion designers? Northern European features involving color and fine facial features. So is the answer now obvious? If Alexandra/Ali Michael were Eastern European, do you think she would have given up like she did?
As an off-topic issue, you are mistaken about basic skull shapes being associated with masculinization and feminization. Seen from the side/profile view, we have many types of heads (crania is a better term; the cranium is the skull minus the face): elongated (dolichocephalic), roundish (brachycephalic), heads in between these two types (mesocephalic), etc. Sex hormones affect head shapes, but they do not cause these basic types of head shapes. For instance, masculinization tends to make the forehead more sloping and deform the back of the head as in some flattening of the upper back of the head.
Layla looks positively boring. Very plain.
Honestly, I understand the article. However, I am very offended at it claiming that European women are only attractive to homosexual male fashion designers who want them to look like prepubescent lanky tall boys. That is a huge insult. Eastern European women are known to possess beautiful curves, full lips, wide open eyes or beautiful wide slitty eyes, fuller breasts and buttocks, smaller waists, high cheekbones, long legs, and more feminine brachycephalic to mesophalic and well porportioned head shapes. The farther north you go you will find women with longer faces, more dolichocephalic(masculine) skull shapes, lower cheekbones, tall lanky but missing full breasts and buttocks, less defined waists, longer noses(more masculine). Eastern European women are known to probably be mixed with many different backgrounds dating back in ancient history, as mentioned above. Eastern European women can look graceful and slender as well as curvy and seductive. There are soo many ranges. That is what makes Eastern European women so mesmerizing and beautiful. Remember that the demand for women to be thin in the fashion industry was here before the Eastern European women. They want women with beautiful features that are thin, which is wrong. The point I am trying to make is that if they wanted models that look like boys they wouldnt need eastern european women because they posess more feminine features than women of the north. Eastern European women have exotic features, that is the reason they are so in demand.
Reading your responses is time well spent, so I rattled your cage about N. European psuedo-feminisation in men (It was genuinely my point of veiw, it seemed plausible from what I knew). I don't think you can take umbrage at this observation which is relevant to this site; Swedish women are the most beautiful in the world. (Even Swedish female bodybuilders juiced to the gills look more feminine than their fellow competitors) Swedish women are in demand all over the world as models, non Swedish men of the highest status men often marry them. Sexual selection is the obvious explaination (counterbalanced by some kind of selection for men as you say) perhaps we might find some support for the expectation of a higher ratio of Y-chromosome to X-chromosome variability
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15978763 Irish women do not seem to be in as much demand http://vetinarilord.blogspot.com/2005/12/y-chromosome-variation-and-irish.html
In Pakistan the houses with the smallest highest windows (where the women are) belong to the wealthiest families advertising the fact that their women are the most secluded. (incidently, marrying cousins is a common practice in the middle east). As you say this can only have a bad effect on the quality of both sexes though Razib on gnxp did not thank you for this observation. Marrage practices explain a lot and vary a lot even within those called polygyny As I understand it Dr. Frosts explaination for relaxed sexual selection of women in some African populations involves on hoe farming so you have a point, sexual selection for women would not automaticaly loosen selection for men.
Roy: Your criticism of the Booth et al. study using American soldiers is that it was done on an unrepresentative sample. The authors compared numerous demographic characteristics of their sample with those of men in the general population in the same age range and found them to be similar. Besides, the sample is from 1965-1971 but you cited an article by Peter Frost who is mentioning the shortcomings of a decades-earlier sample. The major shortcoming being addressed by Frost is the intelligence distribution, which is not an issue in the Booth study. Frost reiterates that the IQ cutoff for joining the U.S. army, presumably 90, eliminated from consideration the majority of African-American men. However, during 1965-1971, American men aged 30-48 were overwhelmingly white, including in the army. Additionally, the relationship between testosterone and IQ is at best weak. Hence, the results of the regression analysis presented would be unaffected by including lower IQ African-Americans. Even if it were affected, the effect would be so small that the conclusion would not change.
