logo
O. Prumauthor

Richard O. Prum

4.50

Average rating

1

Books

Richard O. Prum is William Robertson Coe's Professor of Ornithology and Head Curator of Vertebrate Zoology at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University. Prum describes himself as "an evolutionary ornithologist with broad interests in diverse topics," including phylogenetics, behavior, feathers, structural coloration, evolution and development, sexual selection, and historical biogeography. He has conducted fieldwork throughout the world and has studied fossil theropod dinosaurs in China. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2010.

In his book Survival of the Beautiful, David Rothenberg reflects on Prum's analysis of sexual selections in birds, considering whether female birds exercise an aesthetic sense when they choose a mate. Rothenburg argues Prum's position that the females' aesthetic choice is essentially arbitrary and decoupled from the natural selection: anything the females begin to choose becomes what the males must have if they are to have any offspring. The aesthetic aspect of sexual selection has been debated since the start of Darwinism in the nineteenth century. Prum is following Edward Bagnall Poulton, who was criticized by Alred Russel Wallace for asserting "female preferences based on aesthetic considerations." In Rothenberg's words, Wallace "had no place for Darwin's love of beauty, caprice, and feminine whim." Prum, on the other hand, considers art and male sexual display to be "coevolution of the work and its appreciation."

Best author’s book

pagesback-cover
4.5

The Evolution of Beauty

Michael Pollan
Read