The latest evolutionary psychology[1] theory to do the rounds is that blondeness evolved as a selection strategem for women trying to attract scarce mates in the harsh and male-scarce conditions of Ice Age Europe. According to this report in the Times, the theory has been formulated by an anthropologist, Peter Frost. His supporting argument is that blondeness is a signal of high levels of oestrogen. I suppose I should wait for the article which is supposed to come out in Evolution and Human Behaviour, but I can’t resist pointing to an obvious hole and an alternative explanation.
The obvious hole is that blond(e)ness is not a sex-linked characteristic. If light hair colour signals high oestrogen, blond men should have a lot of trouble attracting mates. Tempted as I am by this hypothesis, I can’t say I’ve seen any evidence to back it up.
The alternative explanation (not at all novel) is that fair hair arose in conjunction with pale skin, as a straightforward physical adaption to the move away from the tropics – less need for pigment, or maybe more need to absorb vitamin D.
The Times article also gets bonus points for repeating the claim (which I’ve seen doing the rounds for decades) that blondes will become extinct some time soon because the relevant genes are recessive. Those making this claim should go back to their high school text books and look at Mendel’s peas. Remember how the recessive phenotypes turned up again in the second generation?
After writing this, I found a piece by Frost here. He has a response (unconvincing in my view) to the physical adaption theory, and doesn’t raise the oestrogen idea at all. In this piece he argues, a bit more plausibly, that the harsh environment selected for colour polymorphism, rather than any particular colour scheme.
fn1. I know I’m always bashing this stuff, but only because so much of it is silly. Some aspects of EP, like Pinker’s theory that we have evolved highly advanced mechanisms for lying and lie-detection, seem quite plausible to me.
John Quiggin 
The other hole in the argument which has now been pointed out by numerous people is that the correlation between exposure to sunlight and skin color is fairly weak (e.g., Phillipino’s are very light, despite living close to the equator, and there are other groups that are very dark, yet get very low exposure). I think the biggest advocate of this is Jared Diamond, who has a quick comment here :
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/n7040/full/435283a.html
What a rubbish bit of science. This gets published?
I suspect the colour of Filipinos might be a lot darker if you removed the Spanish and Chinese blood. Amerindians are relatively fair but that’s almost certainly a founder effect from coming from mongoloid races that crossed the Bering strait. Even then the original caribbean races are a lot darker than the inuit.
As for colour polymorphism, well then why is there no polymorphism present in northern european races, why are they all white?
“If light hair colour signals high oestrogen, blond men should have a lot of trouble attracting mates. Tempted as I am by this hypothesis, I can’t say I’ve seen any evidence to back it up.”
Can I offer myself as a one-case sample in support of the hypothesis?
Wilful said “What a rubbish bit of science. This gets published?”
You should feel free to read all the arguments associated with it, which are floating around in various sources. I think you’ll find that the arguments are extremely reasonable, its just that they break with most people’s preconceptions. I believe Diamond has a review of a huge number of human populations, including the amount of sunlight exposure they get (and have got) in his book, which obviously isn’t possiblie in a short article. That includes both people in high sunlight exposure areas not near the equator, and low exposure areas that are (like PNG if I remember correctly, where people get almost not exposure to sunlight, thanks to clouds and the conditions they live in, but still manage to be as black as black can get).
John Hawks Anthropology Weblog : Blonde extinction risk overstated
How does this help me understand my deep, abiding and dangerous attaction to redheads?
Survival of the sexiest.
If the blond traight is a sexual traight then rather than women becoming blonde in order to attract mates it would make more sence to say that blonde women become prolific because they did attracted more mates.
At this point we could have a discussion about the blind watchmaker and the nature of cause and effect in evolution. We could then talk about Lamarck versus Darwin.
Do men from non-blonde races find blonde women more attractive than other women?
And can anybody explain why high heel shoes are sexy?
Michael – maybe you should try the “Better Red than Dead” article at http://www.control.com.au. It will explain things perfectly – at least if you are a Gouldian Finch.
More seriously, while I haven’t read the research in question, a lot of these sort of arguements seem to me two steps below “Just so stories”. They lack the wit and beauty of Kipling’s work, and can actualy be disproved with simple thought experiments, such as the one provided. And Paul, I am afraid your one-case sample is easily trumped by anyone who watched the Lord of the Rings films in the presence of teenage girls.
Wrote the following a few years ago… al the ‘science’ in it was pulled from small New Scientist articles now without references…., did have it on my blog once, but now th eblog is deleted it might as well live here……..
