Recommended readings

An introductory talk on Darwinian evolution can be viewed here.

Nilsson and Pelger (1994) estimated the time needed for an eye to evolve from scratch.

Debates about the relevance of evolution to art can be read in Dutton (2010) and Pinker (1997).

Gould (1991) discusses exaptations in evolution.

Denis Dutton's TED illustrated talk on beauty can be watched here.

Scott-Phillips et al. (2011) discuss the distinction betwee ultimate and proximate explanations.

Play in animals is discussed by Burghardt (2014) and fitness indicators in animals is discussed by Schaedelin and Taborsky (2009).

Research on the fitness theory of art can be found in Miller (2001), Clegg et al. (2011), Nettle and Clegg (2006) and Kaufman et al. (2014).

A short BBC natural history video about bowerbirds, narrated by David Attenborough, can be watched here.

Paris (2017) evaluates psychoanalytic explanations of behaviour. His points are relevant to psychoanalytic approaches to art.

Evolutionary explanations of emotion are discussed by Nesse (1990), and curiosity is discussed by Kidd and Hayden (2015).


Additional material

New material will appear here as I find it.