Beauty and Profit: The Evolution of Beauty (2017) by Richard O. Prum

In 1860 Charles Darwin wrote to a colleague: “The sight of a feather in a peacock’s tail…makes me sick!” What was Darwin’s problem? He had just published On the Origin of Species, laying out his theory of evolution by natural selection. Yet he worried about seemingly maladaptive features of living organisms–like the peacock’s beautiful but cumbersome tail. In a later book, Darwin would argue that sexual selection also plays a major role in evolution. Yet to this day, as Richard Prum complains in his magnificent new book, The Evolution of Beauty, evolutionary biologists dismiss the possibility of anything besides natural selection. Likewise, mainstream economists dismiss the possibility that anything besides competition for profits could account for the economic world around us… . . . → Read More: Beauty and Profit: The Evolution of Beauty (2017) by Richard O. Prum