That looks like just the evo-psych kind of reasoning Alicorn is warning against.
Compare: given 5000 species of mammals that are guaranteed to have many physical features in common with humans, shouldn’t some happen to super-stimulate our sexual attraction just by chance? Why would mating choice be that much more strongly selected than baby nurturing behavior?
ETA: some good explanations for this difference have been proposed in the comments below:
Only mating choice is subject to sexual selection, which is a powerful force. (Eliezer)
Animals aren’t deliberately trying to appear cute. But other humans are always trying to appear sexy. Therefore our sexual choice heuristics evolved to better eliminate false positives. (Me)
Actually, it makes perfect sense for sexual selection on sexual-attractiveness-features to be subject to far greater selection pressure and fine-tuning than baby-cuteness.
I’ll make a testable prediction here: Cases of parental superstimulus (like baby ducks following a stick figure, infant monkeys getting attached to puppets, etc., if I’m remembering correctly) ought to be far more common / easier to fake than sexual superstimulus. I’ll limit the key part of the prediction to complex vertebrates so that they have large enough brains to be complicated, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the rule more universal than that.
That’s my point. Jack’s theory, which rests entirely on the fact other animals look similar to human babies, does not explain why many animals are cute while not a single animal is (widely) sexually attractive.
Well, “catgirls” seem to have large appeal, but that’s easily explained away—they’re 99% human with 1% added kitten for massive cuteness signal in a way that doesn’t interfere with any human sexual signals. It’s a lot like 99% with 1% added flower in form of perfume being more sexually attractive than 100% natural human.
The cost of a mistake may be lower in the case of cuteness than sexiness.
Indeed, sexual arousal is comparatively difficult to trigger, even by members of the actual target group: most humans don’t find most humans of the opposite sex very attractive, while they may find most babies somewhat cute.
The cost of a mistake may be lower in the case of cuteness than sexiness.
“May” be. I don’t see this as being demonstrated. I prefer explanations like Eliezer’s that show greater selection pressure—there’s a whole range of explicit sexual selection, but no real selection on other species for cuteness.
Here’s another explanation: other species don’t benefit from being cute-to-humans, so they don’t spend their time trying to cheat humans into perceiving them as cute. But humans are deliberately trying to be sexually attractive and are very good at taking advantage of any weak points in our sexual heuristics. Therefore our heuristics evolved to eliminate false positives.
Most? You think there are more than 2500 species which adult humans would say are cuter than babies? That seems wildly implausible to me; I’d say no more than 300 or so are on par with babies, and fewer exceed it. That isn’t too much; surely you could list maybe not >300 species but a measly 150.
How about birds? >10,000 species there; you think there are >5,000 extremely cute birds?
I’d venture that there isn’t even a bare majority of cuteness at zoos—institutions would would select for cuteness.
That looks like just the evo-psych kind of reasoning Alicorn is warning against.
Compare: given 5000 species of mammals that are guaranteed to have many physical features in common with humans, shouldn’t some happen to super-stimulate our sexual attraction just by chance? Why would mating choice be that much more strongly selected than baby nurturing behavior?
ETA: some good explanations for this difference have been proposed in the comments below:
Only mating choice is subject to sexual selection, which is a powerful force. (Eliezer)
Animals aren’t deliberately trying to appear cute. But other humans are always trying to appear sexy. Therefore our sexual choice heuristics evolved to better eliminate false positives. (Me)
Actually, it makes perfect sense for sexual selection on sexual-attractiveness-features to be subject to far greater selection pressure and fine-tuning than baby-cuteness.
I’ll make a testable prediction here: Cases of parental superstimulus (like baby ducks following a stick figure, infant monkeys getting attached to puppets, etc., if I’m remembering correctly) ought to be far more common / easier to fake than sexual superstimulus. I’ll limit the key part of the prediction to complex vertebrates so that they have large enough brains to be complicated, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find the rule more universal than that.
It’s not 1 of 5000 species of mammals which is cuter than human babies—it seems like most of them are.
That’s my point. Jack’s theory, which rests entirely on the fact other animals look similar to human babies, does not explain why many animals are cute while not a single animal is (widely) sexually attractive.
Well, “catgirls” seem to have large appeal, but that’s easily explained away—they’re 99% human with 1% added kitten for massive cuteness signal in a way that doesn’t interfere with any human sexual signals. It’s a lot like 99% with 1% added flower in form of perfume being more sexually attractive than 100% natural human.
The cost of a mistake may be lower in the case of cuteness than sexiness.
Indeed, sexual arousal is comparatively difficult to trigger, even by members of the actual target group: most humans don’t find most humans of the opposite sex very attractive, while they may find most babies somewhat cute.
“May” be. I don’t see this as being demonstrated. I prefer explanations like Eliezer’s that show greater selection pressure—there’s a whole range of explicit sexual selection, but no real selection on other species for cuteness.
Here’s another explanation: other species don’t benefit from being cute-to-humans, so they don’t spend their time trying to cheat humans into perceiving them as cute. But humans are deliberately trying to be sexually attractive and are very good at taking advantage of any weak points in our sexual heuristics. Therefore our heuristics evolved to eliminate false positives.
Most? You think there are more than 2500 species which adult humans would say are cuter than babies? That seems wildly implausible to me; I’d say no more than 300 or so are on par with babies, and fewer exceed it. That isn’t too much; surely you could list maybe not >300 species but a measly 150.
How about birds? >10,000 species there; you think there are >5,000 extremely cute birds?
I’d venture that there isn’t even a bare majority of cuteness at zoos—institutions would would select for cuteness.
If I had a list of species-weighted random pictures of mammals, I would take the bet that random mammal baby is cuter than human baby.