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Unnamed comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong
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How come everyone is missing the obvious answer? The human ancestor that first developed attachment to babies may be an ancestor we share with rabbits.
(Edit, Also: Human babies may have evolved to be uglier for other reasons -less hair, bigger heads- and those features may have been selected for more than cuteness.)
Edit 2: Metaphorically, our cuteness program is like running Netscape Navigator 1.0 or something. It sort of does the trick but isn't exactly adapted for modern uses
Do we know whether adult rabbits find baby rabbits cute? If not, that would count against the common ancestor hypothesis.
Do we know whether adult non-primate mammals find anything cute? What's a description of their behavior in such a case?
So far I've only seen descriptions of animals adopting other-species young to raise. I think child-raising instincts are separate from cuteness responses, in other animals as well as in humans.
*Do we know whether adult non-primate mammals find anything cute? *
Very occasionally
And not for long.
From the comments on the article you linked, the cheetahs happily ate the impala. Go to http://www.biosphoto.com/ and search for "cheetah AND impala". You'll find these photos as well as the ones from a few minutes later...
Is your theory that cats playing with live food before killing it is, in general, an effect of the food's cuteness?
I believe that's a different sort of play, consisting of repeated chasing and catching.
Also in the comments, the assertion that the impala that was eaten was an adult eaten earlier. Once sated, the cheetahs were not interested in eating the younger impala.
True, it's not clear which is the complete account. At the very least, photos of some impala(s) being eaten and of this one being played with were seemingly taken in one session.