<html><head><style type=text/css><!--
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--></style></head><body><div><span title="tara@taramayastales.com">Tara Maya</span><span class="detail"> <tara@taramayastales.com></span> , 9/2/2014 4:23 AM:<br><blockquote class="mcnt mori" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="mcnt"><div><div><br></div><div>On Feb 8, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Anders Sandberg <<a href="mailto:anders@aleph.se" class="mailto">anders@aleph.se</a>> wrote:</div><br class="mcntApple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Slim gym-rats with nouveaux cuisine tastes might be desirable and healthy, but they do not get much more kids. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>Being overweight and smoking are the two biggest "Turn Offs" to the dating crowd. For men or women. There is definitely a genetic penalty.</div></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>I started looking for evidence against that, but I found at least one paper supporting your view: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24223433 I could not get the paper, so no idea how big the effect is. However, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3291804/ points out that things may have changed over time and that social factors do mediate a lot of this - the image is slightly confusing. Generally, being overweight does seem to be a bit of a problem on the marriage market, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199309303291406 (but see also http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199403033300920 ) In the end, my guess is that you are likely correct in our current culture, but the effect size might not be enormous. </div><div><br></div><div>I also found a neat argument in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2868879/ that childbearing might be a cause of obesity - no, not just in the obvious way! :-) - by an evolved factor of insulin resistance protecting the fetus from starvation. Oh, and obesity is a risk factor for lower fertility too.</div><div><br></div><br><div><blockquote class="mcnt mori" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:2px blue solid;padding-left:1ex;"><div class="mcnt"><div></div><div>Being drunk seems to be, as in previous centuries, no deterrent. If anything….</div><div></div></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>Impulsive actions does tend to lead to more kids. </div><div><br></div>One interesting association is between tattoos and impulsivity. Which also seems to influence smoking: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24180254<br><div></div><div><br></div><div>In the end, there are a lot of moving parts in our society. Making predictions about the joint socio-psychological-demographic system is surprisingly tricky.</div><div><br></div><br>Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University</body></html>