The Evolution of Beauty

By coincidence, two books I had recently read were mentioned in this one. As a fervent adaptationist in evolutionary biology, Richard Dawkins’s appearance was not surprising. The mention of Robert Shiller, however, was unexpected. Since Shiller is a fellow Yale professor and neighbor of the author, the two apparently often have lunch together.

Like the passionate scholars they are, the author, Richard Prum, and Shiller frequently exchange academic views over meals. Regarding the central argument of this book — that evolution operates not only through adaptive advantage but also through preferences for beauty — and the fierce resistance it has provoked among hard-line adaptationists, Shiller offers the following assessment. Their refusal to accept the simple and lucid logic that beauty itself has value, and their insistence that evolution must always rest on adaptive advantage, lead them to pile up unnecessary arguments. In this, Shiller suggests, they resemble devotees of the gold standard, who cannot accept the value of money in itself and refuse to recognize it without the backing of gold.

Once I came to agree with the argument that beauty itself can also be a powerful evolutionary force, a discomfort I had long felt while reading evolutionary biology finally began to lift: the sense that some arguments proceed from a predetermined conclusion, namely that every trait must necessarily have some adaptive benefit.

At the same time, it led me to another thought. How often have I, too, created unnecessary causes under the pretext of looking for a cause, or at least a plausible explanation? I feel anew the importance of enduring the state of “not yet having explained” a phenomenon, and of resisting the urge to pile up unnecessary explanations. It is also worth reflecting again on the power of the null hypothesis, or on the value of withholding explanation when explanation would be forced.

Prum, R. O. (2017). The evolution of beauty: How Darwin’s forgotten theory of mate choice shapes the animal world—and us. Doubleday.

EOD

20260708