The Art Instinct_ Beauty, Pleasure, & Human Evolution - Denis Dutton [137]
Zunshine (2006); the quotations are in a response to Brian Boyd in Philosophy and Literature, Zunshine (2007).
Wilson is quoted by Carroll (2006), pp. 42 and 43. Brian Boyd’s On the Origin of Stories (2009) argues an impressive case for the arts in general and storytelling in par tic u lar as a form of cognitive play.
Carroll (2006), p. 42. The quotation about the young David Copperfield is from Carroll (2004), p. 68. The three points of view, with the example from Pride and Prejudice, are discussed in Carroll (2004), p. 208–10.
Barash and Barash (2005) use the plots of classic fictions to illustrate principles of evolutionary psychology. While their entertaining book says little about the nature of fiction, it does throw Darwinian light on the kinds of stories typically chosen by authors. For an appreciation and critique, see [w/s denisdutton .com barash].
Polti’s list is not in print, but is available on the Web [w/s polti dramatic situations]. Quotations are from Booker (2004); the Jung remarks are at p. 12.
For a philosophical view of video games as an art form, see Tavinor (2005).
CHAPTER 7: ART AND HUMAN SELF-DOMESTICATION
For Darwin on why peacocks made him sick, see Cronin (1991), p. 113. The letter can be found on the Web [w/s darwin gray peacock sick]. Darwin’s actual words are a lighthearted aside in a personal letter. I note that they are now idiotically quoted on creationist Web sites as evidence that Darwin was unable to explain the wonders of nature.
On convergent evolution, see Miller (2003).
On the waist-to-hip ratio, see Singh (1995) and subsequent discussions [w/s waist hip singh].
For male upper-body mass, see Etcoff (1999). Etcoff also discusses the female age lag and the preference for tall men, as does Buss in his very clear exposition (Buss 1999). The David Remnick quotation is in Etcoff (1999), p. 77. Brian Hansen’s results (1998) on body ratios in portraiture were presented to the 1998 meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society at the University of California, Davis. For the more accepting attitude men have toward taller women than women have toward shorter men, see Nettle (2002); this article is on the Web [w/s women height nettle]. On symmetry, see Buss (1999), pp. 118–20.
General mating criteria are discussed in Miller (2000) and (2001), as well as in Buss (1994) and (1999). For Darwin on “unintentional” domestication, see Darwin (1896), p. 614. The Descent of Man can be downloaded from the Web and searched with ordinary desktop search functions.
A word should be said on behalf of Friedrich Schiller, whose 1794 Letters on Aesthetic Education imaginatively suggest aspects of sexual selection eighty years before Darwin. Schiller found the concept of play central to art, which with his many comparisons to animals he tends to view as a natural phenomenon. He also regarded the emergence of high culture out of barbarism as being largely a matter of females exercising mate choice. See Schiller (1967), especially Letter XXVII; on the Web [w/s denisdutton .com schiller]. Brian Boyd (2009) stresses the importance of cognitive play in the arts.
The issue of vocabulary size is emphasized by Miller in chapters 10 and 11 of The Mating Mind (2000). Miller’s exposition of sexual selection is both eloquent and to my mind completely in line with Darwin’s suggestions in The Descent of Man.
A provocative new look at surviving cave art has been produced by Guthrie (2005). Although there have been major discoveries since he wrote his book, Pfeiffer (1982) is still a fine summary. There is much material on the Web about Ötzi, [w/s otzi iceman].
Veblen’s spoon example is at (1994), pp. 78–79; the Zahavis’ book is now an established classic in sexual selection theory. Voland’s quotation is at Voland (2003), pp. 241–42.
For Kathryn Coe on carry ing materials for far distances, see Coe (2003). For Gell on the matchstick cathedral, see Gell (1992),