"Beauty and nature often shows up in the vicinity of sex—think of the plumage of birds or mating rituals through out the animal kingdom. “Sexual selection”—that is, evolution’s favoring of features that increase a plant’s or animal’s attractiveness and therefore it's reproductive success—is the best explanation we have for the otherwise senseless extravagance of feathers and flowers, maybe also sports cars and bikinis. In nature, at least, the expense of beauty is usually paid for by sex. There may or may not be a correlation between the beautiful and the good, but there probably is one between beauty and health. (Which, I suppose, in Darwinian terms, is the good.) Evolutionary biologists believe that in many creatures beauty is a reliable indicator of health, and therefore a perfectly sensible way to choose one mate over another. Gorgeous plumage, lustrous hair, symmetrical features are “certificates of health,” as one scientist puts it, advertisements that a creature carries genes for resistance to parasites and is not otherwise under stress. A fabulous tail is a metabolic extravagance only the healthy can afford."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Chapter 2, “Desire: Beauty / Plant: The Tulip” (p. 74)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michael_Pollan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Michael Pollan
30 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Michael Pollan →
Related Quotes
"Of course it’s also a lot easier to slap a health claim on a box of sugary cereal than on a potato or carrot, with th…"
"Nutrition science is where surgery was in about 1650, you know, really interesting and promising, but would you want …"
"The industrial animal factory offers a nightmarish glimpse of what capitalism is capable of in the absence of any mor…"
"The industrialization — and brutalization — of animals in America is a relatively new, evitable, and local phenomenon…"
"It's [a kitchen/dining table] where we teach our children the manners they need to get along in society. We teach the…"
"We forget how much time it can take simply to avoid cooking: all that time spent driving to restaurants or waiting fo…"
"…the microwave is an individualistic serial machine – it can only do one at a time so if you've got four people eatin…"
"Home cooking is good for you, and I eat out less. But that's the least of it. What has surprised me is how stimulatin…"
"Evolution doesn’t depend on will or intention to work; it is, almost by definition, an unconscious, unwilled process."
"Design in nature is but a concatenation of accidents, culled by natural selection until the result is so beautiful or…"