Animal Beauty

Animal Beauty PDF Author: Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026203994X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
An illustrated exploration of colors and patterns in the animal kingdom, what they communicate, and how they function in the social life of animals. Are animals able to appreciate what humans refer to as “beauty”? The term scarcely ever appears nowadays in a scientific description of living things, but we humans may nonetheless find the colors, patterns, and songs of animals to be beautiful in apparently the same way that we see beauty in works of art. In Animal Beauty, Nobel Prize–winning biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard describes how the colors and patterns displayed by animals arise, what they communicate, and how they function in the social life of animals. Watercolor drawings illustrate these amazing instances of animal beauty. Darwin addressed the topic of ornament in his 1871 book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, and did not hesitate to engage with criteria of beauty, convinced that animals experienced color and ornament as attractive and agreeable in the same way that we do, and that the role this played in mate choice pointed to a “sexual selection” distinct from natural selection. Nüsslein-Volhard examines key examples of ornament and sexual selection in the animal kingdom and lays the groundwork for biological aesthetics. Noting that color patterns have not been a research priority—perhaps because they appeared to be nonessential luxuries rather than functional necessities—Nüsslein-Volhard looks at recent scientific developments on the topic. In part because of Nüsslein-Volhard's own research on the zebrafish, it is now possible to decipher the molecular genetic mechanisms that lead to production of colors in animal skin and its appendages and control its pattern and distribution.

Animal Beauty

Animal Beauty PDF Author: Christiane Nusslein-Volhard
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026203994X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
An illustrated exploration of colors and patterns in the animal kingdom, what they communicate, and how they function in the social life of animals. Are animals able to appreciate what humans refer to as “beauty”? The term scarcely ever appears nowadays in a scientific description of living things, but we humans may nonetheless find the colors, patterns, and songs of animals to be beautiful in apparently the same way that we see beauty in works of art. In Animal Beauty, Nobel Prize–winning biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard describes how the colors and patterns displayed by animals arise, what they communicate, and how they function in the social life of animals. Watercolor drawings illustrate these amazing instances of animal beauty. Darwin addressed the topic of ornament in his 1871 book The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, and did not hesitate to engage with criteria of beauty, convinced that animals experienced color and ornament as attractive and agreeable in the same way that we do, and that the role this played in mate choice pointed to a “sexual selection” distinct from natural selection. Nüsslein-Volhard examines key examples of ornament and sexual selection in the animal kingdom and lays the groundwork for biological aesthetics. Noting that color patterns have not been a research priority—perhaps because they appeared to be nonessential luxuries rather than functional necessities—Nüsslein-Volhard looks at recent scientific developments on the topic. In part because of Nüsslein-Volhard's own research on the zebrafish, it is now possible to decipher the molecular genetic mechanisms that lead to production of colors in animal skin and its appendages and control its pattern and distribution.

The Ethics of Animal Beauty

The Ethics of Animal Beauty PDF Author: Samantha Vice
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498594514
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
The Ethics of Animal Beauty provides a novel account of the aesthetics of animals and explores the ethical implications of recognizing and admiring their beauty. Samantha Vice argues that animation, the aesthetic property of being an individual with a subjective perspective on the world, is fundamental to any meaningful appreciation of animal beauty. If we properly appreciate animation, we are called on to respond to animals with respect, care, gratitude and wonder. Applying this idea to contemporary practices such as trophy hunting and taxidermy and to our lived relationships with (domestic) companion animals, Vice argues that the appreciation of animal beauty carries profound ethical consequences for our relations to our fellow creatures. This perspective bears on questions of animal rights and ecocritical debates, while also contributing to key discussions in aesthetics and its relation to moral imperatives.

Animal Beauty

Animal Beauty PDF Author: Kristin Roskifte
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802854540
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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Book Description
Zoo animals find a fashion magazine, pass it around, and start to follow its advice.

The Evolution of Beauty

The Evolution of Beauty PDF Author: Richard O. Prum
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385537220
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
A FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, SMITHSONIAN, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin's theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature? Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin's own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change. Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time. The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature's splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.

