Is there a gene in the human body responsible for "general ugliness"?

[Mr Rayon]

i.e. if two parents are ugly, does this mean that their offspring are much more likely to be ugly (in appearance)

[thinker_jeff]

There is no scientific support yet. But, you should have your answer by common sense, right?

[John Cuthber]

Any gene like that would have been bred out generations ago (unless it happened to also confer some massive evolutionary advantage).

[insane_alien]

ugliness is subjective

[thinker_jeff]

ugliness is subjective

Right.

If a girl heard "ugliness" about her looking, she should subjectively think the other way instead of blaming her parents.

 

[insane_alien]

ugliness IS subjective. one persons idea of beauty is another persons idea of ugliness.

 

to say everyone has the same idea of beauty and ugly would just be flat out wrong.

[thinker_jeff]

I'm not saying that everyone has the same idea of beauty and ugly. I am just wondering how do you think about the beauty competitons. Does every girl have the same chance to win?

[John Cuthber]

"I am just wondering how do you think about the beauty competitions."

I don't. In particular, I don't see them as genetic testing.

 

On the other hand, they may have rather too much in common with this thread's subject.

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/57992-cattle-market-puzzle/page__pid__613546#entry613546

Edited June 23, 2011 by John Cuthber

[Marat]

Generally, all populations identify features associated with health as those indicative of beauty, so there might be some transcultural features which all people would agree on as being attractive. Features associated with aging, for example, would be associated with disease, and would thus mark people out as less attractive.

 

Genes associated with ugliness might be preserved in a population by ugly people having no partners available to them other than people who were also ugly. So even though ugliness is a disinducement to selection for mating in the general population, the subpopulation of uglies would mate with each other and keep the traits going. Something similar can be seen with the preservation of genes for short stature even in cultures where height is considered attractive, since the only mates short people who aren't millionaires (e.g., Aristotle Onassis) can find are other short people.

 

The famous biologist Sir Francis Galton believed that ugliness could be objectively identified, and he concluded on the basis of an extensive survey that the ugliest women in Britain were to be found in Edinburgh. He also used a theodolite as an objective measure to gather statistics on the size of African women's derrieres, though whether this had any association with his study of comparative attractiveness is unclear.

[thinker_jeff]

Generally, all populations identify features associated with health as those indicative of beauty, so there might be some transcultural features which all people would agree on as being attractive.

 

I heard this a lot, however, where are the scientific studies?

In the history a generation of people in China identified feature of beauty as skinny. How do you explain for that?

[ewmon]

Generally, all populations identify features associated with health as those indicative of beauty, so there might be some transcultural features which all people would agree on as being attractive.

I've read that right-left facial symmetry correlates with "beauty" regardless of culture. If someone thinks, "Hey, aren't we all symmetrical?", here's photos of British journalist/broadcaster Alistair Cooke. With his head straight in the first photo, his left eye is about a ½ inch lower than his right. Putting his eyes horizontal (probably to see straight) in the second photo, his head ends up tilted a bit.

 

 

[biologywatcher]

Wouldn't a lot of the traits we associate with beauty be polygenic, and largely controlled by developmental networks? I mean, there's definitely a genetic component to appearance, but lots of morphology is dictated by the complex interactions of transcription factors and networks.

 

I'd imagine condition is important too.

 

Overall, I find it very hard to believe that there would only be one gene (and a protein-coding gene at that), that accounts for "general ugliness"--even without debating the subjectivity of "ugliness".

[Ringer]

For most traits attractiveness depends on things like resources and lifestyles, I'll attach a pdf on that just in case you want to read a study and I'm to lazy to find it online, but mainly being symmetrical and average is rated highly on most studies I have read. Here are some studies;

 

http://www.jstor.org/pss/40063377

http://www.jyi.org/volumes/volume6/issue6/features/feng.html

http://homepage.mac.com/ryantmckay/Perception01.pdf

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/5/4/214.short

10.1.1.133.93.pdf

[Vindhya]

I don't know if im wrong.In some way even genes are responsible for ugliness.

ugliness is determined by eye shape,skin colour,nose positioning, short stature etc and these are determined by genes and can be tranfered from parents to offsprings.

[Marat]

What makes a person attractive or unattractive depends on a subtle concinnity of the parts of the face and the overall stylistic statement of the habitus. But if genes generally control the formation of each element, then the way genes come together to constitute the whole picture of a person might be totally ugly in the parents but profoundly beautiful in the children, simply because the effect of the composition could tip from ugly to pretty and back again with the smallest variation in the nature, position, and balance of the elements.

 

Plastic surgeons have a motto which encapsulates this idea, which is: "Fix the nose, spoil the face." If your father has an attractive nose and your mother has a very different sort of face, then you might be ugly by virtue of your father's attractive nose being planted on a face that it doesn't match. So the good facial shape gene and good nose shape gene don't really determine ugliness or prettiness, although they may be ugly or pretty in themselves.

[Teorisyen]

Ugliness is caused by not to be got 1.61 ratio and our body and face shapes are menaged by genes. it shows that genes have an important influence on ugliness but there is no gene which is found.

[deni]

Think so since the parents genes wascombined together in their offspring..but still try to look for more detailedstudies about it.

 

 

[Appolinaria]

there might not be a gene for ugliness, but estrogen contributes to women's attractiveness to men.

 

http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2005/Title,43012,en.html

[DrRocket]

there might not be a gene for ugliness, but estrogen contributes to women's attractiveness to men.

 

 

I doubt that any amount of estrogen could fix this .

 

Maybe alcohol ?

Edited October 11, 2011 by DrRocket

[Appolinaria]

I doubt that any amount of estrogen could fix this

http://www.topnews.i...elosi-nancy.jpg

 

 

 

 

supports my argument here.

 

I'm gonna get an off-topic warning in 2.5 seconds.

Edited October 11, 2011 by Appolinaria

[Mrl4]

face symmetry is probably related to the development gene, and how/when they are expressed. there are however features considered "ugly" in the general society but that isn't much of a factor. you see, there are ugly people who have beautiful children and beautiful couples that have ugly ones...