Sapio-philia

I find intelligence the most attractive trait in friends/ prospective partners. I get a hard on whenever someone impresses me with an amazing insight, intellectual ability or their scientific prowess. (Example: I saw this incredible comic exposition of the cosmic inflation that blew my mind today). I like people who are passionate about their work... and they are rare. Even among PhDs you tend to find few. Nothing is better than a long, very stimulating conversation that challenges my thinking. 

I was discussing my sapiosexuality with a like-minded friend. She described that the brain is likely the biggest sexually selected organ and that there is some scientific evidence that it purely evolved due to sexual selection (See earlier post). 

She needled me with a "What about all the other people that do not have the same reaction, but still do have a brain?". I kinda made a faux pas by saying that obviously there is no evolutionary advantage to having everyone be attracted to the same thing. I don't know if the "obviously" is what stuck her nerve but she countered my pronouncement with "The hypothesis of Fisherian run-away does exactly ask this and several studies show that there can be an advantage to being attracted to the same thing. Just think if a large brain means you are better at solving problems and thus finding food and securing a territory this will certainly increase your reproductive success". 

This friend was doing her PhD in evolutionary biology with a particular focus on sexual selection and my knowledge of evolutionary biology, given my engineering background, is limited to that one time I read Richard Dawkins during a long layover in Singapore airport. I was getting schooled (and I was loving it).

Ah! the plot thickens.

I defended myself that it is good from an evolutionary point to be interested in a variety of traits. Vague terms like Biodiversity, evolvability, and genetic variability come to mind. But to give a layperson example, I'd have thought that if all women were interested in nerdy guys who have never done a push-up in their life and the gene becomes dominant overshadowing all the gym-nut types, what would we do when there is a zombie upraising that requires some folks with muscular genes to run and drive stakes and cross-bow hunt them zombies. Oooh! bad example. That is essentially me saying that you are better off dating a muscular guy instead of me (Yes, I was hoping to date an evolutionary biologist). Terrible example. Strike that. Let's suppose that brawny-ness won the gene-survival fight and all the single nerdy men and women took their high IQ genes to their grave, what would we do when the computers develop consciousness and want to enslave the human race. Who will press Ctrl + Alt + Del.

And that boys and girls, is how it is done.

Update: Despite my charm, I didn't get a date with her. But that was mainly because she was an exchange student and has already left our shores for Europe.