Fats and sweets taste good that is why people still eat them

Claims of not being able to control one's appetites is just an excuse that people use for being weak.

Evolutionary psychology with respect to certain aspects like language is perfectly legitimate. The recent trend of applying EP to complex social interactions such as dating is very questionable and that is being charitable.

How come we don't like fatties anymore, they're better for breeding?

I think the porn example is a good one, but I think it counters your point more than it agrees with it.

The logical fact that we can now have sex without fathering a child does not really change what arouses/attracts us.

I think this is simply because it used to be indicative of high social standing, and now it is the opposite. Just like tans.

Privileged folk used to be the only ones with the luxury of sitting inside all day, getting fat and staying out of the sun. Nowadays, it's the opposite.

And that's what ultimately dictates the style/aesthetic to strive for.

Actually, in societies where food is scarce, the fatties are prized and thing women are disgusting.

Yes, fats and sweets taste good but people are eating them to points where they're hurting their health. If culture can so easily erase evolutionary based psychological biases, wouldn't we see less obesity and over-eating?

The thing is with applying EP to dating or sexual selection, a lot of it sound. A lot of work in EP on sexual selection shows a lot of universal preferences and biases across cultures.

I meant purely on forcing babies out. Not like having monies for food. Bigger bitches should have bigger sons etc etc.

I think the woman that has only been with the very high value males is still going to be rated as more attractive. Just because the average guy is more optimistic about his long term chances with the beautiful woman who has dated average guys versus celebrities doesn't change the fact that the super selective woman is perceived as more attractive.

There are two reasons people eat this stuff in excess. The first is that it is fast, easy, and cheap. It fits into the lifestyle of a lot of North Americans. The second reason is that people are pathetically weak and getting worse. There are plenty of harmful behaviors that people engage in that has no evolutionary basis. People are just very flawed. One of the reasons I am so against certain aspects of psychology is that it further justifies people's flaws by trying to convince us that they are diseases.

I had an EP debate on here a while back. I wish you had posted in that as the pro-EP side were rather ******ed so it was mostly just mocking them rather than an actual debate. A lot of EP comes off as just be too ad hoc but admittedly I'm not as familiar with it as you would be. Regardless, QM is obviously a legitimate science but that doesn't change the fact that almost everything written for popular consumption is complete BS.

I agree, and the taboo nature of researching gender differences and mate selection has inhibited research over the years. Even if funding is attainable, not many professors are eager to put their careers on the chopping block by publishing controversial gender specific findings.

Darwin's theory of natural selection almost always shows up in conventional science text books but his theory of sexual selection gets swept under the carpet despite its pivotal role in evolution. The theory that a large prefrontal cortex and advanced linguistic ability evolved more from the pressures of mate selection than survival is very interesting and only recently has it started to get more attention from researchers.

I didn't say it wasn't a bias, I said that it wasn't a valid basis for a logical argument. It's one of those things that people do automatically that make no sense anymore, if they examine it properly.

I don't think anyone said that it was easy to overcome our evolved instincts, just that in some cases it is in our interests to do so -- in this case many males seem to have an instinctive preference for women who have not slept with many other males, but if we stop and think for a moment then this preference doesn't make sense and may actually be working against us -- "virginal" women will be worse in bed, less experienced at conducting a mutually fulfilling relationship, etc.

You are overcoming your "evolutionary based biases" every day -- any time you do something which you don't want to do but which you know will make your life better in the long run you are sticking it to instinct and using your conscious mind to improve things in the long run. For example: having a job, exercising, not punching someone who annoys you in the street.

So an update on my situation is that we have a talk and gf says all she wanted was closure from her ex. All her previous relationships she didn't have a proper ending to, and either she always felt she owed the ex something or there were unresolved issues. Once she met me she felt she could finally put her past behind and effectively wanted to contact all her exes and have the closure talk and see that everyone was happy with their own lives and she didn't leave any scars behind or ruin anyone emotionally.

Do I believe her 100%? Probably not, because some things don't add up. Do I believe her 80%? Yes. I've told her as such that what she's doing is responsible, but it really doesn't help our situation as it's admitting she didn't trust me enough to let me know what was going on in her life. And that's not a crime or a fault in itself, it just means our relationship hasn't reached that point yet, and now it might never do so. I probably love her less and trust her less for it, and if she can live with that, then what was lost can hopefully be rebuilt.

I have a pretty bad feeling about this, godofgambers.

Yeah I do too. But I'm not moping over it or crying about it. It's actually the reverse, because she felt like she f'd up real bad. I tried to explain to her that I'm not mad and that she did f up and the consequence is loss of trust and love on my end. If it ends, then it'll just have to end. I won't hate her for it, but it's just a really disappointing way to end something. Especially because if this is the ex's plan, he pretty much succeeded.

As with any relationship, it sucks to end because of an event like this and I'll no doubt be much less happy than I was, but it's to be expected and hopefully I'll move on relatively quickly.

With regards to evolutionary psychology, I think using it as justification like Zarathustra is doing is very wrong. Evolutionary theory in this sense is extremely flexible. For example, if we assume that non - promiscuity can be passed down in genes, then you can justify being more attracted to non - promiscuous women in today's modern society as it would cause less family oriented issues with female offspring. This is obviously BS, and although that's kind of a ****ty made up example, I'm just trying to illustrate how most things in the area of evolutionary psychology can be twisted.

one of my grade 12 teachers told me that the reason why women prefer tall men is that because back then men would huddle over the women in an effort to protect her from the wind. im pretty sure she got this idea from some evolutionary psychology book so yes some of its ******ed.

Actually, there is no known society, nor has there even been, which found fatties more attractive than thin women.

kuroshwithwhale.jpg

Well, in medieval times when only the very rich were able to grow fat, fat women were considered attractive. That's probably more to do with the fact they were rich and powerful, but I don't think there's any inherent reason otherwise. Presumably fat people aren't any more likely to die in childbirth than the very thin?

Oh well, maybe not:

http://www.femininebeauty.info/medie...ze-preferences

The only good reason I heard for men being taller than women was that we have a history of both polygamy and polyandry. In polygamous species (I want to mention some kind of seal but can't remember its name), males are disproportionatly large compared to females because they fight over harems. This seal species literally crushes females under "foot" as they fight each other. 95% of males never breed, and size is strongly favoured.

We've also had periods of polyandry, where size doesn't matter (and may favour smaller males), and the end result is that males are a little bigger but not much, and that we have pretty mixed preferences.

I also read a study discussing the percentage of societies who practiced polygamy and polyandry, and it was the vast majority. It just so happens that the dominant ones right now practice (broadly) monogamy.

Societies have subset groups who practice polygamy throughout history, but I think you'd be hard pressed to prove that a majority of societies practice polygamy as a social norm.

Tiger Woods digresses.

Says Wikipedia via http://eclectic.ss.uci.edu/~drwhite/...EthnoAtlas.pdf