“Dumb Blondes are Mother Nature’s Taxmen”
As rejected by New Scientist’s Feedback Column for their 2003 Christmas Competition
by meika loofs samorzewski
Modeling has shown that societies that do not re-distribute wealth face inevitable declines in IQ as the generations pass, because if wealth is inherited and not earned there is no selection pressure for greater intelligence. Considering human intelligence arose before the growth of state one wonders how wealth in the past was re-distributed allowing the rise in IQ we enjoy today. Additionally many social researchers raise the question that while a smaller state or no state (where there is no wealth re-distribution) will allow greater economic efficiencies in the marketplace, is this increase in productivity at the expense of an increase in IQ?
Surprisingly the answer to both these questions are living among us where they hold an honoured place as weathergirls, living coat hangers, and above all, trophy wives.
It is often noted in studies on wealth creation that the first generation makes it, the second lives off of it, and the third spends it. It has also been noted that while the first generation is often married to a partner of average looks but above average intelligence the next generation’s partners are often noted for their above average looks alone.
This last observation is the key to explain why dumb blondes exist. Curiously it is their very lack of intelligence that allows an overall increase in intelligence in the population at large. Dumb blondes redistribute wealth through producing children of below average intelligence, increasing the dispersion of wealth through bad investment decisions and a shopping focused identity.
But how does this process actually work?
The answer depends on three key facts. (1) Recent genetic studies have shown that intelligence is mostly inherited from one’s mother, while one’s emotional core is inherited from one’s father. (2) Most people view more symmetrical faces as more beautiful. (3) The brain does not develop symmetrically completely; the brain develops a lateralisation, particular in areas of language development, a faculty that most commentators directly link to our IQ potentials.
These last two facts lead to an evolutionary trade off, for while a more symmetrical face is attractive to potential partners because it shows a better developmental record, in gestation and growth, the brain itself is not completely symmetrical. In fact too much symmetry would lead to a loss of lateralisation and therefore intelligence. Most people will be symmetrical enough, but not too symmetrical to be stupid, as in the case of beautiful dumb blondes. In particular they may be governed by emotional insecurities inherited from their fathers which their mothers were too dumb to avoid. Certainly I can personally attest to stunningly gorgeous past partners who were complete emotional messes that no amount of the talking cure could fix. And they have married well. These inadequacies will be passed to their descendants who will disperse the wealth, allowing a general increase in IQ at large. Thus the fears of those committed to a strong state to re-distributed wealth in support of increasing intelligence in the population are shown to be unfounded. Mother Nature is ever inventive. The ‘Dumb Blonde’ may be seen to be her smartest creation to date — a taxman for all societies and all times.
These days the poor have more kids than the rich don’t they?
And if this is not true then if you leave all your wealth to your smartest kid then would that help?
And given that the blonde trophy wife employs no coersion (merely seduction) it seems odd to characterise this process as a tax.
Except that there is not a lot of evidence that intelligence leads to higher earned wealth. But there is a correlation between height and income.
According to this study each extra inch of height ats $789 to your annual income.
So, in theory, societies where wealth is largely inherited should get shorter.
Conrad “The other hole in the argument which has now been pointed out by numerous people is that the correlation between exposure to sunlight and skin color is fairly weak”
Really I thought this is a pretty standard line taken, whenever I come across a doco on anthropology or that recent Race doco that was on the ABC it is included in discussions about skin colour.
your smartest is not necessarily the smarter/smartest around, unless your tasmanian and choices are limited anyway,
and thanks for the-gold Terje, got about 130 progey and it brings in about US 2 cents a day now
Wow!! Thats about US$7.30 per year. That’s heaps better than I ever did. You’re obviously a better capitalist than I am when it comes to gold. Nearly half a metric ton of gold is changing hands each day through e-gold. So you’re not getting as much as you could be.
That’s probably true for most people, however mine would be an exception.
e-gold
I find these theories rather silly too, but admit to not following up and reading the full reasoning. I would have thought that in a small population in a hostile environment that surviving to sexual maturity was the single most important trait. The alpha males might sire more than average kids but most women capable of childbearing probably ended up with more kids than their bodies could bear. How much blondeness matters seems almost irrelevent.
Filipinos are “relatively” light. In Shakespearean England they would have been known as “black” people. Filipinos ain’t exactly albino lookin’.
The obvious hole in Pr Q’s argument is women’s anecdotal preference for men with “darker” looks ie “tall, dark and handsome” types. (This is subject to ceteris paribus qualifications relating to the commonality of race and comparability of status in a likely sexual partner.)
Darker hair and skin is commonly linked to masculinity and virility. Conversely fairer hair and skin is commonly linked to feminity and fertility. Frost presents some hard biological evidence to back this up.
