Book Reviews

Physical Attractiveness and the Theory ofSexual Selection: Results from Five Popu-lations By Doug Jones. 174 pp. with a for-ward by Donald Symons. Ann Arbor, MI:The University of Michigan Museum of An-thropology Publications. 1996. $24.00 (pa-per).

From 1989 to 1994, Jones conducted re-search on facial attractiveness in five hu-man populations: Brazilians, U.S.A. Ameri-cans, Russians, Ache Indians of Paraguay,and Hiwi Indians of Venezuela. In Chapter3, he characterizes these populations andhis methods, which focus on facial measure-ments and rating of facial attractivenessfrom within and between populations. Theresearch centered upon examining the vari-ous theories about how sexual selection mayhave worked in human evolutionary his-tory. These theories are discussed in thefirst two chapters of the book. This is thefirst, detailed, cross-cultural study of facialattractiveness that has included societieswith relatively limited Western contact, theAche and Hiwi. He found that there is sig-nificant similarity within group ratings ofown population and other populations. Be-tween-group ratings also revealed similar-ity in attractiveness judgments.

In the remainder of the book, Jones at-tempts to understand this human universalattractiveness judgment. He favors the sen-sory bias theory of sexual selection as anexplanation of female facial attractiveness.He shows that relatively neotenous femalefaces, i.e., faces that appear to be youngerthan the actual age of the face based on cer-tain facial proportions (small lower face,lower jaw and nose, and large lips), arerated as more attractive by male raters fromall five populations. He also found that U.S.women models have neotenous faces com-pared to female undergraduate students.Furthermore, his experimental reduction ofphotographic facial features connotingneotony results in higher ratings. Finally,neotony doesn’t make men’s faces more at-tractive. Jones’ evolutionary interpretationis this: in human evolutionary history, itwas adaptive for males to prefer youthful

facial features because of the strong associa-tion between youth and fecundity in women,and individual women who signaled super-normal youth in the face therefore had anadvantage in female-female competition fordesirable male mates. Men’s preference forfacial markers of high fecundity is a sensorybias that has selected for exaggeratedneotony in female faces.

It is this main argument of the book aboutneotony that will be controversial amongphysical attractiveness researchers. Most ofthese researchers agree that women’s facesare attractive when they possess smalllower facial features, especially gracile jawand large lips. However, others see theseattractive features as connoting mate valuein the form of relatively high estrogen leveland perhaps nulliparity. One would expectselection to have favored males who per-ceive indicators of true mate value, not su-pernormal stimuli without mate value, asbeautiful. This is the criticism that arisesfrom honest signal theory—the handicapprincipal. Signals will evolve to be honestbecause of selection on mate choosers to usetrue fitness indicators in mate choice. Jonesbriefly discusses this problem, but is notcompletely convincing. He believes thathonest signals usually will be the end resultof signal selection, yet that some dishonestymay creep in and be maintained for consid-erable periods of evolutionary time. Thistemporary dishonesty is allowed by honestsignal theory under certain conditions. Thereproductive stakes involved in mate choice,however, are high and selection should al-ways act strongly for detection of true matevalue. This said, Jones’ view will be one thatfurther research must seriously considerand test. Jones’ analysis of the relationshipbetween mate value and reproductive valuesuggests that conditions under which theyequate precisely for females may be quitelimited, which raises the question of wheth-er very youthful features in adult womencontain truthful information about matevalue. The hypothesis that neotony signalsestrogen and thus true mate value would besupported if neotony in adult women corre-lated positively with looks (as it does), andalso with relatively high survival and/or im-munocompetence. The relationships wouldneed to be tested in a traditional society.

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY 10:541–544 (1998)

© 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

PROD #97048

Immunocompetence would be most ame-nable to test and highly relevant becausethe steroid reproductive hormones appearto negatively impact immune function.Thus, markers of high estrogen may reliablysignal an immune system of such high qual-ity that it can deal with the handicap of highestrogen. Another prediction from the hon-est signaling idea is that attractiveness rat-ings of faces, breasts, and buttocks/thighs ofwomen will be positively correlated with oneanother when age is factored out. That is,attractive faces go along with attractivefronts and backs, independent of age. Jonesargues that all sexually selected body fea-tures of women are exaggerations, i.e., dis-honest signals, of maturity in the case ofbody features, not youth. With Jones’theory, there is no reason to expect decep-tive signals to co-occur on the same body.However, if honest signaling is involved, allthe secondary sex traits should reflect phe-notypic quality, but this allows for sometrade-offs between sex traits depending onsociety-specific mate-value factors.

