For me?

The simplest answer is that's what recombination does.  It spreads the genome out in all sorts of directions.  Some, by chance, will not be as "attractive" as others.

A few different things contribute to this.  First, recombination.  There are literally trillions of possible combinations from one genome, and during outcrossing, you're combining two.  No matter how many pretty people you put together, there will be some ugly children.

Second, physical attractiveness is not the only feature humans select for.  Like it or not, Bill Gates could, in theory, be one of the most successful reproducers on the planet.  It has always been so.  The male that can provide the best resources is not always the most attractive.

Third, natural selection is not a race to a goal.  It's a million treadmills running against each other.  Without looking it up, I can't remember the name of the principle I'm thinking of, but as everyone becomes attractive, nobody is.  In other words, women (the selectors) are looking for a man who can stand out, whether it's physically or intellectually, or whatever.  Suppose that blonde hair and blue eyes is the most attractive thing today.  If, in two hundred years, two out of every three people are blonde and blue, that will be mundane, and women will start going for something else -- perhaps brown hair and hazel eyes.

When something becomes a selection criteria, a couple of things can happen.  First, you can experience runaway selection, and end up with something like a peacock's tail.  It's so extravagant that it's a detriment to the male's survival, but tails just keep getting bigger because that's what peahens like.  Usually, you reach a point of diminishing returns, where there is no longer any advantage to selecting for bigger tails, or whatever.  Or, the environment can change, including new predators, new parasites, climate or ecological change... whatever.

The last thing to consider is that with humans, our incredible diversity also gives us an incredibly wide set of parameters to cover the word, "attractive."  It's not just culture, either.  When we do brain scans on people who are being shown different kinds of faces, we find that people really are neurologically attracted to different types.

With all this in mind, it should be easy to see that breeding ugly out is completely impossible.

No.  Pretty parents have ugly children, and vice versa.

Ugly people do suffer disadvantages, but have you noticed that very few are celibate?  They just don't often mate with the 10s.  We're not like some of the primates, where only the top males get to mate.  All human males get to mate within our social structure (theoretically.)  The "aesthetically disadvantaged" can either make lots of money, be very funny, learn a valuable skill... whatever.   A disadvantage for humans is not a death sentence for the genes.

Primarily because of our adaptiveness.  We have lived in so many different environments with so many different survival needs, it would be a surprise if we didn't have a wide range.

Not necessarily, but sure, it happens.  Some autistic people can do math up to fifty decimals in their heads.  Some ugly people are really, really smart.  Some very shy people have rich parents.

Of course the better looking a girl is, the more work it's going to take to get her.  Unless you happen to be a 10 yourself, you're towards the bottom of her list of available mates.  Mate selection is somewhat two-way in humans.  You're like a beta male trying to mate with an alpha female.  It's not impossible, but you have to make it worth her while not to select one of the 10s, who, as you've astutely pointed out, tend to have better jobs, especially if they're tall and symmetrical.

Realize, too, that mating isn't like an all you can eat buffet.  It's more like everyone rushing the kitchen and grabbing the best cut of meat they can because the cook isn't making any more.  When you're 25, you're looking for the best deal you can find in a mate, but so is every other 25 year old.  Everyone realizes they're working with a time frame, so everyone "settles" in a sense.  They take the best deal they can get right now, which is almost certainly not the best deal out of all of the mates that would have them -- if only they knew each other.

True.  Very good looking women don't have to be funny or interesting, but remember, attractiveness is not our only mating criterion.  Funny, intelligent men like funny, intelligent women very often.  Almost everyone is looking for a package deal, where they get some of at least several things they're looking for.  Most people recognize that you usually have to settle in one area to gain in another.  For men whose primary goal is a beautiful wife, no.  Intelligence is not important for hot girls.  For men who want a longtime companion, past the "pretty years" it isn't nearly as important.

(This, by the way, is another way of explaining why ugly isn't bred out.)

No, hot chicks don't have a problem.  Men who are bitter because they weren't born beautiful have a problem when they get mad at women for their own evolutionary deficiencies.

Of course it's evolution.

Natural selection spreads everything around... looks, intelligence... everything.  Some people win the lottery.  Some lose.

No.  They're good mates if they make children who live and make children of their own.  Natural selection doesn't care if you feel used, so long as your dick works.  Most attractive women do reproduce well.  (One of the main things humans find attractive is symmetry.  Symmetry is indicative of good health in the past, as well as a good chance of producing attractive children.)

How apropos.

