Evolutionary psychology is pretty much the trashy tabloid of the soft sciences. More often than not, it comes to conclusions like ovulation will make you racist or that beating the crap out of your wife is the natural order of things. That said, like trashy tabloids, it’s always fun to read whatever BS they’ve come up with, so let’s read an evolutionary psychology study about butts!
The theory, as presented by the team, is that lumbar curvature is actually a “fitness-related” trait. Essentially, when a woman is pregnant, her center of mass shifts forward, what with having a fetus inside her that will grow to the size of a bowling ball. Big butts offset that weight, so basically, if you knock up a woman with a big butt, she’s less likely to fall over and, according to the study, can better forage for food. To be fair, they actually did some science and found that men preferred the lumbar curvature over just what the study euphemistically calls “buttock mass,” so there’s a little more to this than just some ass men making the case that their preference is natural.
But the whole “foraging for food” thing seems to be an odd jump to make, since there are a lot of advantages to not falling on your face constantly. Similarly, mostly they’ve just proven that men like big butts, not that it necessarily confers any sort of evolutionary advantage.
Sadly, they also did not discuss whether this can sell a lot of albums, although we’ve got positive evidence. However, even if their conclusion as to why is a bit of a stretch, at least they actually did some science, unlike many of their peers. Now, guys, I’m assuming boobs are next?