Re: Grosof: Genetic basis of beauty

I am going to fund the personal genome project at
harvard , questions does the beauty reside in the
dna,, is the formula more elegatn.. ,, of is it the
hunt for complementarity, that determines the eye of
the beholder

--- Cecilia Steen cecilia.steen@gmail.com wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: David Grosof grosof@sloan.mit.edu
Date: Jun 23, 2006 5:57 PM
Subject: Genetic basis of beauty
To: Cecilia Steen cecilia.steen@gmail.com

Jeffrey,

Here are some initial questions and thoughts
regarding the genetic basis of
beauty. My comments below are based on the
assumption you are interested in
the beauty of human bodies, as opposed to a more
general or abstract notion
of beauty (a Mozart piano concerto, a Ted Williams
swing, a Caribbean vista,
the fragrance of a gardenia, Euler's formula).

The most obvious question:

How many and which genes influence human beauty, and
how do the genes work
in different environments (especially nutritional
and microbial)?
Comment: My recollection is that in some
animals bilateral asymmetry
has been shown to result from toxins, poor nutrition
and infections during
development; presumably genetic variation is
associated with variations in
ability to manage such challenges. As you probably
already know, bilateral
symmetry has been argued to be a necessary, though
not sufficient condition
for "beauty."
Comment 2: The skin is the largest and most
visible organ, and
obviously conveys much information about
reproductive fitness. Lesions from
infection, scars from trauma and immune problems
(non-healing wounds,
psoriatic eczema) are rarely considered beautiful
unless the scars conform
to cultural norms.

Do you want to focus on facial beauty? Or
sexual/mate attractiveness as
assessed through visual appearance? Or what we may
dub "olfactory beauty,"
"voice quality beauty," "tactile beauty," and beauty
of posture, carriage
and movement (e.g., dance)? Then there's the famous
"hip to waist" ratio
that has been claimed to be important to hetero
males of many cultures in
assessing female sexual attractiveness....

    Comment: Perception of facial beauty has

been an active area of
research in the last fifteen years. There are
several hypotheses, such as
the idea that a "population average face" is
regarded as beautiful. How
convinced are you by the inter-subjective rating
methods that have been
used?
Comment 2: I'm not sure how successful
anyone has been in predicting
the appearance of offspring from the appearance of
parents, siblings and
grandparents. I recall a very interesting study in
Nature several years ago
of the "signalling of paternity" in the appearance
of children between one
and two years, so that infants resemble their
fathers at that specific time
of their life a lot more than their mothers. There's
a story about why
paternal investment in offspring at that time is
key, but I don't recall it
off the top of my head (perhaps it's the caloric
requirements of the mother
to breast-feed/wean when the baby gets pretty big).

How interested are you in comparative studies, using
for example, birds?
Comment: Male appearance, plumage, and
behavior are commonly
displayed and evaluated carefully by females during
bird (and fish et al.)
courtship. Some aspects of display have been
recently claimed to be tied to
competence in obtaining rare, critical nutrients. In
humans, I'd guess that
male height is a clear indicator of the consistency
and quality of nutrition
and general health during childhood. [My birth
length and my initial growth
curve predicted I'd be taller, but I lost three
inches due to GI illnesses
at age 1 and 3 that stopped my growth for several
months.]

How interested are you in genetic variation in face
perception?
Comment: As you know, there is evidence of a
face recognition module
in the brain and as you know, there is wide
inter-individual variation in
the ability to remember faces and assess emotional
expression. Are you
interested in the genetics of inter-individual
variation in the "perception
of beauty" in faces, bodies and other dimensions?

I hope these initial thoughts help advance the
process of identifying
appropriate projects to support.

Best,
David

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