A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of Attraction

by Michael J. Ryan

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691167268
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	01/30/2018
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Michael J. Ryan is the Clark Hubbs Regents Professor in Zoology at the University of Texas and a Senior Research Associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He is a leading researcher in the fields of sexual selection, mate choice, and animal communication. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Table of Contents

Preface ix
1 Why All the Fuss about Sex? 1

2 Why All the Whining and Chucking? 13

3 Beauty and the Brain 33

4 Visions of Beauty 53

5 The Sounds of Sex 77

6 The Aroma of Adulation 105

7 Fickle Preferences 126

8 Hidden Preferences and Life in Pornotopia 148

Epilogue 169

Notes 171

Bibliography 177

Index 187

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A hugely enjoyable book written with authority, easy charm and a great deal of wit. . . . This is science communication as it should be done: authoritative but never dull, engaging but never dumbed down. . . . [A] beautiful book.”—Times Higher Education

“Delightful and enlightening.”—Natural History

“Ryan charms readers with his account of attraction in the animal kingdom, including humans.”—Scientific American

“How Darwin would have loved a book such as this.”—BBC Wildlife

“Ryan offers much to enjoy in his provocative book.”—Publishers Weekly

“Replete with entertaining stories of the sexual marketplace that we and the rest of the animal world inhabit."—Kirkus Reviews

Editorial Reviews

12/04/2017
In this appealing book, Ryan, professor of zoology at the University of Texas, investigates the potential for a scientific understanding of what makes some biological traits sexually attractive. He argues that, contrary to what other researchers have postulated, “instead of the brain having to evolve to detect beauty, the brain determines what is beautiful, and all of its constraints and contingencies give rise to a breathtaking diversity of sexual aesthetics throughout the animal kingdom.” In other words, “to understand beauty, we need to understand the brain.” Ryan leads a thoughtful and enlightening tour of brain function across an array of animals, focusing on three senses: sight, sound, and smell. In each case he presents current research, some of which is his own, detailing the nature of experimental design and the excitement of gaining new insights while discussing what remains unknown. Ryan argues that the main driver leading males to develop characteristics that females find beautiful (such as peacock tails, specific frog calls, or surfperch scale patterns) is sensory exploitation, which first evolved to aid in food finding and predator avoidance. By stressing the links between humans and other animals, Ryan also provides glimpses into mate choice in humans. Ryan offers much to enjoy in his provocative book. Illus. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"How Darwin would have loved a book such as this."

BBC Wildlife

"A delightful and enlightening review of current laboratory and field research into the aesthetic worlds of dozens of species. . . . If there’s a lesson to be learned from Ryan’s survey of sexual aesthetics, it’s that each species perceives the world through a uniquely tuned array of senses with a unique evolutionary history. Put succinctly, romance among the birds and the bees has one thing in common with romance between men and women . . . It’s complicated."—-Laurence A. Marschall, Natural History

From the Publisher

"Ryan charms readers with his account of attraction in the animal kingdom, including humans. As he puts it, beauty is in the ‘brain of the beholder.’"

Scientific American

2017-11-12
Another look at Darwin's once-controversial theory of sexual selection, in which the author argues that sexual beauty is in the brain of the beholder.His study of the sexual behavior of the tungara frog led Ryan (Zoology/Univ. of Texas, Austin), a senior research associate at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, to develop an explanation of how the brain is involved in mating behavior. The calls, whines, and chucks of male frogs are designed, he found, to inform, charm, and seduce the females, but they can also attract hungry predators. The author's work with frogs launched a lifetime interest in discovering how beauty is found not just in animals' calls, but in the scents they give off and the colors they show. He argues that certain domains in the brain help determine what is perceived as beautiful. Thus, understanding the biology of the brain is vital to understanding the biological basis of sexual aesthetics, and those aesthetics drive the evolution of sexual beauty. This is not simple stuff. Ryan works hard to write for general readers, and the narrative is replete with entertaining stories of the sexual marketplace that we and the rest of the animal world inhabit. "Survival is secondary to sex," he writes, "merely an adaptation to keep animals alive so they can have a shot in the sexual marketplace." However, many of Ryan's descriptions of his and other researchers' work demand close reading and some background in scientific vocabulary, including such terms as "major histocompatibility complex" and "asymetrically dominated decoy." Small, uncaptioned, black-and-white illustrations open each chapter, and what does come through clearly is the diversity of beauty—and the diversity of sexual behavior.Despite its appealing title, this is one primarily for the academic market—a good choice for classrooms.

Kirkus Reviews