The Evolution of Beauty is Part One in a VBB Four-Part series on our podcast middle name: Beauty. The Evolution of Beauty is also a specialty of Richard Prum. He's not a beautician, far from it; he's an expert on birds, a Professor of Ornithology, Ecology, and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, as well as head curator of vertebrate zoology at the University's Peabody Museum of Natural History. Richard also authored the book The Evolution of Beauty, where he revisits Charles Darwin's long-neglected theory of sexual selection; basically, females choosing a mate purely for aesthetic reasons — the mere pleasure of beauty —and how those rarely acknowledged choices are as critical as natural selection in determining the evolution of our species. So, is Beauty in his genes or in how he wears his jeans?
