A New Interpretation of Natural Beauty and Sexual Selection

Lu, Chenguang

Survival99#gmail.com

 

Abstract: Based on the Need-based Aesthetics, this paper attempts to answer two questions about natural beauty: 1) How did this colorful nature form, which includes colorful flowers, fruits, and avian feathers. 2) Why do People sense beauty from natural environment or mountain-and-river paintings that lack immediate utility?  To resolve the problem with sexual selection left by Darwin and Wallace, this paper shows some pictures of birds as evidences to explain the logic of sexual selection related to beauty: first, the needs relationships between birds and their foods or environments selected the female  tastes for beauty, and then, the female tastes selected the male’s appearances.

Key words:beauty sense, natural beauty, sexual selection, evolution, colorful birds

 

1.      Introduction

Darwin left two problems in his famous work “The Origin of Species”. One is how colorful and well-flavored flowers and fruits took forms?  He thought that the preference of insects for certain colors and scent helped the formations of flowers: Fragrant flowers and well-flavored pollen and nectar attracted more insects to transfer their pollen from one flower to another. Similarly, delicious fruits attracted more birds and beasts to swallow so that more seeds of the fruit trees were spread. However, where did the initial preference of birds and beasts come from?    

It is hard to explain that why many birds, such as peacocks, pheasants, mandarin ducks, wood ducks, have obvious tastes for beauty. Of causethere are also many birds with special colors mainly for concealment or as signs for conveying information. To explain why a female peacock tends to selects a more good-looking male peacock, Darwin proposed in “The Origin of Human Beings and the Sexual Selection” [2] that human and birds select the opposite sex not only upon viability, but also upon beauty. However, Wallace saw the principle of Selection-upon-Beauty as an unnecessary and contradictory supplement for the principle of survival of the fittest. The British biologist Helena Cronin listed many explanations, including the well-known one, the arms race theory, provided by later researchers in her book “The Ant and the Peacock”[3].  However, none of these explanations is satisfactory.

       The author proposed the Needs-based Aesthetics, affirming that needs relationship determines the taste for beauty; the lack and dissatisfaction are more important than utility to beauty sense.  The beauty sense pushes a person to approach and go after objects or environments that are useful to his or her survival. From this point of view, the colorful appearances of many birds are no longer natural secrets. This paper explores the answers for two problems mentioned above and explains the cause of the changes of human tastes for the beauty of natural environments.

2.     The origin of colorful nature

Natural science tells us that colors come from natural lights. The light in essence is the electromagnetic wave. In fact, there is a lot of invisible light.

 

Fig.1 Various bands of the light, Mankind can only perceive natural light.

 

Why is the visible light is just the light that appears often in nature? It is the sake of our eye’s evolution for adaption. Our visual construction helps us to discern seven, even more, completely different colors. Our color perceptions are only the symbols of natural light. Insects and fish see different colors because they have different visual cells (cones). In addition, insects also see ultraviolet light; and fish see infrared light because their color-sensitive cells have different sensitive characteristics.

Human has three kinds of color-sensitive cells. The number (M) of colors perceived increases with the number (N) of color-sensitive cells. There is M=2N. For normal people, N=3, M=8 [6].

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Fig. 2 Illustrating of the evolution of human color vision: the number of colors perceived increases with color-sensitive cells splitting from one to three kinds. While the vertical line moves horizontally, the change of the areas covered by the line reflects the change of color perception. 

We may image that there were only dull colors or lights on the earliest world without animals and plants. The nature might gradually possess colorful flowers and fruits after animals and plants appeared on this planet and started evolving. Those flowers and fruits reflect lights with certain wave bands; while the animals’ eyes could gradually discern flowers and fruits with those colors. What promoted the evolutions of flowers, fruits, and animal eyes? It was the pressure of survival, the needs relationship, and the demand for conveying information.    

Pollen and nectar provide nourishment to insects. Those flowers in more distinguished colors attract more insects; and more nutritious flowers may attract more insects to come to pollen from a long term. Therefore, if a plant has flowers in distinguished colors (in other words, the flowers reflects lights with different spectra) and more nutritious, this plant is likely to have more descendants.

 At the same time, if certain type of insects have eyes that discern more colors, they are more likely to obtain nourishment in an ease. If certain types of insects are more capable of appreciating tastes from pollen and nectar and perceiving the fragrance and beauty of flowers, they are likely have higher motivation in  seeking nourishment Hence, this type of insects could be retained better in the natural selection  We may be able to conclude that at the beginning of evolution, , insects had preference of certain flowers because of the nourishment of the flowers rather than their fragrance and beauty; Flowers became fragrant and beautiful to insects only after insects found they could get nourishment from followers (refer to  [4]).   

