The obvious breaking point would be that breast implants, at least, are improving the trait directly rather than improving signaling of said trait.
Human breasts—and in particular their maintaining significant volume even when not needed for feeding offspring—are very much a signal. It conveys information about fertility and health and, since it is significantly involved in intra-sexual selection, also information about the likely ability of prospective daughters and grandaughters to be able to attract quality mates with their breasts. Breasts implants break this signal. We can predict that if breast implants were free and available to all hunter gatherers that such tribes would soon evolve to be less attracted to breasts.
Is there any research on how quickly responses like this decay (e.g. over generations) once the conditions that supported them no longer obtain? Some casual Googling got me nowhere, and I’m curious.
IIRC, pick-up artist Owen Cook AKA “Tyler Durden” in Blueprint Decoded (a PUA seminar that Anna Salomon and Alicorn liked) hypothesized that the reason men today like thinner women than they used to is that, thanks to breast implants, there are now plenty of big-breasted but otherwise very skinny women, whereas back in the day pretty much all women with big breasts had to be plump; but I doubt he was serious.
Is there any research on how quickly responses like this decay (e.g. over generations) once the conditions that supported them no longer obtain? Some casual Googling got me nowhere, and I’m curious.
As far as I know there isn’t research on humans about such significant traits. Especially not the highly unnatural case where the self sustaining momentum aspect is also removed. (If there was merely a change in environment then we would expect the adaptation to take longer because sexual selection for the sake of nothing more than more sexual selection of descendants.)
I know there have been studies on various creatures in labs and observation of the rate of adaptation of traits in wild populations of less-than-human animals. I have little idea how much information that can give us about adaptations in humans and don’t know to what extent human changes have been analyzed.
Evolutionary-cognitive boundary confusion detected. I think there are plenty of men who don’t even know that women with large breasts are more fertile, and even those who do still like large breasts when they aren’t trying to have children. (And anyway, I guess a large part of what counts as sexy is cultural rather than hardwired, given that men in western countries nowadays in average like much skinnier women than men in western countries in the 1950s did.)
EDIT: Of course, not everything is either evolutionary or conscious; some preferences are learned but subconscious. I’ve recently noticed that ceteris paribus a women will look younger to me if she’s wearing a nose piercing than if she isn’t, and I guess that’s because where I live nose piercings are very rare among women born until the 1970s but very common among women born since the 1980s.¹ This is not conscious as I wasn’t even aware of this until recently, but it’s most definitely not evolutionary either.
I’m pretty confident it’s a cohort effect rather than than an age effect, given that I see many more women in their 30s with nose piercings today than a decade ago.
Human breasts—and in particular their maintaining significant volume even when not needed for feeding offspring—are very much a signal.
[...]
Breasts implants break this signal. We can predict that if breast implants were free and available to all hunter gatherers that such tribes would soon evolve to be less attracted to breasts.
I understand there may be some debate about the actual purpose of breasts, which is why I phrased this as a hypothetical, but I think I should make it clear that the evolutionary pressures that led to men preferring breasts are separate to the question of whether men are actually evaluating fertility (or whatever) or simply enjoy large breasts for their own sake.
I understand there may be some debate about the actual purpose of breasts, which is why I phrased this as a hypothetical
What you did was make the following rather direct claim:
The obvious breaking point would be that breast implants, at least, are improving the trait directly rather than improving signaling of said trait.
There in fact isn’t a clear breaking point between (some) PUA skills and breast implants. In the same way that breasts can be declared to be “an actual trait that is desired” as well as “a signal about other traits” the ability to perform social acts that combine dominance, humor, rapport and charm can be declared to be “an actual trait that is desired” as well as “a signal about other traits”.
Of course there are differences between the two, and further differences between breast implants and makeup but the ‘breaking point’ most certainly isn’t clear!
I understand there may be some debate about the actual purpose of breasts, which is why I phrased this as a hypothetical
What you did was make the following rather direct claim:
The obvious breaking point would be that breast implants, at least, are improving the trait directly rather than improving signaling of said trait.
[...]
Of course there are differences between the two, and further differences between breast implants and makeup but the ‘breaking point’ most certainly isn’t clear!
