I was very disappointed with this book. It seems the authors do not know much about the topic the chose to write about. They drew all of their research and conclusions from other sources and studies (all of which do not actually support their conclusion). The 'facts' they present are simply assumptions that work well with their hypothesis. The running theme in the book is that the drive to reproduce is the basis of every human action. While in my own mind I find this to be true to an extent, I do not find it to be the 'end all' explanation as the authors portray it. It is the most repetitive motif throughout the entire book and therefore the book becomes quite dull after the first few chapters. Understandably it is a thesis on that very topic and is not meant to be read all the way through cover to cover, but read the intro-perhaps the first chapter-and you can toss the rest-it's all monotony after that. They also jump around quite a bit and don't answer or only partially answer some of the questions they pose. If their theory were true, quite a few everyday occurrences would in fact be anomalies. Another large problem is their chapter on the 'blonde bombshell'. While blondes are usually considered to be the most attractive, their thesis contradicts facts. Researchers have found that blondes are declining in population in the same manner as red heads and eventually will become just as sparse if the trend continues. <see latest edition of Newsweek, there are also many online articles> This makes perfect sense to me due to interracial marriage/breeding and because the red and blonde genes are recessive (brunette dominant). I do give the authors credit for including interesting tidbits here and there that the common mind would not know, but I did not enjoy the book. It was written on an elementary level-I would suggest it to perhaps a 4th or 5th grader for discussion, but I certainly would not present it as fact, and I would not recommend it to anyone above the 5th grade level.

As in every serious discipline, the answers you get are only as good as the questions you ask and the methods you use to find the answers, this is where "Beautiful People, etc." falls down rather badly. It is useful to reiterate that we are animals and many of our actions are, if not hard-wired, then quite automatic. The authors should not be faulted for their lack of political correctness, but on their shoddy research and circular logic. As an example, simply stating that one TV commercial used an Italian American actor or an adman actually wrote one quote attributed to a Native American does not negate a life-style lived in closer harmony with nature - reference the Hopi, Pima and Navajo. Other reviewers have noted the sloppy references and reasoning on the blonde bombshell question, but mostly it does not actually seem to be a question worth asking in the first place. And that is the major problem with the whole book.