You are interested in a study showing white men having 15% higher testosterone than sub-Saharan African men. Frost himself has cited some, but he dismisses them because they involve sub-Saharan African populations who are not sufficiently masculine or are older populations. So if Frost is going to pick his masculine sub-Saharan populations and ignore the rest, then it is only fair that I be allowed to pick the more masculine European male populations rather than all whites. I pick Nordics. You mentioned a study where the English men had a 2D:4D of 0.98 and Jamaican men had a 2D:4D of 0.93. I mentioned a study where Finnish men had a 2D:4D of 0.93. This ratio reflects prenatal testosterone exposure, which is not strongly related to testosterone levels in adulthood, as you have cited. Prenatal testosterone exposure is a combination of self production and maternal contribution. Finnish women are more feminine than West African women and hence to arrive at a 2D:4D similar to that of the most masculine West African populations, Finnish male fetuses are producing higher testosterone levels than the West African male fetuses. In reality it is not clear how comparable cross-ethnic 2D:4D comparisons are and anyone familiar with the literature on 2D:4D ratio would know better than to make much of individual studies, but if I am dealing with Frost or you then I might as well use similar reasoning. Heck, I can even go ahead and argue that the 0.95 2D:4D in Swedish men is indicative of high fetal testosterone production on their part comparable to the Finns’ and higher than the Jamaicans’ because Swedish women are more feminine than Finnish women and are raising the Swedish male average even though the fetal testosterone production is similar.
Regarding baldness, again, it is a non-issue. I already mentioned that male-typical androgen levels are required for male pattern baldness, and levels in the effeminate range of the human male are enough, and hence saying that DHT is a culprit is basically reiterating this point, but the main issue is the genetic susceptibility to baldness. Unless you have evidence that the majority of instances of genetic susceptibility to baldness not involving androgen production are related to masculinization or a more manly look, don’t bring baldness or hair thickness into the picture. My discussion of a combination of baldness, body hair and muscularity issues has been in the context of an odd mix of hypermaculine and hypomaculine features in the same individual, not in terms of a straightforward judgment of a man’s masculinity.
If Burt Lancaster has Sophia Loren’s lips, he would look odd but still not effeminate. Regarding the citations of the figures I displayed in reference to Weston et al., I mentioned that they are taken from the feminine vs. masculine page. Look there.
Anyway, don’t waste my time with these issues. They are not relevant to this site.
Roy: You cited an unpublished study that reported blond hair as a correlate of exposure at high prenatal estrogen levels (inferred from 2D:4D) to suggest that the finer facial features of Northern European men might reflect reduced masculinization. Since this is an unpublished study, I don’t know whether the higher 2D:4D (more feminine) was found in [British] men or women or both, but let us look at what published studies say.
The first one is an international comparison.
In this study, Finnish men had the lowest 2D:4D among the white men and all men sampled, and the male-female gap was greatest among the Finnish.
In another study on some European populations, Swedish men had the lowest 2D:4D, Swedish women the highest 2D:4D, and the male-female gap was greatest among the Swedes (the Swedish/London sample included Swedes born in Sweden and living in London; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16350659).
Another study on a Lithuanian sample found 2D:4D ratios lower than in most white/other populations and did not report higher 2D:4D values in individuals with lighter hair: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18041401
An odd find has been from Denmark, where the male 2D:4D was higher than in all other reported populations, including values higher than in women in most populations: http://humrep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/20/11/3109
The 2D:4D literature in general is not very good and one shouldn’t make much of an individual study here and there. Finger lengths are affected by many factors apart from sex hormones, and some men are going to have higher 2D:4D than many women in spite of being more masculine than women in general just as the typical man who is shorter than the majority of women still has much higher testosterone levels than the majority of women.
Nevertheless, the general find is that Nordic men, except for the odd Danish find, have the lowest 2D:4D in Europe, and two studies show the greatest male-female gaps among the Scandinavians.
This literature should be seen in light of other evidence. Northern European men are on average taller and more muscular than other European men. The most massive white bodybuilders and white men who dominate strong man championships are usually Northern European. If you look at the history of warfare within Europe, the general picture is one of the dominance of Northern Europeans. Defeat for Northern Europeans has typically been at the hands of other Northern Europeans (e.g., the Northern European-derived Franks from France, led by Charlemagne, defeating the Saxons of Germany). The Roman patricians were of Northern European descent. The nobility in Classical Greece was of Northern European descent (Northern Europeans comprised 25% of the Greeks then; reported by J. Lawrence Angel, and he documented from skeletal remains that the Nordics in ancient Greece were taller and more muscular than other European types there). So even some famous periods of Southern European military dominance had Northern Europeans as the people primarily responsible. Then there is the centuries-long occupation of the Balkans by the Ottoman Turks, but a big reason for their success was the Janissaries, their army, which comprised of kidnapped European boys raised as Muslim and turned against the Europeans, but they still couldn’t advance north of Austria.
