March 03, 2006

• this is cool, but it still doesn't explain red hair. at least not that bright orange shade.
• Red hair evolved to enrage bulls and mingle with clowns. Thus the popular hamburger resturaunt you people hate so much.
• Wouldn't the need to maintain a non-shrinking population negate such a theory? If it were the reverse and women were selecting for males of a certain trait, who could mate with as many females as they could handle then it would make more sense, but women can only have so many kids and I'm sure the infant mortality rate was rather dismal back then.
• The writer is an idiot. To quote the article, "The increase in competition for males led to rapid change as women struggled to evolve the most alluring qualities." I doubt the author said anything like this. There is no struggle to evolve a characteristic, you are born with all you will ever have. It sounds like the women concentrated really hard and blond hairs just started popping out. If anything, men are responsible for the evolution of blonde hair, not the women. If the author is correctly representing the work (which is a big if), men were the selective force. Males were preferentially selecting females with different hair colors, so this led to an increased proportion of people with that trait in the population. But, I am glad to see that WHO has solved enough to the world's health problems to commission studies of when blondes will go extinct. Actually to be fair, it is likely that this was a study of the persistence of rare, recessive traits in human populations (a good thing to understand), and it just another example of how poorly researched and written this piece is.
• Oh god I wish I had a girlfriend.
• I'm too blonde to understand this article. *revels in status of being evolutionarily-advanced*
• just another example of how poorly researched and written this piece is. The motivation to tease out a stoory about European blondes being somehow a genetic progression kind of creeps me out as well.
• Don't Godwin the thread, you fucking nazi!
• (Dammit! Beat by quid! That fucking gothic fascist!)
• As a matter of fact, alumroot, the extinct blondes thing appears to be not so much inaccurate as entirely false.
• Monkeyfilter: The women concentrated really hard and blond hairs just started popping out.
• Like, whateverrr!
• the women concentrated really hard and blond hairs just started popping out *wrinkles forehead, strains hard, checks mirror* repeat
• I have a headache. It's not working.
• wow I can't believe they don't understand its when you stop thinking that the blonde hairs pop out. seriously, I have not RTFA, nor do I plan to, it sounds like a pile of rotting tripe. As one of your new red/blonde and blue(actually green) overlords (welcome me fools!) I too find the seeming premise both problematic and stupid. blondes are probably just a sucessful mutation or something :)
• I think it's funny that none of the actresses they listed at the end of the article are natural blondes, as far as I know. I *am* a natural blonde, but my hair tends to switch between red, orange, blonde, blue, pink... whatever suits me that day.
• What like those fiber-optic lamps that change colors?
• I concentrated really hard, but something else popped out. Please advise.
• Was it an original thought? y'know cause if it was then we'd know that the blonde thing wasn't worki-*ow!* quit biting!
• To each his/her own. *sigh*
• "Please advise." Lick it! LICK IT!
• It's bizarre; my boss and I were just wondering about this a few days ago.
• You're among friends you know, you don't have to use "boss" for "imaginary friend" here.
• Nah... I just perform the traditional ritual of dump-bottle-of-hair-changey-stuff-over-head. It works pretty well.
• We have to save the blondes from exstinction with a captive breeding program!!!
• What if I imagine my boss to be my friend. ;-)
• You get promoted. *Makes eyes at own she-boss, she flinches and goes home early*
• Thanks for that link of WHO refuting the report of blonde extinction. I have a couple more links that discuss this. One is an abstract from the author of the study that much of this based on Science Direct Link to Evolution and Human Behavior And here is an interesting discussion of the same article/topic Blonde evolution discussion at Gene Expression Sorry for the digression...Now back to all the blonde jokes.
• The theory sounds to me like what is technically known as 'a load of bollocks'...what I do know is that women, unless they are very old or seriously ugly, have no difficulty in obtaining mates - all they have to do is to be available. Now THAT's the load of bollocks. I'm neither old, nor (according to everyone save the second-grade bully) extremely ugly. And I'm certainly available. According to this feller I should be beating the daddy-os off with a stick. instead, I'm debating evolution with my imaginary boss.
• I hear quid'd corpse is looking for a girlfriend...
• quid's ugh!
• Eh, quid's corpse'll date anybody.
• well it'll certainly fuck anybody!
• Monkeyfilter: debating evolution with my imaginary boss
• And the other question is, did mammoth females evolve blonde hair to attract the males who survived being hunted?
• o blonde-tressed mammoth, come with me and we shall all the pleasures prove of wooly offspring with many-coloured hair we'll have a bunch you're sure to love wee mammoths red and cream and brown shall kin-speckle all the land for miles around
• When mine love's hair All curled and wooly Is reddish then I'm happy truly No matter if it's Tangled, wet or Blonde you say? Well that's even better.