The taste of birds and beasts may evolve side by side with the nourishment of fruits. More nutritious fruits are more likely to become food of animals. Their seeds are more likely to be spread  and hence are more likely to be retained during the natural selection. At the same time, the birds and beasts are more likely to be retained if they are more capable of appreciating the  taste of the fruits and more motivated to seek the fruits.

This process may be said the process of objectification.

3.     The Rule of Needs’ Evolution and the Significance of Beauty Sense

The Needs-based Aesthetics concludes that human tastes of fragrance, sweet, and beauty are formed and determined by the needs relationship and human needs evolve following the rule: paths become ends (final goals).

Human ends grow like branches of a big tree [3]. The root is for survival. Other ends are all produced and developed following the rule of paths becoming ends. Eating, drinking, and love-making were only the paths of survival at the beginning. Late, the paths became the ends. These perceptual activities themselves became ends. For these new ends, activities such as learning, game, dance, fishing, and hunting were only paths or means. Late, these activities also entertain us. Our pleasant gustatory sensation makes our eating certain foods from a path into an end; while our pleasant visual and auditory sensations makes our approaching certain objects from a path into an end.      

Our various pleasant sensations are to lead us to treat those activities useful to survival from paths to ends. In addition, our beauty sense is to urge us to approach certain objects or environments, and to turn the approaches from paths into ends.   

Fig. 3  The tree of needs’ evolution——the root is for survival, the leaves are for the beauty appreciations.

4. The Changes of Mankind’s Tastes for Natural Beauty

Grosses studied the history of human painting and concluded ([6],278-283) that the mankind first put attention to animals and plants from practical view, and then treated them as objects for beauty appreciation. On the earliest rock paintings, there were only animals without plants. Those paintings were mainly related to hunting, because at that time, the agricultural society had not arrived yet. The plants became the esthetic objects and entered arts only after the agricultural society came.

Although Grosses’s explanation is reasonable to some extent, he still failed to explain other facts. For example, with the occurrence of cities and the development of modern industry, the mountain-and –water paintings are welcome by more people; on the contrarymachines and factories are being discarded by human beauty appreciation, even though they are more useful.

From the perspective of the needs-based aesthetics, only lack, dissatisfaction, or the difference between ideal and reality, is the cause of beauty sense. Human beings perceive the beauty of nature because they are sick of busy and crowd cities, and want to avoid industrial pollution and to return to cozy natural environments. Many peasants in countryside, as I know, did not sense beauty of scenery. After living in big city for long time, they began to yearn the scenery and to find the beauty of their rural hometowns. Grosses mentioned that the natives lived in the place with flowers any where, they did not think flowers beautiful. I believe that after they have lived in a desert for several years, they must be able to sense the beauty of the environment with flowers.

In ancient China, mountain-and-water paintings were appreciated very much by the literati because of frequent wars and slaughters in the history. To the literati, living cost was not a problem, while the safety of life was more urgent need. The background of well-known essay, “The Peach Blossom Spring"  by Tao Yuanming can explain this type of appreciation. The background is “The life of governors lived dissolutely, and struggled each other. The warlords continuously fought mutually. Heavy tax and corvee sharpened exploitation and grind to common people.” []

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Fig. 4. A moutain-and –water painting by Dong Yuan (at the end of the Tang Dynasty)——The water is a good resource for living, while the mountain is a refuge during wars.

5.     Human Sexual Selection     

Human beings select their spouse first for the sake of  survival. For instance, when selecting a female, a man tends to first check the female’s fertility and whether the female is young and healthy. Then he looks at whether the woman is gentle. Sometimes, a working-class family also looks at whether the female is physically strong and is able to bring some income. Rich families, on the other hand, possibly put more weight on the intelligence and virtues of the female. When selecting a male, a female tends to put more attention to his survival ability, cares about whether he is strong, rich, and able to bring the security to the family. The survival need determines person's preference, conversely the preference reinforces the taste of beauty. Once the taste of beauty forms, it has relatively independent significance. It seems that the human beings inherit the taste for beauty generation from generation. . Such taste of beauty becomes a summary of human sexual selection experience of many generations. The ugly feeling has the same characteristic, it also congeals human experience for survival. For instance, a person with apparently leprous symptoms will look ugly to all people including kids.  