So it is unlikely that the finer facial features of Northern European men reflect greater feminization. Selection for more feminine women doesn’t mean that the men will get more feminized also. The requirements for hunting large game and fighting for resources in Northern Europe would have selected for masculine men. After all why was there a shortage of men? Because the men were disproportionately dying while hunting big game. Even if harsh conditions prevented men in Northern Europe from supporting multiple wives, this doesn’t mean that the better off men did not get some on the side or that the women who did not have much of a choice but to settle with a less desirable man because there weren’t enough men around didn’t try to get their children secretly fathered by more desirable men.
Frost talks about the higher prevalence of polygyny in Africa, but what does polygyny do? If some men are taking multiple wives then some men are ending up with no women. So, many men will try to ensure that their wives are not taken by higher status men, i.e., they will tend to restrict how much of their women they expose in public. Of course, the men with multiple wives/harems will try to prevent lower status men from secretly dallying with their women. And, if there are plenty of men around, then women will be more restrictive with their sexuality. This will tend to lead toward the situation you see in the Middle East (extreme case). How conducive is this system to strong sexual selection? The women have little choice and the men don’t need to develop myriad abilities that one would normally need to court desirable women (obviously because the women will not be doing much choosing); all the men need is wealth/power to convince a prospective father in-law. One is even looking at war/treachery to acquire wealth/resources or at worst stealing other men’s women.
A variant of a polygynous system is that few people are married, one is expected to be faithful while married, but unmarried individuals are free to have sex with multiple unmarried partners, and only a minority of well-off men get to have multiple wives. In this system, most men and most women get a shot at reproduction and no sex has a large number of individuals that face death without reproduction. So no especially strong sexual selection here.
Now what happens in Northern Europe? Men die disproportionately while hunting big game. So the surviving men are being selected for masculinization. There is an excess of women. The women are forced to be less restrictive with their sexuality because an interested but rejected man will simply move onto another woman. The men are not especially motivated to restrict the sexual opportunities available to women because there are so many of them. The only advantage of restricting women’s sexuality for men is increasing the certainty that who they think are their biological children are indeed so, but this comes at the great cost of undermining one’s sexual pleasure. Diminishing one’s sexual pleasure by restricting women’s sexuality when there are plenty of women around doesn’t make any sense, and no red-blooded man would be so inclined. So the women have full partner selection choice, even though limited, but no matter how limited the choice, women will be more selective than men in a comparable situation. They simply have to, given their limited childbirth capacity. This is a crucial point. Even with a shortage of men, women will still be significantly selective, and the men are of course being selective because there are so many women to choose from, and the men are typically not in a position to support multiple wives. Choice for women means that they are free to try to secretly get their children fathered by men more desirable than their husbands and not come close to risking assault/death in the process. How can you beat this when it comes to strong sexual selection under natural conditions?
Burts face is far more masculine overall, his lower lip can't take that away - point taken
(I am not carping, I admit you are right I just am curious; if someone looking like Burt had lips like a young Sophia Loren (unlikely as that would be) could that alone make him rather effeminate.
You seem to have destroyed Weston et al I will study your criticism carefuly it spells out some things I didn't get from looking at the face shape illustrations.
I knew the Khoi-San have almost the broadest cheekbones in the world but I forgot the ancestral population had a wide range.
Erik consider giving references for what you say on this site many people will assume you have less to back it up than you ovoiusly do
I was trying to paraphrase an argument of Dr. Frost's I altered the meaning by using "lack of baldness" instead of "thick hair" which is what I meant. Baldness is very relevant to masculisation in a negative sense though. Bald men are seen as less assertive and total lack of baldness is seen as a sign of aggressiveness in my opinion. Baldness is said to be related to high DHT and perhaps estrogen, it often goes with thick body hair which you think relevant in the context of masculinisation and muscularity at another site where you also mention scalp hair worls. From 16th cent. skinhead German mercenaries to Mohawk Indians to Marines and cage fighters short hair is associated with intimidation. Monks shaved the top (the very opposite of the Mohawk) to simulate baldness; so you are rightbaldess is
Women have thicker hair than men and thicker hair diameter,judging by the height of his hairstyle Burt inclines towards the feminine condition in both these
cont.
Higher IQ men are much less likely to be influenced by high T to engage in risky behaviour, need I say more.
