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Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty
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Amazon.co.uk
Nancy Etcoff's synthesis of up-to-the-minute evolutionary biology, neuroscience, social science and literary criticism is the very model of good popular science. So why is her account of physical beauty so damned titillating? There is nothing salacious here: Etcoff simply describes where beauty comes from, what it is for, how it is exploited and controlled today and who stands to gain and lose from its presence in the world. There is much here that is shocking, but such shocks and surprises are intellectual, rather than erotic. "In Brazil there are more Avon ladies than members of the army," Etcoff observes. "In the United States more money is spent on beauty than on education or social services ... and in 1715 riots broke out in France when the use of flour on the hair of aristocrats led to a food shortage."
Why is reading Survival of the Prettiest such an illicit pleasure? Perhaps because, in a society informed by Christian ethics and more recently by feminism, we feel uneasy with the manifest injustice of physical beauty and the way it runs roughshod over modern notions of virtue, democracy and the dignity of the individual. It's like the joke about the mother-in-law--as irresistibly funny as it is politically unacceptable. Why, then should we take beauty seriously? Because, Etcoff argues, beauty exists. It is not, like mother-in-law jokes, a product of the social fabric. It is information, there to aid procreation and species survival. We may disapprove of the ways we are manipulated at so visceral a level by so primitive a mechanism. But to deny beauty its social and political force is an act worthy of Canute. "How to live with beauty and bring it back into the realm of pleasure is a task for twenty-first century civilisation," Etcoff writes, and, thanks to her, we are off to a good start. --Simon Ings -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
Amazon.com
In the latter part of the 20th century, the adage "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" has evolved far beyond its original intent as an admonition against false vanity to become a cultural manifesto used to explain phenomena as diverse as the art of Andy Warhol and the rise of a multi-billion-dollar cosmetics industry. But is there something more to human reaction to beauty than a conditioned response to social cues? Yes, says Harvard Medical School psychologist Nancy Etcoff. Survival of the Prettiest argues persuasively that looking good has survival value, and that sensitivity to beauty is a biological adaptation governed by brain circuits shaped by natural selection.
Etcoff synthesizes a fascinating array of scientific research and cultural analysis in support of her thesis. Psychologists find that babies stare significantly longer at the faces adults find appealing, while the mothers of "attractive" babies display more intense bonding behaviors. The symmetrical face of average proportions may have become the optimal design because of evolutionary pressures operating against population extremes. Gentlemen may prefer blondes not so much for their hair color as for the fairness of their skin--which makes it easier to detect the flush of sexual excitement. And high heels accentuate a woman's breasts and buttocks, signaling fertility. Is beauty programmed into our brain circuits as a proxy for health and youth? In marked contrast to other writers like Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth), Etcoff argues that it is, noting, "Rather than denigrate one source of women's power, it would seem far more useful for feminists to attempt to elevate all sources of women's power." --Patrizia DiLucchio -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verfügbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.
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Flawed Science and a Political Agenda,
Von Ein Kunde
Rezension bezieht sich auf: Survival of the Prettiest (Gebundene Ausgabe)
The main theme of this book is that the phenomena of human beauty have their roots in evolutionary adaptations. It's a good idea, but a very weak book. I am a scientist, and my working assumption is that every feature of human behavior has its roots -- on some level -- in evolutionary adaptations. But to locate the specific adaptations that underlie a given feature is extremely difficult, and it is very easy to lapse into "just-so" stories which sound plausible but could be hogwash. Dr. Etcoff seems unaware of this pitfall. Whenever she comes across a piece of beauty trivia that can be plausibly linked to some evolutionary adaptation, she mentions it, and the book often reads like a first-year doctoral student's lit survey. But almost nowhere in the book does she consider competing explanations or counterexamples. Dr. Etcoff also has a political agenda, which is to "debunk" feminist concerns about the effect of cultural pressures on girls' and womens' self-image. She seems to think that, since our beauty impulse is wired into us by evolution, there is no room left for a critique of the way our culture instantiates those impulses. One thing that particularly offended me was her smug dismissal of the role of media images in the rise of eating disorders. Her main point is that media images can't be the sole "cause" of eating disorders, since a majority of women (who are exposed to the same images) don't develop full-blown bulimia or anorexia. Technically, she is correct, but she has missed the forest for the trees.
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Harvard Science?,
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Rezension bezieht sich auf: Survival of the Prettiest (Gebundene Ausgabe)
Consider this an engaging piece of fiction from a Harvard professor usually known for writing dry science grants. In _Survival of the Prettiest_, Etcoff has created a vividly imaginary world in which "beauty" seems obvious and universal to her characters: what people call "pretty" always seems the same and what appears beautiful never really varies because us male breeders always look for the same attributes in our women. Lesser imaginative readers might want to contest some of her claims on the basis that not all of us are straight, white, bourgeois unitedstatesians living in the late 20th century. Others may be tempted to ask Etcoff where a myriad of different counterexamples -- from non-European cultures and different historical periods -- might fit into her "study." But in the face of the many comforting certainties Etcoff provides, it should be easier to simply go along for the ride. This is an incredibly naive book, too bad public money probably went into funding the research.
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Pseudo-scientific claptrap!,
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Rezension bezieht sich auf: Survival of the Prettiest (Gebundene Ausgabe)
Etcoff does not understand the constructionist position and paints a bad caricature of it. The point is not that women follow the whims of Revlon but that the very desires we experience are socially constructed. Anyone can knock down a strawman or strawwoman. Read Anne Fausto-Sterling's Myths of Gender.
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