A similar analysis applies within the realm of mate preferences. Several commentators pointed out that sex differences in human mate preferences are generally quite small... As such, the central claim in EP [evolutionary psychology] should probably be "Human beings evolved to put a fair amount of weight on good looks in a mate" rather than "Men evolved to put more weight on good looks than women." Again, the latter statement is true but potentially misleading. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not; the statement is misleading if it is given undue weight. (Steve Stewart-Williams)

A similar analysis applies within the realm of mate preferences. Several commentators pointed out that sex differences in human mate preferences are generally quite small... As such, the central claim in EP [evolutionary psychology] should probably be "Human beings evolved to put a fair amount of weight on good looks in a mate" rather than "Men evolved to put more weight on good looks than women." Again, the latter statement is true but potentially misleading. This sounds like a contradiction, but it is not; the statement is misleading if it is given undue weight.

Steve Stewart-Williams

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amount analysis central claim contradiction fair given good women human men latter mate misleading psychology quite realm several sex should similar small statement weight looks preferences

Related quotes

Hey wait a minute, this isn't a Copyright claim now is it? This looks more like a personal ad! How about checking out some of the local press instead of trying to pick up people in other continents? Actually, being in different countries(even on different continents) means that we don't have the same laws here. You know, in Sweden, it's still legal to do a lot of things. Elks can have sex with eachother without being prosecuted for instance. And people are allowed to copy. It's quite natural, both of them, don't you think?

Peter Sunde

I am not [...] asserting that humans are either genial or aggressive by inborn biological necessity. Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetrate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time. [...] [T]he center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.

Stephen Jay Gould

To say that a thing is imaginary is not to dispose of it in the realm of mind, for the imagination, or the image making faculty, is a very important part of our mental functioning. An image formed by the imagination is a reality from the point of view of psychology; it is quite true that it has no physical existence, but are we going to limit reality to that which is material? We shall be far out of our reckoning if we do, for mental images are potent things, and although they do not actually exist on the physical plane, they influence it far more than most people suspect.

Dion Fortune

Both men and women are conceived as merely capable of response to a situation that their society has already defined for them as sexual, and so the Arapesh feel that it is necessary to chaperon betrothed couples who are too young... with their definition of sex as a response to an external situation rather than as spontaneous desire, both men and women are regarded as helpless in the face of seduction. Parents warn their sons even more than they warn their daughters against permitting themselves to get into situations in which someone can make love to them.

Margaret Mead

Survival, with honor, that outmoded and all-important word, is as difficult as ever and as all-important to a writer. Those who do not last are always more beloved since no one has to see them in their long, dull, unrelenting, no-quarter-given-and-no-quarter-received, fights that they make to do something as they believe it should be done before they die. Those who die or quit early and easy and with every good reason are preferred because they are understandable and human. Failure and well-disguised cowardice are more human and more beloved.

Ernest Hemingway