From Tim Poston
In your report of the survey by Bruno Läng on blue-eyed men preferring blue-eyed women, only genetic game-theoretic explanations are mentioned, with the observation that the genes of a brown-eyed competitor would show up (20 January, p 16). Whether this makes the woman more cautious, or whether the blue-eyed cuckold would slaughter her brown-eyed offspring to make the detection strategy pay off, we are not told.
A generation ago, however, the same data would have confirmed Freudian ideas of men seeking women who resemble their mothers (blue-eyed men have a higher fraction of blue-eyed parents).
I hold no brief for either theory, but I do enjoy watching intellectual crowd behaviour.
Bangalore, India
