The False Promise of Beauty

I've been thinking, and it seems to me that beautiful people would tend to have an evolutionary advantage. They attract the opposite sex at a far greater rate than "average" looking individuals attract others. With such a high level of attraction, doesn't it follow that they would spawn sooner and more frequently? After a while, their ilk would overtake the rest of us, as we mere mortals are left to fend for ourselves as a dying remnant of an aesthetically challenged branch of the homo sapien tree.

And yet, looking at the people on the Metro, it is clear that most people are not beautiful. Most people really aren't even all that "cute" -- and even that seems to be a verrry pliable sort of word, applicable in even the most specious cases. Everyone is cute if you only focus selectively.

No, most people on the Metro -- and, by proxy, in society -- are slightly cute, to average, to downright ugly. I would guess that maybe one out of 10 people could be honestly characterized as beautiful, hot, extremely handsome, what have you. The nines in our society. The tens.*

So what gives? Why doesn't my evolutionary idea hold up? Well, it could be a couple things. First of all, there's no guarantee that beautiful couples will create beautiful babies. Perfect proportions on both him and her could combine to create a Picassoesque mess of noses and eyes. Not pretty.

Second, and I think more importantly, is that while hotties are virtually guaranteed to propogate themselves in perpetuity, that doesn't mean the same cannot hold true for non-hotties. It isn't a zero-sum game -- there isn't a limited amount of sex to go around. Looks are not a procreative prerequisite; everyone can mate, regardless of hotness. They just won't get their first choice.

Okay, that's enough theorizing for tonight. Does anyone have any thoughts?


* [Note that in my exponential one to ten scale of looks, a nine is quite rare, and a ten is almost impossible. This ran me into some trouble with my ex-girlfriend, a very attractive girl who was rather offended when I told her she was an eight. She was still mad even after I explained that on an exponential scale, an 8 is very good! I have since learned my lesson: Never tell the truth.]