I guess I did phrase that too strongly, but adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers.
the ability to perform social acts that combine dominance, humor, rapport and charm can be declared to be “an actual trait that is desired” as well as “a signal about other traits”.
Well, yes. As I said here, some traits may be (un)desirable in themselves as well as signalling other (un)desirable traits. The benefit of your signal could outweigh the harm of what you’re countersignalling. My point stands.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to refrain myself from entering Someone-Is-Wrong-On-The-Internet! mode and posting a poorly-thought-out response.
Human breasts—and in particular their maintaining significant volume even when not needed for feeding offspring—are very much a signal. It conveys information about fertility and health and, since it is significantly involved in intra-sexual selection, also information about the likely ability of prospective daughters and grandaughters to be able to attract quality mates with their breasts. Breasts implants break this signal. We can predict that if breast implants were free and available to all hunter gatherers that such tribes would soon evolve to be less attracted to breasts.
Is there any research on how quickly responses like this decay (e.g. over generations) once the conditions that supported them no longer obtain? Some casual Googling got me nowhere, and I’m curious.
IIRC, pick-up artist Owen Cook AKA “Tyler Durden” in Blueprint Decoded (a PUA seminar that Anna Salomon and Alicorn liked) hypothesized that the reason men today like thinner women than they used to is that, thanks to breast implants, there are now plenty of big-breasted but otherwise very skinny women, whereas back in the day pretty much all women with big breasts had to be plump; but I doubt he was serious.
As far as I know there isn’t research on humans about such significant traits. Especially not the highly unnatural case where the self sustaining momentum aspect is also removed. (If there was merely a change in environment then we would expect the adaptation to take longer because sexual selection for the sake of nothing more than more sexual selection of descendants.)
I know there have been studies on various creatures in labs and observation of the rate of adaptation of traits in wild populations of less-than-human animals. I have little idea how much information that can give us about adaptations in humans and don’t know to what extent human changes have been analyzed.
Evolutionary-cognitive boundary confusion detected. I think there are plenty of men who don’t even know that women with large breasts are more fertile, and even those who do still like large breasts when they aren’t trying to have children. (And anyway, I guess a large part of what counts as sexy is cultural rather than hardwired, given that men in western countries nowadays in average like much skinnier women than men in western countries in the 1950s did.)
EDIT: Of course, not everything is either evolutionary or conscious; some preferences are learned but subconscious. I’ve recently noticed that ceteris paribus a women will look younger to me if she’s wearing a nose piercing than if she isn’t, and I guess that’s because where I live nose piercings are very rare among women born until the 1970s but very common among women born since the 1980s.¹ This is not conscious as I wasn’t even aware of this until recently, but it’s most definitely not evolutionary either.
I’m pretty confident it’s a cohort effect rather than than an age effect, given that I see many more women in their 30s with nose piercings today than a decade ago.
False positive. But I’ve tired of this subject and will not go over it again.
I understand there may be some debate about the actual purpose of breasts, which is why I phrased this as a hypothetical, but I think I should make it clear that the evolutionary pressures that led to men preferring breasts are separate to the question of whether men are actually evaluating fertility (or whatever) or simply enjoy large breasts for their own sake.
What you did was make the following rather direct claim:
There in fact isn’t a clear breaking point between (some) PUA skills and breast implants. In the same way that breasts can be declared to be “an actual trait that is desired” as well as “a signal about other traits” the ability to perform social acts that combine dominance, humor, rapport and charm can be declared to be “an actual trait that is desired” as well as “a signal about other traits”.
Of course there are differences between the two, and further differences between breast implants and makeup but the ‘breaking point’ most certainly isn’t clear!
I guess I did phrase that too strongly, but adaptation-executors, not fitness-maximizers.
Well, yes. As I said here, some traits may be (un)desirable in themselves as well as signalling other (un)desirable traits. The benefit of your signal could outweigh the harm of what you’re countersignalling. My point stands.
Thanks for saving me the trouble of having to refrain myself from entering Someone-Is-Wrong-On-The-Internet! mode and posting a poorly-thought-out response.