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Bezig met laden... A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attractiondoor Michael J. Ryan
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 Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek.  sethwilpan | Aug 12, 2019 |  geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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 explained why sexual beauty evolved in animals, he struggled to understand how. In A 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 Túngara 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 Beautiful will change how you think about beauty and attraction. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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 Google Books — Bezig met laden...GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)591.56Natural sciences and mathematics Zoology Specific topics in natural history of animals Habits and behavior Philoprogenitiveness; BreedingLC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde: (3)
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In separate sections, the author reveals the technical details of how sight, hearing and smell interact with the brain to determine mating preferences. Those details are entertaining, but the basic principles under which they operate are similar in each case.
The chooser, in most cases the female, receives cues about the suitability of a potential mate and chooses the mate that best meets those criteria. So it is the chooser that drives the perpetuation of traits. Since the same traits that make an individual an attractive partner often make them more visible to predators, there is a brake on the extent to which attractive traits are cultivated. Traits that invite excessive predation are killed off and that defines the limit of male ostentation.
I was most surprised to learn that the role that cognitive bias plays a role in mate selection is not confined to humans. One of these biases is mate copying, in which individuals that have been chosen become more attractive to other potential choosers. Furthermore, the attractiveness of the original choosers influence the attractiveness of the chosen one. Another category of biases are comparative biases that come into play when there is a choice between two potential mates and the weight of their attractive qualities shifts based on the presence of a third choice. For example, if there is a choice between someone who is average looking with a good sense of humor and someone who is very good looking and an average sense of humor, the presence of a good-looking person with a bad sense of humor will give more weight to a sense of humor, and vice versa.
The author has a breezy, light-hearted style, and the technical details are easy to understand. If you are fascinated by the inner workings of biology, you'll enjoy this book. (