《性与美》内容简介

　　借助先进的神经科学和进化生物学手段，以及作者自己对巴拿马丛林深处的小型南美泡蝉的重要研究，瑞安探讨了几个关键的问题：为什么动物认为某些特征是美的，而另一些则不是？还有，动物是否拥有与生俱来的对性的审美？如果有，它的根源又在哪里？瑞安认为，这些问题的答案在于大脑——尤其是雌性的大脑中，她们才是生物演化这部木偶戏的幕后演员，引导着雄性进化出了美的特征。这种关于性之美如何进化的理论解释了动物届里惊人的多样性，并为人类对美的感知与其他动物的相似程度提供了新的见解。

　　作者简介

　　迈克尔·瑞安是美国得州大学动物学克拉克·哈布斯动物学讲席教授，也是巴拿马史密森尼热带研究所的高级研究员。他是性选择、配偶选择和动物交流领域的顶尖研究员。

"Sex and Beauty" content introduction

Drawing on advanced neuroscience and evolutionary biology, as well as the author's own important research on tiny South American bubblers deep in the jungles of Panama, Ryan explores several key questions: Why do animals find certain features beautiful and others not? And do animals have an innate aesthetic for sex? If so, what are its roots? The answer to these questions, Ryan argues, lies in the brain -- especially the female brain, which is the backstage actor in the puppet show of biological evolution, guiding the evolution of beautiful features in males. This theory of how sexual beauty evolved explains the amazing diversity of animals and offers new insights into how similar human perceptions of beauty are to those of other animals.

About the author

Michael Ryan is the Clark Hubbs Chair of Zoology at the University of Texas and a senior research fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. He is a leading researcher in the fields of sexual selection, mate selection and animal communication.