The Evolution of Beauty. How Darwin"s theory of sexual selection explains the animal world - and ourselves

Consideration of how marriage preferences - which Darwin called the taste to the beautiful - create an extraordinary diversity of the living world and contribute to evolution.

Everyone knows the theory of natural selection (the strongest survives) described by Charles Darwin. Not everyone knows his other theory - sexual selection, which goes into the area of ​​aesthetics.

According to this theory, the world of animals evolves primarily along the path of harmony and beauty, and the most striking example of this is birds: the plumage of males, their songs and courtship rituals carry, rather, aesthetic load and sometimes contradict the natural selection. But modest females make their irrational choice, and the genus continues not the most powerful partners, but those who are pleasant to the eye or hearing.

The same aesthetic principle is contributing to the evolution of all living beings, including man. An attractive feature is formed by a generation behind a generation and, as a result, becomes a decisive for the species. The book describes dozens of examples of evolutionary changes due, apparently, exclusively with a craving for living creatures to the beautiful, whether it be visual, auditory or tactile sensations. Also on the pages you will find color illustrations from the world of wildlife.

From the author
All outstanding aesthetic phenomenon is always a consequence of a high fraction of aesthetic failures, that is, deviations by females of courtship of potential sexual partners. The male Argus is endowed with such amazing jewelry precisely because most males are rejected by females. Thus, with all her calmness and indifference, the female Argus behaves just as we should have expected - rather as an experienced, sophisticated expert, evaluating one of the many outstanding works presented by his attention, rather than an enthusiastic naturalist who saw him the only time in life. And judging by what I had to see in the video recordings of the marriage behavior of the Argus, the female behaves this way - calmly and at the same time with picky attention casting insightful glances at the current male. Perhaps the female Argus looks too impassive, but it was her reasonable and balanced solution when choosing a male that gave rise to the coevolution of the selection tool that was crowned with the appearance of hundreds of gold flickering balls, trembling in the air thanks to the efforts of the male Argus.

For whom this book
For biologists and those who are interested in all living things.

For those who are interested in ornithology.

For those who are interested in the nature of beauty and attractiveness in the animal world