But in general, ugly people have ugly children. Attractive people have attractive children. The ugly to me seem to have a different set of advantages to ensure their survival. Can you think of a characteristic in another species where a deficiency in one area is not counterbalanced with advantages in other areas? German Shepherds have many advantages making them attractive as guard dogs, but many people pick poodles for pets because they see advantages in poodles that Shepherds don't have.

I don't see where the rich and attractive have more children or their children survive any better. I'm still inclined to believe that ugly people develop other qualities to ensure their survival that the pretty don't have.

I think you have a North American bias in this matter. Throughout our evolutionary history,  things like money, food, shelter, clothing, etc... have been traded for sex. I think this trading has been a driving force in the development of technology and civilization. Men have also been the one's to select which women get the goods in exchange for sex. Our history has been more like a brothel than a monastery. Because the USA has been relatively prosperous, you don't see the trading as much as has been the norm.

I'm not sure if looking for a man that stands out is an advantage. Because human children require so much money, time and energy to raise well, women should also look to get a male that can help in this effort, which is why humans invented marriage right? The woman that picks the man that "stands out" to be the sperm donor can often end up a single mother raising children without any help from the father. So maybe she should go with the uglier, less talented, poorer man that would be more faithful. But this would be a rational decision, rather than following instinct.

You know the nail that sticks up the most is the one to get hammered first. So people that stand out have disadvantages too. In corporations, if you just act normal and don't try to stand out, you don't make any enemies, you don't make anyone jealous of your success. So you can do better by not trying to stand out sometimes.

I think what I'm getting at is that humans have this unique feature for rational thinking. It seems to be in very deep conflict with our primordial instincts. My choice in women when I was young was pretty much the instinct for beauty. But now, it needs to be based more on rational thinking about what will make my life fulfilled. I want to be a rational person rather than a slave to my hormones.

So you think it's possible to have my cake and it too? So the concept of a high maintenance woman is irrational, made up by bitter men? It's possible to have just as good a relationship with a hot woman as a not so hot woman?

"Ugly" and "attractive" are highly subjective terms. Even whole societies that agree on some basic common precepts by which to define both will inevitably be countered by others who judge things quite differently, and both extremes will themselves have evolved their viewpoints from other viewpoints in the past that contradicted the modern norm. We can only assume that this process is ongoing - and one only has to look at what constituted a "photogenic model" or "sexy lady" over the years since photography was invented to see how dynamic the process really is.

When you throw in the conceivably large minority of people, even in western society, who use private and very personal criteria to decide whether or how they find others "attractive" (or for that matter repugnant) then you can readily see that normal evolutionary biological and chemical processes cannot be invoked to explain much of anything here at all.

But you're not the first person to ask that question, and there have even been some small fortunes made by certain authors who have attempted to answer it (I can think of Desmond Morris, for one), but the whole concept comes unstuck when one stands back and takes an honest look at how individuals habitually fly in the face of conventional attitudes towards beauty and attractiveness when selecting breeding partners. And when you think about it from an evolutionary point of view, it's a good job they do.

I agree with you, but I think we have to understand who we are and how we arrived at this point in our evolutionary history. I am not not trying to promote prejudiced, I'm a product of the same evolutionary forces that formed all of us. I raised this topic to help me understand things.

I read scientific studies where they ask people to pick candidates to interview for a job. In one case they show a picture, the other they don't. People will consistently pick the more attractive people to interview when they see the picture and then claim they have no bias against the ugly. It's not a mean thing, it's just who we are and we need to understand this.

"So, beauty is objective.  That is to say, we cannot help what we find beautiful."

Isn't it paradoxical to call beauty objective?  Granted, one does not necessarily have direct control over what one finds attractive but this does not mean everyone finds the same things attractive since that is ultimately dependent on the individual's own desires which, at most, only the individual knows.  Not to mention that civilized society has a habit of imposing an objective idea of beauty on a population that many individuals more than likely reject becuase of their own personal  beliefs (based in their desires) on whats attractive.  For instance, the idea of beauty being imposed now, at least on women, is the notion of thiness as attractiveness.  Of course, many people here disagree with that idea but it doesn't change the fact that this "objective" idea of beauty is being imposed upon the public.  Nevertheless, many people in here find different physical qualities attractive and I'm sure many could easily get in heated debates over what is more attractive (in fact I get in debates all the time with guys becuase I think Avril lavigne is incredibly hot whereas most guys, whom I talk to in person, simply do not).   The point I am getting at is, you seem to want it both ways, namely, that beauty, or hotness, is not subjective, yet,  everyone has their own particular  qualities that they, despite whatever ideas they might have about beauty, find attractive.  The most you can claim is "You cannot determine what you find attractive" which is not the same thing as "beauty is objective" since one is a claim about the individual whereas the other implies that everyone, regardless of their own beliefs and desires, find the same thing attractive. 

