work together, work the same, and work for our clients.

Even the more expressive forms of design are about solving aesthetic problems

1BEYoNDRADICALDESIgN? 1. BEYOnD RADICAL DEsIGn?Dreams are powerful. They are repositories of our desire. They animate the entertainment industry and drive consumption. They can blind people to reality and provide cover for political horror. But they can also inspire us to imagine that things could be radically different than they are today, and then believe we can progress toward that imaginary world.

viiPREFACEA/B, Dunne & Raby.AAffirmativeProblem solvingProvides answersDesign for productionDesign as solutionIn the service of industryFictional functionsFor how the world isChange the world to suit usScience fictionFuturesThe “real” realNarratives of productionApplicationsFunInnovationConcept designConsumerMakes us buyErgonomicsUser-friendlinessProcessBCriticalProblem findingAsks questionsDesign for debateDesign as mediumIn the service of societyFunctional fictionsFor how the world could beChange us to suit the worldSocial fictionParallel worldsThe “unreal” realNarratives of consumptionImplicationsHumorProvocationConceptual designCitizenMakes us thinkRhetoricEthicsAuthorship

How Beauty Is Making Scientists Rethink Evolution

Maybe we were captivated by their consonance of color, form and aroma.

The philosopher Denis Dutton has argued that people around the world have an intrinsic appreciation for a certain type of landscape — a grassy field with copses of trees, water and wildlife — because it resembles the Pleistocene savannas where humans evolved. In a TED Talk, Dutton explains that postcards, calendars and paintings depicting this universally beloved landscape usually include trees that fork near the ground because our ancestors relied on their conveniently low branches to scramble away from predators.

Why are flowers beautiful? Or, more precisely: Why are flowers beautiful to us?

Rather, evolution is an intricate clockwork of physics, biology and perception in which every moving part influences another in both subtle and profound ways. Its gears are so innumerable and dynamic — so susceptible to serendipity and mishap — that even a single outcome of its ceaseless ticking can confound science for centuries

Tellingly, Prum and Ryan do not discuss each other’s work in their recent books.

not because they were more suitable mates, but simply because they were more noticeable.

attraction is also defined by which of those qualities cross the threshold of awareness.

namely that natural and sexual selection are distinct processes and that, in at least some cases, beauty reveals nothing about an individual’s health or vigor.

“Birds are beautiful because they are beautiful to themselves.”

overhyped and boring

Over time, this genetic correlation would reach a tipping point, creating a runaway cycle that would greatly exaggerate both preference and trait, glorifying beauty at the expense of the male’s survival.

animal consciousness

jeopardized an animal’s well-being.

many of the best-studied examples are of female preference and male display

Kenji Aoki

moa

About two hours into our walk,

Binoculars in hand,

Again and again, he told me, he has asked other researchers for feedback and received either excuses of busyness or no reply at all.

discursive

Sometimes beauty is the glorious but meaningless flowering of arbitrary preference.

Beauty, therefore, would not confound natural selection — it would be very much a part of it.

Kenji Aoki

Not only do the bowerbird’s colorful feathers and elaborate constructions lack obvious value outside courtship, but they also hinder his survival and general well-being, draining precious calories and making him much more noticeable to predators.

until the 15th century

forced perspective

Deportation to Mexico

Colleges could just report letter grades without pluses and minuses, so that any G.P.A. above a 3.7 appears on transcripts as an A.

Really, no one cares.

If your goal is to graduate without a blemish on your transcript, you end up taking easier classes and staying within your comfort zone. If you’re willing to tolerate the occasional B, you can learn to program in Python while struggling to decipher “Finnegans Wake.”

They paid attention to their curiosity and prioritized activities that they found intrinsically motivating — which ultimately served them well in their careers.

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