Title: Survival of the Beautiful: Art, Science, and Evolution
Abstract: When they gaze upon the vast expanses of the mind, disciplined scientists recognize a ne plus ultra. It's where their instruments go haywire and numbers refuse to add up; empirical evidence gives way to the realm of pure theory and unsubstantiated speculation. Anything can happen. To cross this frontier is, in the words of one bird song neuroscientist, to be “operating totally without data” (86). Here lie the darkling territories of philosophy and poetry, music and art—David Rothenberg's home ground. The author of Why Birds Sing, Thousand Mile Song, and five other strikingly original volumes, Rothenberg is a jazz musician and environmental philosopher who writes with an elegant audacity reminiscent of William James. Survival of the Beautiful is his cunning and playful study (in the painterly sense) of how beauty prowls the domain of evolutionary science like a panther in a sedate suburb. “I do not believe evolution as we know it can explain art,” he writes, “but a deeper consideration of art can enhance our understanding of evolution” (20). Rothenberg is keenly interested in what cutting-edge scientists across a wide range of disciplines are up to in their investigations of nature. He seeks them out—whether they be in their labs or out in the field—in order to delve more deeply into their enterprises and ask a few sportive questions.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-09-06
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 87
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