No.  Objective doesn't mean absolute.

So, you find Picasso's work beautiful.  You can't help it.  It's objective.   I don't.  I can't help it.  It's objective.  The perception of Picasso's work as beautiful is objective locally but not absolute globally.  The evaluation of Picasso's work is subjective, since there are multiple valid conclusions.

Why do you suppose society does that?

Several points.  No insult intended.  If anyone is insulted, blame science, not me.

* Individuals (not just humans!) "settle in" to a model of attraction that coincides with their ability to attract a mate.  In other words, we are designed to be ok with what we can get.

* You seem to think that society is removed from natural selection.  Isn't it obvious that we are naturally selected to live in societies?  Blaming society for human perceptions is equivalent to blaming humans for human nature.  Interesting philosophy, but it doesn't really say anything meaningful.

* Societies, like individuals, are adaptable.  There are six billion humans.  Clearly, our society is very good at promoting fecundity.  Would we not expect societal norms to change as our environment changes?

Once more.  Use your terms properly.

Humans individually have objective standards of beauty.

There are multiple valid answers, so removed from an individual, the standards for beauty are subjective.

Standards for beauty are not arbitrary.  Nobody finds a face covered by giant oozing boils attractive.

Taking humanity as a whole, there is no single absolute measure for beauty.

Give me some equipment, a few photos, and some scientists, and I'll determine what you find attractive.

Am I having trouble making words?  I'm the one saying that beauty is individually objective, collectively subjective, and decidedly non-absolute in the species.

I'm also saying, with lots of empirical evidence that there are distinct patterns in human perception of beauty.  It's far from arbitrary.  Though standards of weight have gone up and down, there is a threshold for thinness and obesity.  Morbidly obese people have never been considered the societal norm for beauty.  Similarly, no society has ever collectively valued massive asymmetry.

Imagine a box with say, a thousand different qualities in it.  You find 1, 293, 714, 715, 792, 803, and 920 to be ridiculously attractive, while I find 7, 644, 790,791, 792, and 998 to be equally attractive.  We each have objective tastes, which belong to an objective set {1,1000} that objectively encompass all human perceptions of beauty.  Within the set of humans, each individual has tastes which he cannot control, but are mathematically subjective, since each of the 1000 is valid as a description of beauty.

It's not quite that simple, of course.  Supposing that shiny hair is number ten, virtually all males are going to find it attractive in a female, while number 333, a small birthmark on the tip of the nose, is only going to be considered attractive by one or two percent of the population.   We can objectively say that shiny hair is, on average, much more attractive than birthmarks on the tip of the nose. 

Well if you look at the publications of dog breeders, they will have a list of advantages and disadvantages of each breed. You don't see a breed with all disadvantages and no advatages over other breeds, these dogs would never be bred, right? So Shepards are great dogs but pretty high maintainence compared to a poodle. What makes Shepards great is often what makes them a problem.

So, why shouldn't one think the same is true in humans? There is nothing particularly special about our species. If being ugly has it's disadvantages perhaps one advantage is that of being lower maintainance. If ugliness didn't have some advantages, I think evolution would have eliminated it. Instead we see lots of ugly people have lots of ugly children, generation after generation.

So a man may pick at a less attractive woman for being lower maintenance. A woman may choose a man that is less attractive because he may be less likely to cheat on her. So a less attractive woman may be better a demonstrating she's low maintainence. A less attractive man may be better a demonstrating he's a faithful husband.

Where do we see a feature in a species only being a big disadvantage? Often we see a feature that is a creature's best advantage is sometimes a big liability(i.e. the peacocks tail).

Then you show remarkable ignorance of tastes in these matters traditionally exhibited by several very distinct societies - including ones as diverse as North African Arab peoples and some Australian Aboriginal cultures, in which extremely stout females were considered the height of beauty (and still are, though dual standards seem now to apply thanks to cultural influence from without).

And all explicable from an evolutionary perspective of course (before you correct me with my own point).

No, I'm familiar with them.  In a previous post, I said, "morbid obesity."  I was making reference to that.  I'm aware that short and stout has been fashionable.  Look, it's not important what the boundary is.  The point is that there is a boundary.  There are things that humans have never found attractive culturally, wouldn't you agree?  If that is so, then there is a boundary to the human perception of beauty.  Sure, it's a big set, but it is a closed set, nonetheless.