Simpler Explanation?

Blue-eyed men prefer blue-eyed women - More Health News - MSNBC.com

I'm not a scientist, but I think this study takes the data a little too far. It suggests that blue-eyed men seek blue-eyed women so they can be sure that their offspring are their own--because two blue-eyed people who mate can only have blue-eyed kids.

OK, I suppose that makes sense. But sometimes homespun wisdom can tell us as much as science. Men marry their mothers, right? And what color eyes does a blue-eyed man's mother have?

As for the data that suggest that brown-eyed men, and women in general, don't care about eye color, well, should we be surprised that men are more superficial? Women may marry a man like their father, but that doesn't mean he'll look the same. And brown-eyed men don't spend their childhoods hearing about their beautiful blue eyes or gazing into the blue eyes of their sisters and mothers, learning that the rare trait makes them special.

So yeah, maybe blue-eyed men are subconsciously marrying blue-eyed women so they'll have a cheap way to check the paternity of their kids (though a kid fathered by a blue-eyed brother might slip under the radar). But maybe, just maybe, this one has more to do with nurture than nature.