John Manning from The Finger Book (2008)
"A Californian study of African-American and Caucasian students (Ellis,L and Nyborg,H 1992 Racial/Ethnic variations in Male Testosterone Levels: a Probable Contributer to Group Differences in Health Steroids 57:72-5) showed 15% higher testosterone concentrations in the former than the latter. This was after socio-economic status and lifestyle factors were taken into account."
Prenatal testosteronisation may not have much of a correlation with T levels in adulthood still, white men in north-east England have mean ratio of 0.98, the mean for Jamacan men 0.93.
The results of studies are all over the place; very well then show me one that has whites having 15% higher T levels than blacks.
Re 'signing off' - point taken.
(I am in the UK and have been reading this site since the first week it was up)
(Question)
How can I admit to ignorance of regression analysis yet not be convinced by your - logicaly valid - arguments about Rohrmann et al ?
(Answer)
The belevability of the conclusion indicates whether - given logical validity in the arguments - it was reached from true premises.
Its what I meant by saying you are too trusting, many people dislike studies showing certain racial differences, biological scientists doing the studies and providing your premises included.
Lower DHT in black men might result in more T being coverted to estrogen via aromatase, would rise with increased bodyfat? Estrogen promotes cancer - agreed.
The Booth study would not have the potential for unwelcome racial results being massaged and strikes at the heart of Peter Frost's "wild speculation", very well chosen study, you are indeed familiar with this area.
Here it comes:
It is not wild speculation to point out that Booth et al being done on men who had served in the US army, was done on a unrepresentative sampling http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/05/iq-interaction-between-race-and-age.html
US army induction tests.
Roy: You mentioned lack of baldness in Burt Lancaster. How is this relevant to masculinization? Male pattern baldness results from a combination of genetic susceptibility and androgens, but if genetic susceptibility is there then even men with low testosterone levels will become bald.
You also mentioned that Burt has thicker lower lips that Leonardo and hence is not a good example of a masculine male face but this point is irrelevant. Faces are shaped by many factors apart from sex hormones and it is the overall appearance that matters. A more overall masculine face is not necessarily more masculine looking on every count; it simply needs to look more masculine in the majority of feature comparisons.
You cited a study showing that “sexual selection gives men relatively shorter upper faces for their breadth compared to females,” better stated as men have wider face for the same upper face height, where upper face height is roughly the distance between the point where the forehead meets the nose and the upper lip. You cited this find because this is how Leonardo differs from Burt. The authors (Weston et al.; Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face) have chosen to present their data in a poor manner, and it is misleading. Their find can be summed up in this figure showing that men have wider faces but similar upper face height compared to women. Their example contrasts a normal woman with an effeminate man. On the other hand, I have cited studies (see the feminine vs. masculine page) where masculinization makes the face shape narrower (example 1, example 2). So why the difference? The studies that I cited used European individuals whereas the Weston et al. study used Southern African populations, and I wonder if this is relevant because the Khoi-San people appear facially less sexually dimorphic than Europeans, and sexual dimorphism of individual features is not necessarily similar across populations. But importantly, in the studies that I cited, the results are shown for face shape, which is evaluated after adjusting for face size, and face size was adjusted by computing centroid size. But Weston et al. have a poor proxy for face size, namely the basicranial or basion-nasion length (shown by the distance between ba and n in this figure) rather than computing the centroid size from several such inter-landmark distances. In addition, even for the same face size, the basion-nasion length is increased with masculinization. Their statistics comprise of comparing how all combinations of the relative growths of two inter-landmark distances change from childhood to adulthood in men and women. So what they found is that the absolute width of the male face at the level of the cheekbones is greater than in the female whereas the absolute height of the upper face is similar. Since sexual selection acts on how all parts of the face fit together, it is clear that they should evaluate changes in a particular feature in relation to the rest of the face (e.g., face size as in centroid size). For instance, increasing the length of the lower jaw in men will make the face look overall narrower.
Another issue is that the upper face height metric used by the authors comprises of nose length + distance between nose tip and upper lip. In both illustrations that I have shown, where the comparisons keep face size constant, you can see that the distance between nose tip and upper lip increases with masculinization. One of these figures even shows that the region where the nose meets the forehead moves slightly upward with masculinization. The nose length comprises of the bony part plus the soft cartilage part. For the same face size, the cartilage part is longer and the bony part shorter in men, corresponding to the air intake part being larger in men.