Chapter 6 explores the relationship be-tween attractiveness and facial symmetryand averageness across the five popula-tions. Jones measured facial symmetry fromphotographs and from the faces themselves.He concludes that facial symmetry is a mi-nor factor in facial attractiveness in thepopulations he studied. He found that facialaverageness, however, played a more sig-nificant role in attractiveness, which is con-sistent with other studies of facial average-ness. Although it is clear that averagenessis important, it is also the case that non-average features (e.g., small lower jaw inwomen) are important. Which facial fea-tures are causing the attractiveness of av-erageness is unknown.

Chapter 7 examines race, social status,and attractiveness. Jones reviews literatureshowing that physical features such as nosesize and skin color that are distant from thepopulation-typical features are regarded asunattractive. Evidence from the five-population study supports this pattern. Per-ceived social status based on skin color ap-pears to influence attractiveness judgmentsin the multi-racial population in Brazil.

This book is a highly significant work inthe study of human physical attractiveness.It is the first cross-cultural treatment thatincludes societies with limited exposure toWestern industrialization. Jones treatment

of the role of sensory bias in human beautywill serve the important role of stimulatingfurther research.

RANDY THORNHILLDepartment of BiologyThe University of New MexicoAlbuquerque, New Mexico

Guidebook To Protein Toxins And Their UseIn Cell Biology. Edited by R. Rappuoli andC. Montecucco. xviii + 256 pp. New York:Sambrook & Tooze (Oxford). 1997. $50 (pa-per).

This book is intended as a guide to thebiochemical activity of a great variety of tox-ins which are present in nature and havefound application as molecular probes in thebiochemical understanding of cellular activ-ity. Without many of these substances wewould be at a much more primitive level ofunderstanding of cellular structure andfunction. Their usefulness results from thenarrow specificity which these toxins dis-play, allowing a focus upon blocked pro-cesses that can be looked at in greater de-tail. The mode of action of toxins can be usedas a kind of ‘‘back door’’ into cellular andbiochemical mechanisms. For example, themode of action of cholera toxin is best un-derstood if one is thoroughly versed in thestructure of GTP binding proteins and thetransmembrane nature of signal transduc-tion, because the GTP protein is the site ofaction of the toxin. One can work systemati-cally through a wide variety of toxins andcover most of the areas of modern cellularbiology. For several years I have used thisstyle of presentation to introduce nonmajorsto otherwise tedious areas of biochemistry.The idea is to grab their interest with atoxin which has a familiar history (cholera,diphtheria, or pertussis, for example) andthen hold their attention long enough to ex-plain its cellular mode of action.

The question which arises is the follow-ing. For what kind of audience is this guide-book designed? Certainly it will be ofgeneral interest as a kind of handbookfor general reference in a cellular- or bio-chemically-oriented lab or lecture setting.I will buy the book as a useful referencetool for general student interest. For morehuman-oriented (organismal) scholars,however, the guidebook will likely pro-vide a level of technical explanation far be-

542 BOOK REVIEWS

yond the needs of the curious, and this atthe expense of other, perhaps more fascinat-ing, information on the disease ecology ofthese toxins or the historical implications oftheir occurrence. Many have had their mo-ment in history, some decimating entirepopulations of humans, and who’s to saythat a brief intellectual foray into the his-torical implications of botulism is not as im-portant as its molecular mode of action. Iwould suggest that the next edition retain asimilar format but each topic include a one-page digression on the historical and eco-logical implications of the toxin.

