Survival of the Beautiful
Art, Science, and Evolution
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- USD 14.99
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- USD 14.99
Descripción editorial
"The peacock's tail," said Charles Darwin, "makes me sick." That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so beautiful. It took the concept of sexual selection for Darwin to explain that, a process that has more to do with aesthetics than the practical. Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty, art, and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense, philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals, humans included, have innate appreciation for beauty-and why nature is, indeed, beautiful.
Sexual selection may explain why animals desire, but it says very little about what they desire. Why will a bowerbird literally murder another bird to decorate its bower with the victim's blue feathers? Why do butterfly wings boast such brilliantly varied patterns? The beauty of nature is not arbitrary, even if random mutation has played a role in evolution. What can we learn from the amazing range of animal aesthetic behavior-about animals, and about ourselves?
Readers who enjoyed the bestsellers The Art Instinct and The Mind's Eye will find Survival of the Beautiful an equally stimulating and profound exploration of art, science, and the creative impulse.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
While many people are happy to simply appreciate nature's beauty, Rothenberg seeks to understand why beauty exists in the first place, and what that means to our existence. Evolution and mutation determine what features are passed on in each species, but nature also offers "case after case of wild, untrammeled craziness," patterns, colors, and behavior that are clearly not needed for survival. Rothenberg notes with amusement how Darwin thought ornamentation colorful feathers, brilliant songs, mating dances existed to "delight the mind" of potential mates, throwing evolutionary control into female hands, an idea that didn't sit well with Victorians. Rothenberg goes on to discuss how animal patterns (animal art) have influenced human creativity in cubist and abstract art as well as military camouflage. Not many authors could find a way to interweave abstruse art theory with discussions of squid and their glorious "dynamic tattoos," elephants who paint, and Paleolithic cave art, but Rothenberg succeeds, with this entertaining wander through the world of art and the places where it intersects science. 16 pages of color illus.; b&w illus.