Quote from TheStudent:
If women select men for wealth and stability, and if we assume wealth is positively correlated with intelligence, then what we have here is de facto eugenics.
Society is self selecting genes for intelligence. We already pursue some low level form of Gattaca.
Men select women for beauty, which is to say signs of reproductive fitness. It has been well documented that animals tend to have favored indicators of reproductive fitness (think peacocks & tails).
We men zero in on legs, lips, symmetry of face, body shape and breasts. These are our indicators. The entire cosmetic/fashion industry in essence is built to enhance these female assets that we men have been biologically programmed to seek out as indicators.
Researchers have taken animals and exaggerated those indicators beyond what can be found in nature to see if animals still respond to them (think birds with unnaturally coloured plummage or unnaturally long tails etc). They found that they do - which also explains why we are attracted by women with comic book sized breasts, despite the fact that they cannot be found in nature.