Richard O. Prum – författare

"Richard O Prum är den underbare evolutionsforskare som jag inser att jag längtat efter hela mitt liv. Han är oförtröttligt nyfiken och så briljant i sina poetiska skildringar av djurs beteenden att det kittlar i magen. Hans Skönhetens evolution är en högläsningsbok av guds nåde."Aftonbladet

"Den enskilt mest tankeväckande bok jag läst i år, en sådan där bok som förändrar hela ditt sätt att se på världen." Michael Pollan

"En lärorik skrift /.../ Det är god populärvetenskap." BTJ

Skönhetens evolution blev utsedd till en av årets bästa böcker av The New York Times och var finalist till Pulitzerpriset 2017. Boken är en häpnadsväckande vetenskaplig utforskning av naturens under, skriven med en glödande kärlek till fåglarna och deras värld. 

Inom den gängse vetenskapen anses Charles Darwins teori om det naturliga urvalet förklara allt som finns i naturen; vilka arter som överlever, vilka som tynar bort och vilka egenskaper som respektive art utvecklar för att överleva. Men kan det naturliga urvalet verkligen ligga bakom allt vi ser i naturen?

Det tror inte den amerikanska ornitologen Richard O. Prum. Djupt inne i tropiska djungler världen över finns det fåglar som uppvisar en svindlande variation i utseende och parningsritualer. Klubbvingade manakiner som sjunger med sina vingar, den större argusfasanen som bländar potentiella partners med fjädrar täckta av tredimensionella gyllene klot och fåglar som moonwalkar.

Under 30 års fältarbete bland fåglar har Prum sett åtskilliga karaktärsdrag som inte går att förklara med det naturliga urvalet, det vill säga de har ingen praktisk funktion. För att förstå detta återuppväcker han Darwins bortglömda teori om det sexuella urvalet, där valet av partner utifrån strikt estetiska skäl utgör en avgörande motor för evolutionär förändring: skönheten har ett värde i sig.

Dessutom hävdar Prum att det är honorna som driver denna förändring; det är deras sofistikerade sinne för skönhet som formar djurriket, vår värld och inte minst oss själva.

An award-winning biologist and writer applies queer feminist theory to developmental genetics, arguing that individuals are not essentially male or female.    The idea that gender is a performance—a tenet of queer feminist theory since the nineties—has spread from college classrooms to popular culture. This transformative concept has sparked reappraisals of social expectations as well as debate over not just gender, but sex: what it is, what it means, and how we know it. Most scientific and biomedical research over the past seventy years has assumed and reinforced a binary concept of biological sex, though some scientists point out that male and female are just two outcomes in a world rich in sexual diversity.     In Performance All the Way Down, MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard O. Prum brings feminist thought into conversation with biology, arguing that the sexual binary is not essential to human genes, chromosomes, or embryos. Our genomes are not blueprints, algorithms, or recipes for the physical representation of our individual sexual essences or fates. In accessible language, Prum shows that when we look closely at the science, we see that gene expression is a material action in the world, a performance through which the individual regulates and achieves its own becoming. A fertilized zygote matures into an organism with tissues and organs, neurological control, immune defenses, psychological mechanisms, and gender and sexual behavior through a performative continuum. This complex hierarchy of self-enactment reflects the evolved agency of individual genes, molecules, cells, and tissues.  Rejecting the notion of an intractable divide between the humanities and the sciences, Prum proves that the contributions of queer and feminist theorists can help scientists understand the human body in new ways, yielding key insights into genetics, developmental biology, physiology. Sure to inspire discussion, Performance All the Way Down is a book about biology for feminists, a book about feminist theory for biologists, and a book for anyone curious about how our sexual bodies grow.

An award-winning biologist and writer applies queer feminist theory to developmental genetics, arguing that individuals are not essentially male or female.    The idea that gender is a performance—a tenet of queer feminist theory since the nineties—has spread from college classrooms to popular culture. This transformative concept has sparked reappraisals of social expectations as well as debate over not just gender, but sex: what it is, what it means, and how we know it. Most scientific and biomedical research over the past seventy years has assumed and reinforced a binary concept of biological sex, though some scientists point out that male and female are just two outcomes in a world rich in sexual diversity.     In Performance All the Way Down, MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard O. Prum brings feminist thought into conversation with biology, arguing that the sexual binary is not essential to human genes, chromosomes, or embryos. Our genomes are not blueprints, algorithms, or recipes for the physical representation of our individual sexual essences or fates. In accessible language, Prum shows that when we look closely at the science, we see that gene expression is a material action in the world, a performance through which the individual regulates and achieves its own becoming. A fertilized zygote matures into an organism with tissues and organs, neurological control, immune defenses, psychological mechanisms, and gender and sexual behavior through a performative continuum. This complex hierarchy of self-enactment reflects the evolved agency of individual genes, molecules, cells, and tissues.  Rejecting the notion of an intractable divide between the humanities and the sciences, Prum proves that the contributions of queer and feminist theorists can help scientists understand the human body in new ways, yielding key insights into genetics, developmental biology, physiology. Sure to inspire discussion, Performance All the Way Down is a book about biology for feminists, a book about feminist theory for biologists, and a book for anyone curious about how our sexual bodies grow.

A major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create the extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. In the great halls of science, dogma holds that Darwin''s theory of natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. But can adaptation by natural selection really account for everything we see in nature?     Yale University ornithologist Richard Prum—reviving Darwin''s own views—thinks not. Deep in tropical jungles around the world are birds with a dizzying array of appearances and mating displays: Club-winged Manakins who sing with their wings, Great Argus Pheasants who dazzle prospective mates with a four-foot-wide cone of feathers covered in golden 3D spheres, Red-capped Manakins who moonwalk. In thirty years of fieldwork, Prum has seen numerous display traits that seem disconnected from, if not outright contrary to, selection for individual survival. To explain this, he dusts off Darwin''s long-neglected theory of sexual selection in which the act of choosing a mate for purely aesthetic reasons—for the mere pleasure of it—is an independent engine of evolutionary change.    Mate choice can drive ornamental traits from the constraints of adaptive evolution, allowing them to grow ever more elaborate. It also sets the stakes for sexual conflict, in which the sexual autonomy of the female evolves in response to male sexual control. Most crucially, this framework provides important insights into the evolution of human sexuality, particularly the ways in which female preferences have changed male bodies, and even maleness itself, through evolutionary time.      The Evolution of Beauty presents a unique scientific vision for how nature''s splendor contributes to a more complete understanding of evolution and of ourselves.