Evolutionary biology tells us this tale: everything advanced to make us better at reproducing. Everything has a function — and everything advanced to make us better at reproducing. Everything has a function — and the ornament is no exception. The…

Evolutionary biology tells us this tale: everything advanced to make us better at reproducing. Everything has a function — and everything advanced to make us better at reproducing. Everything has a function — and the ornament is no exception. The peacock’s intricate tail seems vain, but actually, it tells us how genetically superior the bird ought to be if it may live on despite that unwieldy mass of feathers.

Wrong, says Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum. In his new ebook, The Evolution of Beauty, Prum argues rather that natural selection makes

In his new ebook, The Evolution of Beauty, Prum argues that rather than natural selection makes the experience in various contexts. Still, in terms of choice and appeal, many choices are really arbitrary. It’s no longer about what makes the animals fly better or run faster; it’s about what the animal itself subjectively enjoys. It’s what makes the animal happy.

The Verge spoke to Prum approximately his theory of beauty, attractive birds that have advanced to be worse at flying, and the implications of his theory for people.

You push towards the idea that every function developed to be adaptive, and instead, say that every now and then, it’s arbitrary and based on what the animal itself likes. One instance you provide is of the membership-winged manakin, a bird that virtually developed to grow to be cooler however much less suit. What does that mean, exactly? And how did it show up?

The membership-winged manakin is evolving in a manner that makes it worse at flying.

The male membership-winged manakin does this difficult dance with its wings to draw girls. But for you to try this dance, it’s developed so that its wing bones aren’t as green because of the hollow ones we see in different birds.

We discovered from facts that the male and woman wing bones are each converted.

They’re all powerful and extensive and wonderful. Together with his weird wings as a minimum, the male gets the ability to sing exciting songs, but the woman can never gain from having these worse wing bones because she doesn’t do the dance. The girl who has these bizarre bones in no way sings. So how could this appear if all evolution becomes approximately making you better and better?

I argue that’s an illustration that sexual selection can produce a sort of decadence, wherein individuals emerge as worse at their survival simultaneously as they’re greater attractive to every other.

How should this appear? Is this the form of technology that leads to extinction?