Good Genes

Scientifically, you’re better-looking than your parents. And, your kids will be better-looking than you.

What makes one person more attractive than another? It’s a question with so many facets that it can almost seem unanswerable. Whether looking at renaissance artworks, Greek sculptures, photographs, or a modern-day Instagram feed, beauty has always found a way to come to the forefront.

Over time, what we considered beautiful has changed considerably, so much so that it would be more accurate to say that beauty is a spectrum rather than an ideal. However, there’s been one thing, that throughout all of human history appears to have been universally desired — symmetry.

Imagine a beautiful person. Anyone, from any time, in any place. I can almost guarantee that, if you were to trace lines across that person’s face, you would find an underlying symmetry to their features. It can be seen across almost all of the art from all periods, as well as in how we choose our partners, and it’s the latter that informs the former in this case.

There is continuing debate on why humans have shown a preference for this kind of symmetry. Some have suggested it’s a learned trait. From the moment we’re born, we begin to observe the world around us. And since symmetrical, average things seem to require…