On his book A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attraction
Cover Interview of January 07, 2018
In a nutshell
Stunning beauty abounds in nature. We see it everywhere we
look. The brilliant colors and dances of butterflies and fishes, the songs of
crickets, frogs, and birds, and even the odors of moths and mammals are all
part of nature’s astounding collage of beauty. We humans are so attracted to
animal beauty that we domesticate it for our own enjoyment. The multi-hued
fishes in aquariums and melodious canaries in cages provide live art and music
in our homes, much as we hang paintings on our walls and broadcast tunes from
our stereos.
But animals did not evolve beauty to please us; their aim is
to please their own. Indeed, the most stunning beauty in nature is tied up in
sex, as animals evolve beautiful and often elaborate traits in order to make
themselves more attractive as mates, thereby increasing their reproductive
success—this is the theory of sexual selection, first articulated by
Darwin.
Darwin puzzled over how animals judge and perceive beauty.
Why do animals perceive certain traits as beautiful and others not? Do animals
possess an inherent sexual aesthetic? Where is this aesthetic rooted? What
might unlocking the mysteries of sexual aesthetics tell us about the evolution
of beautiful traits and our own perception and appreciation of beauty?
In this book, I argue that beauty is determined by what is
happening in the brain. In short, beauty is in the brain of the beholder!
Drawing on recent studies in neuroscience and evolutionary biology, I argue that
sexual aesthetics are rooted in the brain—specifically the female brain—and
that many of the details of what we find beautiful actually derive from other
things the brain evolved to do. I describe what it is about the senses, the
brain, and its cognitive architecture that leads to an appreciation for beauty
among animals, including humans.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
Stunning beauty abounds in nature. We see it everywhere we look. The brilliant colors and dances of butterflies and fishes, the songs of crickets, frogs, and birds, and even the odors of moths and mammals are all part of nature’s astounding collage of beauty. We humans are so attracted to animal beauty that we domesticate it for our own enjoyment. The multi-hued fishes in aquariums and melodious canaries in cages provide live art and music in our homes, much as we hang paintings on our walls and broadcast tunes from our stereos.
But animals did not evolve beauty to please us; their aim is to please their own. Indeed, the most stunning beauty in nature is tied up in sex, as animals evolve beautiful and often elaborate traits in order to make themselves more attractive as mates, thereby increasing their reproductive success—this is the theory of sexual selection, first articulated by Darwin.
Darwin puzzled over how animals judge and perceive beauty. Why do animals perceive certain traits as beautiful and others not? Do animals possess an inherent sexual aesthetic? Where is this aesthetic rooted? What might unlocking the mysteries of sexual aesthetics tell us about the evolution of beautiful traits and our own perception and appreciation of beauty?
In this book, I argue that beauty is determined by what is happening in the brain. In short, beauty is in the brain of the beholder! Drawing on recent studies in neuroscience and evolutionary biology, I argue that sexual aesthetics are rooted in the brain—specifically the female brain—and that many of the details of what we find beautiful actually derive from other things the brain evolved to do. I describe what it is about the senses, the brain, and its cognitive architecture that leads to an appreciation for beauty among animals, including humans.