In terms of Darwinism: What is the advantage of being "good looking"?

Question

I understand survival of the fittest. And in Darwinism/Evolution, it seems every behavior and characteristic of an organism has a purpose for the survival of its species. So when it comes to vanity, how does that serve the survival of the species? (keep in mind that if vanity doesn't exist, ugliness wouldn't exist either, so the argument of attracting mates in my opinion is moot). And I'm speaking of Humans.

Answer 1

in addition to what Hipp5 said, an interesting consequence of this kind of sexual selection can be that traits which were once selected for because they were indicators of health/virility is that these traits can continue to be positively selected for, even if the health link no longer exists in a genetic sense.

Answer 2

He said there is a greater chance of spreading your genetic characteristics. Because obviously more people will desire to procreate with you

Answer 3

Of course it is a function of fitness and progeny. The attractive face is in this society a mark of fitness because we are mostly covered up therefore the face and hands are the only part to judge. Maybe not athletic but the cues to other healthy conditions are present.

Answer 4

In 'survival of the fittest' fittest does not mean strongest, it means more likely to reproduce.  A good looking person is more likely to reproduce.

Answer 5

You may want to read of on "sexual selection". Most people know about natural selection (traits that give advantages to survival) but know about sexual selection. This often leads to confusion when people see traits that don't seem to make sense when it comes to a physical advantage.

I'll give you an example to understand it:

Let's say that we have some human that has large eyes. Based on some completely random mutation there's a woman that finds large eyes attractive. Large-eyed guy meets woman, woman likes his large eyes, they have kids. Because the woman has genes that make her like large eyes, there's a good chance her children will like large eyes. They grow up and find more large-eyed people to mate with. Eventually a large portion of the population has the genes that make them have large eyes. Now, people with large eyes are going to have the best chance of mating - and thus passing on their genes. In this way it can be possible for the whole population to gain large eyes without large eyes actually giving any physical advantage over small eyes.

EDIT: Also, what we often consider to be good looking is also correlated with being "evolutionarily fit". For example, women tend to like muscled men - obviously a trait that's good for survival. Men quite often like women with large b*****s and round hips - these are traits that are going to ensure good child birth and survival of your child.

Answer 6

Very good questions! I gave you an interesting 2 points. I guess Vanity serves for the purpose of survival in that something need to be the attractive one to pull another to mate. like peacocks or bird, they flaunt their feathers, what ever, not a clue!

Answer 7

It increases your chances of mating promiscuously with multiple partners.  Remember a certain basketball player claimed he'd had s*x with 20,000 women?

Mating promiscuously increases the number of offspring you will have, which increases your allele set frequency within the population.