In addition, the understanding of human beings after birth also affects their beauty-appreciation tastes. The more a person thinks the object to be good and the more he likes,  the more the object looks beautiful to him or her. If an object is easy to approach, then the sense of beauty may not be that intensive. The reason is that the significance of the beauty sense is to urge the person to approach the object. Why do we need an image and certain distance while we appreciate beauty? We won’t approach an object without an image of that object in our mind,  and we won’t have enough motivation to pursue that object if it is at hand. This is also the reason for why the lover’s eyes can see beautiful lady. There are other situations in which for example, a woman looks pretty initially, but our rational knowledge tells us that she behaves improperly or has seriously infectious disease, her “beauty” may gradually disappear.

       In brief, the needs relationship for survival between the opposite sexes determines the beauty-appreciation mind. Conversely, the beauty-appreciation mind promotes the needs relationship.

6.     The Secret of Avian Colorful Feathers  

About 25 years ago, I understood that the female peacock appreciated the male’s feathers because the female liked eating berries.

Lately, I found the colorful feathers of many birds reflected their needs of foods . The most evident is that the males of several kinds of ducks have the shapes of spiral snails on their heads.  For example, the head of the male King Eider living in China looks similar to the spiral snail in China; while the head of the male Wood Duck in Northern America shares some characteristics with the spiral snail in Northern America. The theory of Needs-based Aesthetics can explain this interesting finding. First the needs for foods selected the duck’s taste to the beauty of the spiral snails, which made them seek spiral snails with more motivation and hence have stronger survival ability. Then the female’s taste of beauty selected the color and texture of the feathers of the male.

Fig. 5. Three kinds of ducks whose heads have the shapes of spiral snails and the mandarin duck whose wings have the shape of the clam.

(left-up: green head duck, right-up: king eider, left-down: wood duck, right-down: mandarin duck)  

 

The author believes that there must be a long history for the duck to eat spiral snails and claims. The mandarin duck has a head with the shape of the clam rather than that of the spiral snail; the yellow tail feathers manifest the body of the claim outside its shell.

There are many other colorful birds whose feathers or appearances reflect their needs of foods.

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Fig. 6.  The appearance of the Rose-crowned Fruit Dove shows his taste of beauty to the red fruits.

   

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Fig7 The appearances of the crake and the pheasant show their taste to millet sprays.

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Fig. 8 The guinea with the shape of the corn on its body and pheasant with the shape of the pine corn on its body

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Fig. 9 The tragopan temminckii that likes to eat grasshoppers. []

Some birds also show their taste for the beauty of environments as human beings have got.

I found several kinds of migratory birds whose male heads had island-like or lake-like shapes. It is important for them to find the appropriate environment while flying in sky. What they like most is an island surrounded by the river or a lake surrounded by mountains where there are foods and safety. The needs relationship selected their taste for the beauty of environments that guides them to find appropriately living environments. It is afterward that the female taste for beauty selected the male feathers.    

Fig.10 The anas formosa or the face-colorful duck (left), which likes the sand island on the river, has the faces with the pattern of the island and the river. The branta ruficollis (right), which likes to build nests on the island surrounded by the river, also has the face with the pattern of the island and the river.

 

Please note the partial enlarge of the face-colorful duck. There is white color between “the green river” and “the yellow sand beach”, which precisely simulates the white spray (for details see my on-line article []).

       More examples can be seen in my homepage[]. These examples provide answers to the difficult question about sexual selection according to the Needs-based Aesthetics.

7.     Summery

This article discusses, from the perspective of evolution, the origin of the colorful nature, the evolution of human needs, and the issues about natural beauty and sexual selection. Supported by evidences, it explains that first the needs of birds to foods and environments selected their tastes for beauty; and the female tastes selected the male appearances afterward.

 

References

1.  Darwin, The Origin of Species (in Chinese), Science Press, 1972

2.        Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (in Chinese), Science Press, 1982

3.        Helena Cronin, The Ant and the Peacock: Altruism and Sexual Selection from Darwin to Today, Cambridge University Press, 1993

4.        Chenguang Lu, “Trying to resolve the problem left by Darwin about fragrance ,sweetness and beauty --Extension of the principle of historical materialism to biology”, Information from Nature, No.2, 1987. (see: http://survivor99.com/lcg/english/beauty/EEP3.html )

5.  Chenguang Lu, “Mystery of beauty sense and evolution of needs”(in Chinese), Science and Technology University Press ,2003. (see: http://survivor99.com/lcg/english/ )

6.  Chenguang Lu, Mystery of color vision and fundamental question in philosophy”, Science and Technology University Press, 2003

7.  On Beauty and Beauty Sense by Western Philosophers, Edited by Beijing University Philosophy Dept., Commercial Press, 1980



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