The Beautiful Animal

The Beautiful Animal PDF Author: Michael Lewis
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786607565
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Can philosophy conceive of a perfect animal? Can it think of the animal as anything other than an imperfect human? The book attempts to rethink the Hegelian dialectic so as to render it capable of assigning a proper place to the animal, and in particular the beautiful animal, and to rework the philosophy of nature so as to encompass the fossil. The fossil itself teaches philosophy and in particular the dialectic how it must modify itself in order to encompass the beautiful animal, in the form of what we term the fossilised dialectic, resistant to the spiritualisation which will always leave the animal behind. If philosophy can admit the animal in this way, we might then ask what philosophy can learn from this animal that will have taken up residence in its home? What does a specifically domestic animal teach us? At the very least, it shows us that the function we give to the furnishings of the house is not the only one and perhaps therefore that there is no single unique function. In this way, animals teach us the most philosophical lesson there is: to see the world as it is in itself.

Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil

Animal Suffering and the Darwinian Problem of Evil PDF Author: John R. Schneider
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108487602
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
This book will be of interest to college faculty and advanced students interested in the relationship between religion and science, particularly at Christian colleges and seminaries. Its value is to offer an innovative Christian theological approach to the daunting problem that Darwinian animal suffering poses to belief in God.

Becoming Wild

Becoming Wild PDF Author: Carl Safina
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1250173345
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2020 "In this superbly articulate cri de coeur, Safina gives us a new way of looking at the natural world that is radically different."—The Washington Post New York Times bestselling author Carl Safina brings readers close to three non-human cultures—what they do, why they do it, and how life is for them. A New York Times Notable Books of 2020 Some believe that culture is strictly a human phenomenon. But this book reveals cultures of other-than-human beings in some of Earth’s remaining wild places. It shows how if you’re a sperm whale, a scarlet macaw, or a chimpanzee, you too come to understand yourself as an individual within a particular community that does things in specific ways, that has traditions. Alongside genes, culture is a second form of inheritance, passed through generations as pools of learned knowledge. As situations change, social learning—culture—allows behaviors to adjust much faster than genes can adapt. Becoming Wild brings readers into intimate proximity with various nonhuman individuals in their free-living communities. It presents a revelatory account of how animals function beyond our usual view. Safina shows that for non-humans and humans alike, culture comprises the answers to the question, “How do we live here?” It unites individuals within a group identity. But cultural groups often seek to avoid, or even be hostile toward, other factions. By showing that this is true across species, Safina illuminates why human cultural tensions remain maddeningly intractable despite the arbitrariness of many of our differences. Becoming Wild takes readers behind the curtain of life on Earth, to witness from a new vantage point the most world-saving of perceptions: how we are all connected.

Architecture, Animal, Human

Architecture, Animal, Human PDF Author: Catherine T. Ingraham
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135993394
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Considering the historical links between architecture and the development of life sciences, this text focuses on particular times of great change in these disciplines and the complex relationships between life and the environments that life creates.

Fiction International 40: Animals

Fiction International 40: Animals PDF Author:
Publisher: Fiction International
ISBN: 9781879691780
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description


Animal Life and Intelligence

Animal Life and Intelligence PDF Author: C. Lloyd Morgan
Publisher: Good Press
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Animal Life and Intelligence is an interesting volume that is almost equally divided between the two topics, as suggested by its title. In the earlier chapters, there are outstanding accounts of the essence of animal life and its connection to the environment; of the cycles of life; of reproduction and development; of variation and natural selection; of heredity and the origin of variations; and of organic evolution. The chapters thereafter deal with the senses and sense organs of animals; the nature of cognitive functions in man, serving as a ground for our judgment as to the nature and amount of animal intelligence; the mental operations of animals are afterward thoroughly and carefully discussed in three very suggestive chapters, and the final and very metaphysical chapter is on mental development. Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1852 – 1936) was a British ethologist and psychologist. He is remembered for his theory of emergent evolution and for the experimental approach to animal psychology, now known as Morgan's Canon, a principle that played a major role in behaviorism. In this work, he has discussed interesting subjects with a fullness of knowledge and judicial impartiality worthy of all praise.