THE average human being, it is now being recognised, is a body fascist. Scientists across the world are currently involved in a quest to find out why certain physical types are universally regarded as superior.

It is an interesting question. Christianity decrees that the human soul is the essence of a person, and that the physical realm is an irrelevance. But the truth is that the various societies on earth are concerned with elevating a person who embodies their principles of beauty to a higher status.

Supermodels are paid enormous sums to appear on billboards and stare into the distance, preoccupied with nothing. Now scientists have the beginnings of the evidence which will prove that the better-looking are rewarded for what nature accidentally bestowed, in having more friends, more money, and better sex.

Doctor David Perrett, of St Andrews University, has been studying facial qualities using computer graphics for the past 10 years. His experiments have involved compiling two random facial images and asking ordinary people to choose the face they like best. He hopes that when society understands why it panders to beauty, the beautiful will no longer receive positive discrimination.

He says: ``There is a huge bias within society to treat good-looking individuals differently. People make choices about the way someone looks, but are unaware of the basis of that choice.''

The qualities most persistently admired are extracted from the computer images. New Mexico State University psychologist Victor Johnston has also found that the ideal female has a higher forehead than average, as well as fuller lips, a shorter jaw, and a smaller chin and nose. The ideal 25-year-old woman, as configured by participants in a 1993 American study, had a 14-year-old's abundant lips and an 11-year-old's delicate jaw. Because her lower face was so small, she had relatively prominent eyes and cheekbones.

In the insect world, bugs with the most symmetrical wings fare best in the competition for food and mates. The best-looking always usurps. Pollution and disease disrupt development. Every grub wants a pretty partner because it believes that by mating with supreme health, it will produce healthy offspring, and in this impulse, human beings, it seems, are no different.

People are naturally competitive. A caring and sharing socialism is the generous politic, but rails against the biological hierarchy. It is unfair to be judged on the superficial. But as long as the ideal proportions are met, Perrett admits that a face considered beautiful in Europe is also considered beautiful in Africa or Japan.

The millions who flock to the cosmetic surgeon should perhaps not be pitied for their self-obsession, but congratulated for their acknowledgment of the fact that beauty is a passport. They are admitting that they haven't got what it takes to get to the top.

For once, the media is not a scapegoat. Any sceptic might say that the maxim of beauty is taught, but in a series of experiments, psychologist Judith Langlois of the University of Texas, Austin, has shown that even infants share a sense of what is attractive, suggesting that ideals of beauty are innate to the human condition.

In the late eighties Langlois started placing three and six-month-old babies in front of a screen and showing them pairs of facial photographs. Each pair included a face considered attractive by adult judges. In the first study, she found that the infants gazed significantly longer at ``attractive'' white female faces than ``unattractive'' ones. She has since repeated the drill using white male faces, black female faces, even the faces of other babies. The same pattern always emerges.

Langlois says: ``These kids don't read Vogue or watch TV yet they make the same judgments as adults.''

It is possible that a baby's face has the same qualities deemed sexual in an adult male or female, that is, full lips and big eyes. Perrett says: ``A young face, anything accentuating youth inspires care-giving responses. Look at cute and cuddly toys.''

There may be beauty in symmetry, but it is also, apparently, more fun to be in bed with. Human beings respond favourably to people who have perfect form. People are allegedly subconsciously aware of the minute distance between a nostril and a cheekbone, the top lip and the lower jaw. The measurements are registered immediately, as then is approximate sex appeal.

Past studies in the US have shown that square-jawed males not only start having sex earlier than their peers but attain higher rank in the military. A man with a strong chin, a prominent brow and above average upper body musculature, is a virile one.

``Throughout the animal world,'' says University of New Mexico ecologist Randy Thornhill, ``attractiveness certifies biological quality.'' Last year, Thornhill surveyed 86 couples and found that women with highly symmetrical partners were more than twice as likely to climax during intercourse than those with low-symmetry partners. It has been concluded already, that orgasm fosters conception by ushering sperm into the uterus.

Amazon physical perfection in any race in any society is a genetic accident. Women like Naomi Campbell or Cindy Crawford are freaks of nature. It was once agreed within the scientific establishment that people were attracted to so-called average facial features, but not anymore. It is the extreme embodiment of the ``sensuous'' qualities which constitutes beauty.

In response to the latest findings author Camille Paglia says: ``We are half-animal beings, driven by instinctual forces that we can only dimly know. Supreme moments in the history of civilisation, as in ancient Egypt, classical Athens or renaissance Florence, were always accompanied by the worship of beauty.'' Beauty is integral to art, to science. To rationalise it is not necessarily to understand it. But to aspire to it is human.

Anvar Khan investigates why society panders to beauty: evidence suggests attractive people earn more money, have more friends, and enjoy better sex