A Taste for the Beautiful: The Evolution of AttractionPrinceton University Press, 25 de jun. de 2019 - 224 páginas "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, transforming our understanding of sexual selection and, in the process, shedding new light on human behavior. 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."--Jacket. |
Conteúdo
Why All the Whining and Chucking? | 13 |
Beauty and the Brain | 33 |
Visions of Beauty | 53 |
The Sounds of Sex | 77 |
The Aroma of Adulation | 105 |
Fickle Preferences | 126 |
Hidden Preferences and Life in Pornotopia | 148 |
Epilogue | 169 |
Bibliography | 177 |
187 | |
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Termos e frases comuns
acoustic Amazon animals auditory bees behavior biases birds bower bowerbirds chapter Chimor choosers chucks cognitive cognitive bias color courters courtship crickets Darwin decoy decoy effects dopamine echolocation eggs evolution of sexual evolutionary example experiments exploit female túngara frogs female’s females prefer fish flapping flies forest frequencies frog-eating bat frog’s gametes guppies hear hidden preferences hormones humans influence larger males male’s mammals match mate choice mate choice copying MHC genes mirror neurons moths mutation neural Neuroaesthetics neurons odors offspring olfactory receptor orchid bees orchids Panama partner perceive percepts perfume pheromones pornography predators red badges reproductive researchers response reward system Ryan sage grouse sailfin sense sensory sexual aesthetics sexual beauty sexual brain sexual fetish sexual marketplace sexual selection sexually attractive showed signals sing smell song songbirds sounds species sperm stimulation studies swordtails symmetry tail traits tuned túngara frogs visual vocal whine women zebra finches