Leonardo DiCaprio is clearly much more effeminate than Burt Lancaster.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s appeal among many women results from his being cast as a romantic lead in big films such as the Titanic, and it would be naïve to believe that Hollywood simply caters to the demands or preferences of the public. For instance, there is a strong market for Christian-themed movies in the U.S., but how many such films do the big-budget Hollywood studios churn out? I would be surprised if very many feminine and attractive young adult women would be interested in men with the looks of Leonardo DiCaprio.
I have already mentioned that studies examining women’s preferences for facial masculinity in men reveal results all over the map: a preference for above average masculinization, normal faces or below average masculinization, but studies examining specific features such as chin length or the physique have found a preference for above average masculinization. There is bound to be an upper limit of masculinization beyond which appeal to women diminishes, but this article does not deal with this topic; it address how shape varies with varying levels of masculinization.
Typo: Thanks for pointing out the typo. I corrected it.
Roy: If you are going to criticize some point, then don’t sign off as “evo and proud” because at first I assumed that you were describing yourself. Link to the criticism.
Here are the two links on testosterone and ethnicity by Peter Frost you were referencing –
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/03/testosterone-and-human-variation.html
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-on-rohrmann-et-al.html
The first link explains the context or why it is important for Peter Frost to maintain that West/Central Africans and African-Americans have higher testosterone levels than white men.
You said that you are not familiar with regression analysis. So how can you be so sure that Peter Frost has refuted my arguments? Let us look at his arguments.
Testosterone and white male – West African male differences
Frost has a strange interpretation of age-adjusted values. When someone talks about reporting values that have been adjusted for age, it means that all ages have been taken into consideration. Just because the authors choose to present the hormone level statistics by three broad age groups, it doesn’t mean that the hormone values are adjusted for membership in one of the three age groups. A related point by him is that “the black-white difference in t levels shrinks after 24 years of age, is gone by the early 30s, and seems to reverse at older ages,” but given that the literature has shown results all over the map and null finds, how can he use one study, using non-representative sampling, to insist on this statement so definitively? And the reason he brings out this point is because of his misinterpretation that the age adjustment was by broad age group rather than all ages. This mistake also prompts him to invoke [small] differences in median ages between the groups.
He ignores various kinds of adjustments on the data. For instance, let us say that over a 10-year period, an adult man reduces his average daily production of testosterone but also gains percentage body fat, and that the percentage increase in body fat is greater than the percentage decrease in testosterone. Thus, at the end of the 10-year period, this man would be producing more testosterone when adjusted for level of body fat even though his actual testosterone values have declined. And again, the sample is cross-sectional.
He does not address the higher estrogen levels in African-American men, something that numerous studies have reported. He also does not address higher AAG levels in white men, which is an indicator of greater conversion of testosterone to DHT (roughly conceptualize DHT as a more potent form of testosterone). He has pointed to higher rates of prostate cancer among African-American men as suggestive of higher testosterone levels but it is known that estrogens are a major culprit in up to half of prostate cancers.
Rohrmann et al. indicated that they only had access to 1479 out of 1998 blood samples. Frost speculates that the unavailable samples had been removed for further study after they were found to have been infected by a herpes virus (sexually transmitted). Then he figured that the African-Americans, being more promiscuous, were more likely to have gotten infected, and inferred that their greater promiscuity was a result of higher testosterone levels i.e., the higher testosterone African-American men were disproportionately not analyzed. This is wild speculation, but more importantly it reflects Frost’s unfamiliarity with the literature.
Look at the following from Booth et al. (1999). They examined testosterone levels and various behaviors in a random sample of 4,393 men that had served in the U.S. army during the years 1965 and 1971. The average age was 37 and the age range was 30-48. These men were representative of American men in the same age group. The first dataset indicates the percentage increase in the likelihood of sexually transmitted disease and promiscuity with increasing testosterone levels. The testosterone levels are reported in nanograms of testosterone per deciliter of blood (ng/dl). The great majority of men lie in the 300-1000 ng/dl range. We observe that with every 200 ng/dl increase in testosterone, the likelihood of having experienced a sexually transmitted infection increased by 16.5%, which is appreciable.
But what proportion of the variation in sexually transmitted infections and promiscuity was accounted for by testosterone? Here is where regression analysis enters in, but you don’t have to worry about understanding it. Just look at the R2 values below.
