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From one of the world's leading authorities on animal behavior, the astonishing story of how the female brain drives the evolution of beauty in animals and humans Darwin developed the theory of sexual selection to explain why the animal world abounds in stunning beauty, from the brilliant colors of butterflies and fishes to the songs of birds and frogs. He argued that animals have "a taste for the beautiful" that drives their potential mates to evolve features that make them more sexually attractive and reproductively successful. But if Darwin explainedwhysexual beauty evolved in animals, he struggled to understandhow. InA Taste for the Beautiful, Michael Ryan, one of the world's leading authorities on animal behavior, tells the remarkable story of how he and other scientists have taken up where Darwin left off and transformed our understanding of sexual selection, shedding new light on human behavior in the process. Drawing on cutting-edge work in neuroscience and evolutionary biology, as well as his own important studies of the tiny Tungara frog deep in the jungles of Panama, Ryan explores the key questions: Why do animals perceive certain traits as beautiful and others not? Do animals have an inherent sexual aesthetic and, if so, where is it rooted? Ryan argues that the answers to these questions lie in the brain--particularly of females, who act as biological puppeteers, spurring the development of beautiful traits in males. This theory of how sexual beauty evolves explains its astonishing diversity and provides new insights about the degree to which our own perception of beauty resembles that of other animals. Vividly written and filled with fascinating stories,A Taste for the Beautifulwill change how you think about beauty and attraction.
E-Book Content
A Taste for the Beautiful
A Taste for th e B eau tiful Th e Evo lutio n o f AttrA cti o n
MICHAEL J. RYA N
Princeton University Press Princeton and Oxford
Copyright © 2018 by Princeton University Press All drawings by Emma Ryan © 2017 Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR press.princeton.edu Jacket design by Andrea Guinn Jacket images courtesy of Biodiversity Heritage Library, Flickr All Rights Reserved ISBN 978-0-691-16726-8 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Adobe Caslon Pro and F CaslonTwelve ITC for display Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
In memory of Stan Rand, fellow traveler In appreciation of the
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Contents Preface ix
Chapter One Why All the Fuss about Sex? 1 Chapter Two Why All the Whining and Chucking? 13 Chapter Three Beauty and the Brain 33 Chapter Four Visions of Beauty 53 Chapter Five The Sounds of Sex 77 Chapter Six The Aroma of Adulation 105 Chapter Seven Fickle Preferences 126 Chapter Eight Hidden Preferences and Life in Pornotopia 148 Epilogue 169 Notes 171 Bibliography 177 Index 187
Preface
I am a scientist. This occupation affords me the opportunity to try to understand a small part of the natural world. I am also a professor. This occupation allows me to explain to others my findings in the context of the fields in which I work, animal behavior and evolution. My audience is usually college students and other scientists, although I often present lectures to a more general audience and quite frequently explain what I do to friends and family who do not have a background in science. I usually find that regardless of their background, many folks are interested in these stories of how sexual beauty plays out in nature a