duston

If I was a sophist then I wouldn't need to argue about what other people find attractive.

Fossy

My sister is a fertility specialist at a major hospital, plus you can find tons of information on the net, just Google it.

I should add also that 20 years ago, I had a severe illness and lost a huge amount of weight and as a consequence, stopped ovulating for almost a year.

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Originally posted by Sam Winchester.
Fossy's good too. She gives good advice.

jewellz

Oh yeah, there's definitely a mathematical way to describe beauty. I remember studying this in a social psychology class I took once. I also saw a documentary on PBS about it. It has to do with the "golden ratio", or "phi ratio". Everything in nature occurs at this ratio, and it is the ratio between the waist and hips that Fossy mentioned that indicates fertility in women, and it is the ratio between the distal and proximal portions of our fingers, and the ratio of our forearms to our upper arms, etc., etc. And when a person's facial features exist in perfect portion in relation to this ratio, they are more beautiful. Humans, and all other species, are hardwired to recognize this ratio as beautiful. It's really pretty interesting. As for examples, Hallie Berry and Denzel Washington both have mathematically perfect faces. And a perfect face can be computer generated. Just explore this link a bit - you'll see what I mean - MBA California

But this is the scientific definition of beauty. The visual definition. But as far as I'm concerned, beauty is harder to define in literature (and in life, for that matter). To me, beauty is anything that reflects human nature truthfully, and that's pretty much the bottom line.

jewellz

Well, being "symmetrical" certainly doesn't hurt any species in the process of natural selection. For example, a man with symmetrical facial features has a better fluid balance in the ears, and this makes for a better athlete and faster runner. (because of the balance mechanisms that the fluid of the inner ear provides.) If you are thinking back to hunter/gatherer times, the better athlete would be the one who had an evolutionary edge over less symmetrical people who had lesser athletic skills. (Also, this is why athletes tend to generally be attractive - the symmetry.) Anyways, this is only one example of many that would indicate a symmetrical person to have a biological advantage over another.

Also, think about it this way - Anyone would rather procreate with an attractive (symmetrical) person over an ugly (less symmetrical) person, right? This is very strong natural selection factor that contributes to the evolution of symmetrical people. For example, would you find a person with abnormally long legs and an unusually short trunk attractive? Most likely not. Or really close-set eyes and an abnormally large jaw? Usually people who look like that have some sort of genetic disease anyways, and this is an important way that the genetic genes are weeded out. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? But it's true! In any case, the period in which early humans migrated is a very VERY tiny blip in the evolutionary continuum. Evolution has been going on for billions of years, and is going on on a day to day basis. Sure, those early humans developed bipedal locomotion and basket shaped pelvises, which allowed for them to travel more easily and carry their food, but that's a very tiny and specific period in recent hominid evolution. Ok I'm going to stop now because I'm starting to sound like a PBS special.

Mr Sci Fi

Yeah, you lost me at the first sentence of your first post.

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"The writer you envy today will probably have reason to envy you tomorrow." - Orson Scott Card

Faustling

But according to that definition evil people can't be beautiful (and good people can't be ugly) and that's... wierd.