The R2 value explains the proportion of the variation in the dependent variable (behavior) accounted for by the variable(s) entered (age and testosterone in our case). For sexually transmitted infections, this value is a mere 0.006 or 0.6%, and for promiscuity this value is a mere 0.010 or 1%. In other words, testosterone is accounting for very little of the variance in promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases in the sample (because too many factors affect these variables, which in turn suggests that it is a naïve assumption on Frost’s part to assume that greater promiscuity in African-Americans is due to higher testosterone levels). So even if we assume that all unavailable blood samples in the Rohrmann et al. study were removed due to herpes infection and that African-Americans were strongly overrepresented in the omitted samples, it wouldn’t follow that the omissions have prevented the average testosterone levels in African-American men from registering above the white average.
Frost has made weak arguments, and I will have more to say in other replies to your comments.
"Attractive non European faces are closer to European norms than the average of their respectve ethnic groups"
Yes and no.
Evidence suggests the statement holds true for women's faces, as one would expect given the sexual selection north European women have been subjected to. However it is hardly a corollary for the same to be true of men, if anything tight sexual selection for women brings relaxed selection for men. http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/02/origins-of-black-africans.html
Not having gone through all the pages of the "attractive women section" my immediate thought was that the difference is that the women in the "attractive women section" generally has a very innocent and young look to them, where the women on this page looks more "adult" so to speak... the women in then "attractive women section" almost looks too young compared to the women on this page.
I think all of the women on this page is at least 7 or above on a scale of 10.
I personally think that the maturity or adultness of the women on this page makes them a lot more interesting.
They don't look too sexy because they have imbalanced and/or unsymmetrical faces and/or bodies; there is something 'off ' about them.
My last word, I think it is a tactical mistake to use DeCaprio as a clear cut example of an effeminate face, it will hurt this sites credibility with many women who might agree with you about fashion models. Just as his broad jaw (which women like) makes his chin look more pointed, his large head makes his lower face look shorter than it is - until someone is beside him http://img2.timeinc.net/people/i/2005/gallery/beautifulcouples/12bundchen.jpg his taste is improving http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k199/nunung_2006/2322-bar_rafaeli04.jpg
Story, last paragraph, first line - "Unlikely women"
Christopher Walken might be a better choice for the least masculine face. Top catwalk models may be masculine but I don't think Leonardo DeCaprio could have made it as a top leading man if he looked effeminate. The most striking thing about him is his very short upper face which is appealing to women (see Sexual selection for less threatening looks in men) above. A study on female assesment of male face shape (Johnston ,Victor S. et al 2001) found that moderately masculine features are associated with an attractive , exciting, virile, healthy and protective man. When the shape became too masculine their perception turned negative and the man was seen to be threatening, volatile, controlling, manipulative, and selfish. (quoted from Fair Women, Dark men ) Laurence Tierney had a long upper face and conformed to the perceptions in real life. Maybe you could put find someone to replace DeCaprio
Heidi looks like a man end of story.
I totally agree that you people are not looking closely enough at the feminine beauty of rebecca romijn, also, she was great as mystique very curvy and graceful
"East Asian Manga is full of characters with face shapes shifted toward European norms;"
Uhh, how do you know this is an indicator of east asian beauty standards? The anime art style typically looks like a caricature of european features, and I've read from the works of a number of cultural anthropologists that east asians don't really view them as looking more foreign.
Have you also ever addressed the issue of skin color here? I've been looking for some unbiased analysis of that.
"the models in magazines catering to the African-American community have faces shifted toward European norms, and so on."
That's hard to say as to whether that's really due to europeanization and little else. It could be that black models in african-american magazines have lower testosterone levels due to greater european ancestry.
Really, the only major problems I see with the typical attractiveness of black women are their larger mouths (though that's not really much of an ethnic trait) and their greater masculinity. It'd be interesting to see a study that takes those factors into account, compared to their other ethnic features.
A son who looked like a Greek god could father any amount of children. The most attractive daughter would be far more limited, however for much of evolutionary time in northern Europe men died off; being around as a live provider was a big selling point while the women had to look special to get a mate. This might lead one to think that the looks of men in northern Europe have been far less important than that of women until very recent times http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/03/questions-on-polygyny-and-changing.html
The risk of having a plain daughter would have outweighed the benifits of a greek god son (doesn't hold true for a polygamous society) The article does not seem to take into account the tendency for offspring to favour the father's looks and physical size -Insulin Like Growth Factor 2 - over the mother, (who contributes the personality mainly).
Mothers can compensate for the fathers looks to a lesser extent than the article suggests.
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