The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World - and UsA FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves. |
Contents
Beauty Happens | |
Manakin Dances | |
Aesthetic Innovation and Decadence | |
Make Way for Duck | |
Beauty from the Beast | |
Bromance Before Romance | |
Human Beauty Happens | |
Pleasure Happens | |
The Lysistrata Effect | |
The Queering of Homo sapiens | |
This Aesthetic View of Life | |
Acknowledgments | |
About the Author | |
Other editions - View all
The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes ... Richard O. Prum No preview available - 2018 |
The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes ... Richard O. Prum No preview available - 2017 |
Common terms and phrases
adaptationist adaptive mate choice aesthetic evolution aggression animals arbitrary Argus avian Beauty Happens biologists birds body bonobos bower Bowerbird Brennan chimpanzees Chiroxiphia Club-winged Manakins coevolution coevolved cognitive color competition complex create cultural Darwin Darwinian dinosaurs display behavior display traits diversity duck penis evolutionary biology evolutionary mechanism evolutionary psychology evolved example explain female mate choice female orgasm female preferences female sexual autonomy fertilization flight forced copulations function genes genetic quality Golden-headed Manakin Golden-winged Manakin gorillas handicap principle human penis human sexual hypothesis idea individual infanticide intellectual lekking male display male sexual male-male male’s mate choice natural selection null model observations offspring orgasm penis penises plumage populations primates proposed Prum reproductive success result same-sex behavior scientific sensory sexual behavior sexual coercion sexual conflict sexual ornaments sexual pleasure sexual preferences sexual selection sexual violence social songs species sperm tail theory vagina variation White-bearded Manakin White-throated Manakin women