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Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 6, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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You don't think "evolution" works fast enough to make you more likely to be attractive if you had an attractive mother and grandmother?

Natural selection doesn’t cause population-level shifts in attractiveness in just a couple generations. Natalya might (or might not) inherit aspects of her mom’s good looks, but that’s genetics. Evolution needs sustained selective pressure across many generations to change the frequency of traits in a population. If evolution worked that fast, we’d see dramatic changes in appearance across just a few generations any time a war or famine hit. Traits like attractiveness are polygenic and influenced by culture, grooming, health, etc.