The Finch Formerly Known As Gold

3 March 2006

Bombshells of the Mesozoic

Okay, not that early, but get a load of this:

Thanks to a food shortage and a man shortage about 10,000 years ago, men were in such demand they had their pick of mates.

With so much competition among women to find a mate, nature and evolution kicked in to give some cave women a distinctive look to attract the opposite sex: blond hair and blue eyes.

So says a new study published in the British science journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Impossible. If it were a real British science journal, it would be called Evolution and Human Behaviour.

And anyway, there's a simpler explanation, says Dr. B:

[A] woman who is blond tends to have pale skin that will absorb more sunlight, and therefore more vitamin D, and will not develop rickets. Rickets causes bone deformities (bow legs, deformed pelvises) ... and not only are women with rickets less attractive, but if you have a deformed pelvis, you have a good chance of dying in childbirth. So blonds will be healthier, have more kids, and voila, genetic drift into blondness...

I'm inclined to accept the good doctor's version of things, especially since Betty Rubble, not even slightly blonde, always struck me as way hotter than Wilma Flintstone.

Posted at 6:16 AM to Table for One


"I'm inclined to accept the good doctor's version of things, especially since Betty Rubble, not even slightly blonde, always struck me as way hotter than Wilma Flintstone."

No way. Redheads are hot. Even when the read comes out of a bottle.

Posted by: Bobbert at 9:25 AM on 3 March 2006

Yeah, but I had a black-and-white TV set.

Posted by: CGHill at 9:53 AM on 3 March 2006

To follow the logic:

. . .and blue eyes are generally more myopic, thus better ensuring the caveman's success in his quest for a blonde mate.

Bwah!

Posted by: Margi at 1:55 PM on 3 March 2006

Geez. If that's the way it works, I'd have thought I'd have managed to get a date with an actual blonde by now. :)

Posted by: CGHill at 3:02 PM on 3 March 2006

In retrospect, we have "The Flintstones" to thank for the rash of modern-day sitcoms featuring fat, dumpy men married to hot wives...

Posted by: CT at 8:20 AM on 4 March 2006

CT, Audrey Meadows resents that.

Posted by: McGehee at 10:07 AM on 4 March 2006

Then again, what was The Flintstones, if not a thinly-disguised version of The Honeymooners?

Posted by: CGHill at 10:44 AM on 4 March 2006

Precisely.

Posted by: McGehee at 7:13 AM on 5 March 2006