BEAUTY EVOLVES

Richard O. Prum, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World--and Us (New York: Doubleday, 2017):

In many ways, Darwin's idea that the aesthetic evaluations involved in mate choice among animals constitutes an independent evolutionary force in nature is as radical toady as it was when he proposed it nearly 150 years ago. Darwin discovered that evolution is not merely about the survival of the fittest but also about charm and sensory delight in individual subjective experience. The implications of this idea for scientists and observers of nature are profound, requiring us to acknowledge that the dawn bird song chorus, the cooperative group displays of the blue Chiroxiphia manakins, the spectacular plumage of the male Great Argus Pheasant, and many other wondrous sights and sounds of the natural worlds are not merely delightful to us; they are products of a long history of subjective evaluation made by the animals themselves.

Id. at 523.