num_pages: 320
description: The peacock's tail said Charles Darwin makes me sick. That's because the theory of evolution as adaptation can't explain why nature is so beautiful. It took the concept of sexual selection for Darwin to explain that a process that has more to do with aesthetics than with the practical. Survival of the Beautiful is a revolutionary new examination of the interplay of beauty art and culture in evolution. Taking inspiration from Darwin's observation that animals have a natural aesthetic sense philosopher and musician David Rothenberg probes why animals humans included have innate appreciation for beauty-and why nature is indeed beautiful.
language: English
title: Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution
publisher: Bloomsbury Press