From this argument it follows that males and females will exhibit a sort of “reversed polarity” in their “chromatic” sexual preferences. This implies that, under conditions of scarce males, we will find “blonde” genes propagating through the community as females with expecially favoured (blonde) sexual characteristics win the competition for scarce males.
One way of testing this hypothesis is to examine other societies where males have been notoriously short supply and see if this blonde female preference repeats itself. The middle east is famed for wasting its males and blondes and fairer skinned females have certainly been prized there.
The obvious point to make is that the ecotypic environment has to be favourable enough for natural selection to allow blonde genetic endowment to get a start. Few people would deny this is possible in Nordic lands where sunlight is scarce and paleness has a survival advantage.
Given this constraint there is no obvious reason to reject the complementary action of sexual selection.
Natural selection and sexual selection are seperate modes for the propagation of genes. There maybe complementary or contradictory relations, notioriously the latter in the case of the peacocks tail.
Is there in fact hard evidence that there is a phenomenon to be explained at all? It should be possible in principle to get find out whether men really prefer blondes, and how consistent this is across cultures. Apparently the evidence is strong that we innately prefer a certain waist-hip ratio, and I think this applies to other aspects of human beauty.
It’s not clear to me that men prefer blondes. I don’t myself, and our literature and song are full of alluring, dark-eyed, raven-haired beauties.
But supposing it’s established empirically that they do, the next step is to work out why the preference might have evolved. The optimal waste-hips ratio supposedly makes for a smooth pregnancy, though I don’t know if this is proven. With other preferences it’s more subtle and path dependent, because the preference and the preferred characteristic evolve dialectically. The peahen’s preference for a fancy tail seems arbitrary, but I guess it originated with a preference for combative prowess; and once the preference achieved a genetic foothold, a more symbolic form of combative prowess evolved. In the end, it makes no difference whether the peacock with the finest tail is also the most fertile or the best provider or the best bodyguard.
Why might men have evolved a preference for blond and/or blue-eyed girls? I don’t get the oestrogen argument. Is it that blond hair is caused by high oestrogen levels, or that the two are accidentally correlated?
An alternative hypothesis, with its own respectable roots in folk wisdom (not to mention Montaigne) is simply that opposites attract. If such a preference exists at a fundamental level – and it makes sense because genetic diversification is good for us – then dark-haired people’s preference for fair-haired partners might just be an application. As long as blondes are a minority, they will get more offers. I’d be surprised if no-one has investigated this empirically.
Most critters in icy climes, whether it be human (in Europe at least), bear, fox or rabbit tend towards “blondeness”.
Maybe the same factor is involved in each case?
“The alternative explanation (not at all novel) is that fair hair arose in conjunction with pale skin, as a straightforward physical adaption to the move away from the tropics – less need for pigment, or maybe more need to absorb vitamin D.” How wonderfully Lamarckian of you, a pity that his ideas have been largely discredited.
“The Times article also gets bonus points for repeating the claim (which I’ve seen doing the rounds for decades) that blondes will become extinct some time soon because the relevant genes are recessive. Those making this claim should go back to their high school text books and look at Mendel’s peas. Remember how the recessive phenotypes turned up again in the second generation?” Um, perhaps we should send you back to school as well. Whether or not the recessive gene is expressed as a characteristic depends on the gene combination of both the mother and the father. If one is hh (recessive) and the other HH(dominant) the next generation will all be hH and show the dominant characteristic. hh x Hh has a 50% chance of showing the recessive characteristic (hh). Only hh x hh will result in 100% of the offspring showing the recessive characteristic. Over time, the expectation is that there will be fewer people showing the recessive characterisitic.
Atleast you have recognised that hair colour is not sex-linked, so you can get a point for that:)
This is slightly off-topic, but a preference for a fair skin (and thus fair hair, blue eyes and the following) has a reasonnable socio-economical explanations. In western Europe at least, a fair-skin woman was one who hadn’t to work in fields, thus from a relatively wealthy family. The tipping point occured in the XXth century when relatively wealthy families sent their daughters on holidays so that having a tan became fashionable. The tipping point is close enough so that one can identify it by interviewing grand-mothers. I also seem to remeber that Isaac Asimov has written a short essay in which he postulates that blond hair in western Europe early medieval times predominantly belonged to descendants of invaders from Eastern and/or Northern Europe, and were thus disproportionally found among nobilities.
# Michael Says:
How does this help me understand my deep, abiding and dangerous attaction to redheads?
Seek medical help fast. Redheads are fiery, agressive, opionated, intelligent and have hearts of gold. How would I know?
My oldest sister is one.
See also
It may be worth noting that by the time of the Fall of Granada, the fairest group (by colouring) in the Iberian peninsula was the Muslim ruling class, because of their preference for and access to lighter coloured mates (often but not always slaves – they also intermarried with surviving Goths). I’m talking of the group in aggregate, of course.
