Is love blind? Or beauty in the eye of the beholder? Despite these liberating sentiments, we are bombarded daily with messages about what is and isn’t attractive. Some of these messages come from evolutionary research that shows why people from many societies show surprising agreement when asked to rate pictures of faces or bodies for attractiveness.
This Valentine’s day, Professor Bill von Hippel and I will be at The Science Exchange in Adelaide for an interactive evening entitled “Lust – Is Love Blind”, part of the RiAus program on the Seven Deadly Sins. With a mix of talks, interactive exercises and a Q&A session we will expose the science of attraction. We will talk about the basics of attraction; the things that make the hottest stars and celebutantes so alluring. But we will also dig deeper and find out what science says about the rest of us: folks with merely average looks, charm and status. Should we be looking for Mr or Ms. Right, or should we settle for Mr or Ms. Good Enough?
Some of the material I will speak about is featured in my forthcoming book, Sex, Genes and Rock ‘n’ Roll: How Evolution has Shaped the Modern World.