The book is up-to-date in the mode of ac-tion that is presented for the toxins and it isadmirable that a website is offered to peri-odically update the material presented. Thepresentation suffers, however, from thevarious writing styles from its 129 contribu-tors, most of whom had idiosyncratic viewsof what constituted satisfactory text andgraphic contributions for inclusion into thefew pages that were each person’s allot-ment. Lipids, proteins and membranes areportrayed in every conceivable fashion,which makes a smooth reading of severaltopics difficult, and pigeonholes the book forone-topic-only reference use. Certain figureslook like derivative work from other sourcesand the figures, in this modern era of mul-ticolored cartoon presentations, are gener-ally indigestible in black and white. Still,all-in-all, it will find its niche as a referencesource. It could have been much more.

DON WILLIAMSDepartment of BiologyWestern Washington UniversityBellingham, Washington

Human Anatomy, Second Edition. by FredericH. Martini, Ph.D., and Michael J. Timmons,M.S. xxxii + 844 pp. New Jersey: PrenticeHall, Inc. 1997. $88 (paper).

The authors intend Human Anatomy,Second Edition to be a ‘‘new kind ofanatomy text, designed to improve the abil-ity of students to visualize the human body,to understand the principles of humananatomy, and to apply the terms and con-cepts of the discipline to a variety of real-world and clinical situations.’’ They succeedby using a highly visual approach, combin-ing text, line drawings, photographs, andseveral innovative pedagogical techniques

to enhance learning on several different lev-els.

Human Anatomy uses the standard sys-temic approach favored by most introduc-tory anatomy texts. Chapter 1 introducesanatomical terms and the organ systems.Chapters 2 and 3 present the basics of cel-lular anatomy and the tissue level of orga-nization. Chapters 4–27 address a specificsystem or system component. The finalchapter discusses the process of human de-velopment from conception to birth. Appen-dices include a scanning atlas, clinical is-sues, weights and measures, answers toconcept questions, foreign word roots, ep-onyms, abbreviations, and a glossary. Thesequence of chapters is consistent withother introductory texts with the exceptionof the twelfth chapter, Surface Anatomy,which seems out of place and should be in-cluded with the discussion of anatomicallandmarks in the first chapter.

The authors improve on the typical paceof presentation by expanding space devotedto topics that students find most difficult,particularly the nervous and musculoskele-tal systems. Seven chapters are devoted todiscussion of the musculoskeletal system,extra emphasis that is warranted becausethis system is seldom discussed thoroughlyin clinically-oriented anatomy texts. In ad-dition, abstract topics, such as the conceptof levers, are broken down into small blocksof information which are well-presentedwith supporting illustrations.

Each chapter begins with a detailed chap-ter outline and objectives. At the conclusionof each chapter, a summary and review in-cludes a study outline, a review of chapterobjects and concepts, and ‘‘critical thinkingand clinical application questions.’’ Thesetechniques make clear what is expected andgives the student a chance to review con-cepts.

Within each chapter, a pictorial progres-sion from macroscopic to microscopicanatomy clearly illustrates the three-dimensional relationship among the organsand their components. The authors synthe-size material by integrating text with ‘‘con-cept links’’ that refer to pertinent informa-tion discussed in previous chapters or to theclinical issues appendix. ‘‘Concept checkquestions’’ spaced throughout the text en-courage self-testing at short intervals. An-swers are provided in an appendix to ensureunderstanding.

BOOK REVIEWS 543

A comprehensive ‘‘supplement package,’’available to instructors from the publisher,surpasses the traditional instructor’s vol-ume by including 310 overhead transparen-cies, a laser disc with more than 2000 stillimages, CD-ROM with presentational soft-ware, computerized testing programs,supplemental atlas, and dissection manual.Although we did not have the opportunity toreview the supplemental materials, we ap-preciate the importance of alternate teach-ing modalities and think the package wouldcontribute greatly to the value of the book.

The authors draw on their extensive ex-perience teaching undergraduates of differ-ing backgrounds and abilities to develop atext that gives students a solid foundationfor further study in anatomy. We highly rec-ommend Human Anatomy as an introduc-tory anatomy text.

KENDRA R. SMITH AND MICHAEL W. WARRENDepartment of AnthropologyUniversity of FloridaGainesville, Florida

544 BOOK REVIEWS