Jack Strochi: Darker hair and skin is commonly linked to masculinity and virility. Conversely fairer hair and skin is commonly linked to feminity and fertility.
So, basically, the Vikings were just overcompensating to overcome their feelings of sexual inadequacy?
Who are you calling sexually inadequate? Next you’ll be saying I’m paranoid.
When discussing evolution it is best to found out what the relevant genes are associated with the phenotype, if possible , from either humans or usually from model animals ( mice or fruit flies ),
The relevant protein for skin , hair and eye color is melanin . (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melanin
From http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1034/j.1600-0749.2002.02074.xThe first step toward making melanin (in mammals) is the development of the relevant cells. These are melanocytes and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells, not usually called melanocytes, although they make very similar melanosomes(pigment granules) and share many of the same gene products. All mammalian melanocytes other than RPE cells are derived from the neural crest in the early embryo (Fig. 1).From there, they normally migrate to all of the epidermis and hair follicles, and also to the iris and choroid of the eye, the
inner ear and to other internal organs in some mammals,
How then would changes in melanin relate to estrogen production , and in particular to optimal ( not maximum) estrogen production. Further there must be a pre existing mechanism for optimal estrogen detection with which blondeness is associated. e.g blondes smell good.( in model animals it is known that estrogen is a social signalling mechanism).http://runews.rockefeller.edu/index.php?page=engine&id=92
However I think more prosaic explanations are more plausible e.g the selection pressure for lighter skin color is more likely to result in blondes.
Quote from a blonde goes here,
(
The Sociobiological Explanation for Led Zeppelin…
As John Quiggin rails against the latest evolutionary psychology ‘just so story’ (purported to explain blondness) I give you the sociobiological explanation for Led Zeppelin (via Crooker Timber). From Chuck Klosterman’s Killing Yourse…
The “Dumb Blonde” you refer to is actually a Bleached Brunette.
These Brunettes are so stupid they ‘think’ they’re Blonde. I take it you people think they are too. So much for your intelligence.
I am a Blonde and I am intelligent. If you want to know anything else about Dumb Bleached Brunettes email me at carolecox@blondfrombirth.org
If you want to know where all the blonde haired girls are….. FOX NEWS is the answer. I have no idea what the ratio of blondse’s to brunettes is in USA, but FOX NEWS ratio is abou 7 to 1 in favour of blonde’s. If you are female and want a job at FOX NEWS, get your hair dyed Blonde and weight no more than 120Lbs. If not,, well don’t even think about applying.
and what about the northern Native people of Canada/Iceland/Alaska/Russia who live way up north? They all don’t have blond hair and blue eyes. As my Norwegian friend said, “you get many blond-haired, blue-eye in a few small countries by inter-breeding the same few families for 10,000 years…”
After writing this, I found a piece by Frost here. He has a response (unconvincing in my view) to the physical adaption theory,( fair hair arose in conjunction with pale skin, as a straightforward physical adaption to the move away from the tropics – less need for pigment, or maybe more need to absorb vitamin D.
Skin color and vitamin D
“To test this hypothesis, Osborne et al. (2008) measured skin color and bone strength in a hundred white and Asian adolescent girls from Hawaii. Skin color was measured at the forehead and the inner arm. Bone strength was measured by section modulus (Z) and bone mineral content (BMC) at the proximal femur. A multiple regression was then performed to investigate the influences of skin color, physical activity, age, ethnicity, developmental age, calcium intake, and lean body mass on Z and BMC. Result: no significant relationship between skin color and bone strength.
Is there, in fact, any hard evidence that humans vary in skin color because they need to maintain the same level of vitamin D production in the face of varying levels of UV-B? Robins (1991, pp. 204-205) found the data to be unconvincing when he reviewed the literature. In particular, there seems to be little relationship between skin color and blood levels of 25-OHD—one of the main circulating metabolites of vitamin D…/… A study under natural conditions in Birmingham, England, revealed comparable increases in 25-OHD levels after the summer sunshine from March to October in groups of Asians, West Indians and Caucasoids … This absence of a blunted 25-OHD response to sunlight in the dark-skinned West Indians at high northerly latitudes (England lies farther north than the entire United States of America except for Alaska) proves that skin colour is not a major contributor to vitamin D deficiency in northern climes”
and what about the northern Native people of Canada/Iceland/Alaska/Russia who live way up north? They all don’t have blond hair and blue eyes. As my Norwegian friend said, “you get many blond-haired, blue-eye in a few small countries by inter-breeding the same few families for 10,000 years…”
Peter Frost answers this at his blog post Sexual selection and Arctic environments