Beauty → Intelligence

[SwordoftheVistula]

Makes sense I suppose. Did they find any difference between women and men? It would make sense to find more correlation in women than men.

A lot of beauty is subjective, but some of the more objective traits I think would have correlations with IQ beyond inherited eyes etc:

Deformities of teeth or other body parts, caused by poor medical care, as a result of poverty, as a result of low IQ.

Shortness, caused by poor nutrition in childhood, as a result of poverty, as a result of low IQ.

Massive obesity, caused by overweightness in childhood.

Heavy scarring (or missing eyes, etc) resulting from getting in lots of fights and violent incidents as a youth.

Results of heavy drug use or heavy alcohol use as a youth.

[Grumpy Cat]

^^^ Some people are born with those traits and do not have a low IQ.

I was born with bad teeth, I have nice ones now because my parents could afford dental care.

My whole family is short, except for me (my mother hasn't used the good dishes since I moved out of the house because they are on the top shelf lol). My sister is very short and IMO she is better looking than I am. I actually wish I was short, because I tend to think short girls are more attractive. I am a good 10 cm taller than the Canadian average.

As for obesity, IMO not all fat people are ugly. I always say to people unhappy about their weight that fat is better than ugly because fat can be fixed, whereas ugly cannot.

[Breedingvariety]

It is more acceptable in our society to call a beautiful person stupid. One doing so may appear more objective as he uses positive and negative descriptions combined.

One calling an ugly person stupid, would seem heartless to others.

On the other hand- maybe it is common sense ugly is stupid, so there is no need to say it out loud.

[Groenewolf]

I question their criteria of "beauty", it's too vague to actually try to make a correlation between that and IQ (which itself can vary on the same person, depending on different factors including tiredness, stress, amongst another million factors).

They have discovered that certain indirect signs of fertility, or ability to give birth to healthy children, subconsciously play a factor whether or not one finds someone attractive. Things like a certain ratio between waist and tie, symmetry, ect.

[Talvi]

I think this is mostly pseudoscience.

[The Journeyman]

Makes sense I suppose. Did they find any difference between women and men? It would make sense to find more correlation in women than men.

A lot of beauty is subjective, but some of the more objective traits I think would have correlations with IQ beyond inherited eyes etc:

Deformities of teeth or other body parts, caused by poor medical care, as a result of poverty, as a result of low IQ.

Shortness, caused by poor nutrition in childhood, as a result of poverty, as a result of low IQ.

Massive obesity, caused by overweightness in childhood.

Poor nutrition itself can cause lower IQ, poor health and subsequent poor growth.

Heavy scarring (or missing eyes, etc) resulting from getting in lots of fights and violent incidents as a youth.

Results of heavy drug use or heavy alcohol use as a youth.

Poor nutrition alone can lead to lower IQ, poor health and subsequent poor growth during adolescence. Wealthier people, or children raised in wealthy households, tend to be the more healthy, attractive, and educated.

[Agrippa]

Poor nutrition alone can lead to lower IQ, poor health and subsequent poor growth during adolescence. Wealthier people, or children raised in wealthy households, tend to be the more healthy, attractive, and educated.

That's true.

There different aspects of this:
- Healthier people can develop a healthier brain and nervous system
- Wealthier people are on average more intelligent, they can afford a better environment for their children, which makes those both healthier and more intelligent the same time
- There is a great demand for attractive partners, so successful people which are often more intelligent will always strive for the more attractive (signal for fertility and generally good traits) partners, this will result, on the longer run if there is no contraselective trend involved, in a segment of the population being ON AVERAGE both more attractive and intelligent.
- The good genes for a fertile, healthy and attractive body are also supportive for the brain and nervous system's development

etc., etc.

In the end, there is a clear correlation of attractiveness and intelligence ON AVERAGE, but this correlation will be rather not more important than OTHER TRAITS AND FACTORS.

So you can end up with many nice anecdotes about beautiful genius' and idiots, as well as with ugly genius' and idiots.

But statistically, it would be completely absurd if the more attractive people would actually BE NOT more intelligent.

In another study, which neglected that fact and tried to argue otherwise, they raised another interesting point: You look and listen longer and more careful if your opponent is more attractive, which means you also judge him or her better and more careful.
So if attractive people are particularly intelligent or dumb, you are more likely to notice it, while you simply ignore many unattractive people on a regular basis, at least don't judge them as careful and properly.

So people like attractive people - as partners, but they are also MORE CRITICAL about them, especially in a competition.

Because obviously, if you lose to someone being not just more intelligent, but also more beautiful than you, it hurts minimum twice as much, because then you can't say: "Ok, that person beat me, but at least I'm more (attractive/intelligent) than he/she is."

If you lose to someone better than you in all fields, it is more objective, but also makes your position relative to that person even more clear, you are on a lower level in comparison and that's what people don't like to accept for obvious reasons, even more so in the times of "just not evaluating people" (other than by money one could add) and never, ever make a difference ("political correctness" and "anti-discrimination").

Fact is, there is a correlation, but primarily a rather indirect one (especially along health and good uprising, co-selection of other advantageous genes), which is the reason why you can't CONCLUDE from one's person attractiveness level on their intelligence.

[Tolleson]

Now I know why I'm so smart!

[Heimmacht]

I think this 'study' is total crap.

[Agrippa]

I think this 'study' is total crap.

Well, that's a little bit short - care to explain?

Why should it be crap if favourable genes meet, favourable living conditions and of course the health factor?