Richard Prum: Evolution and Beauty

In thirty years of fieldwork, ornithologist Richard Prum has seen quite a bit of ostentatious sexual display. To explain it all, he dusts off Darwin’s long-neglected theory of sexual selection, which posits that the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. His The Evolution of Beauty is a fascinating mixture of biology, philosophy, sociology, and the rich story of human sexuality.

This program is generously underwritten by Owen Deutsch and Rona Talcott.

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