Expert: John Shea - 10/17/2008

Question
It is clear how humans would evolve an eye for the beauty of other humans.  But how did humans evolve the appreciation for the beauty of a sunset or of fall colors?

Answer
Hi Will
My best guess on this one (for I am an archaeologist, not an evolutionary psychologist), is that such aesthetic sensibilities were byproducts of selective pressure for recognition of beauty in humans, or at least such qualities of "beauty" -i.e., facial symmetry, etc, that are corrolaries of health, status, fertility of some other reproductively-relevant quality.  It might even be that the ability to make such a metaphor-using leap between human and natural beauty was part of a broader set of cognitive abilities strongly selected for among hominin ancestors.
Don't know how you'd go about testing that hypothesis, so this is really more of a hunch than a concrete scientific argument.  I would bet, though, that a perusal of any of the recent cognitive/evolutionary psychology literature would put you on the trail of recent scientific arguments about this.
(Sorry if there was a delay in my reply, I had to be away from office for last week on personal matter.)
John Shea