LEADER 02281pam 2200181 a 4500
001 892374
005 20181210092822.0
008 181226s2017 nyuaf grb 001 0 eng d
020 $a9780345804570 (pbk.) :$cNT$595
040 $aTWTNM$beng$dTWTNM
082 04$a591.562$222
100 1 $aPrum, Richard O.,$eauthor.
245 14$aThe evolution of beauty :$bhow Darwin's forgotten theory of mate choice shapes the animal world -- and us /$cRichard O. Prum.
250 $aFirst Anchor Books edition.
260 $aNew York :$bAnchor Books,$c2017.
300 $a428 p., 16 unnumbered p. of plates :$bill. (chiefly colour) ;$c21 cm.
500 $aOriginally published in 2017.
504 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index.
505 0 $ach. 1 Darwin's Really Dangerous Idea -- ch. 2 Beauty Happens -- ch. 3 Manakin Dances -- ch. 4 Aesthetic Innovation and Decadence -- ch. 5 Make Way for Duck Sex -- ch. 6 Beauty from the Beast -- ch. 7 Bromance Before Romance -- ch. 8Human Beauty Happens Too -- ch. 9 Pleasure Happens -- ch. 10 The Lysistrata Effect -- ch. 11 The Queering of Homo sapiens -- ch. 12 This Aesthetic View of Life.
520 $aIn the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum -- reviving Darwin's own views -- thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club- winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot- wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red- capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons -- for the mere pleasure of it -- is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate.
650 0$aSexual selection in animals.
650 0$aSexual selection.
650 0$aCourtship in animals.
650 0$aHuman evolution.