Survival of the Prettiest

The Science of Beauty

By: Nancy Etcoff

Narrated by: Donna Postel

A provocative and thoroughly researched inquiry into what we find beautiful and why, skewering the myth that the pursuit of beauty is a learned behavior.

In Survival of the Prettiest, Nancy Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, argues that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism - it's in our biology.

Beauty, she explains, is an essential and ineradicable part of human nature that is revered and ferociously pursued in nearly every civilization - and for good reason. Those features to which we are most attracted are often signals of fertility and fecundity. When seen in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, our sometimes extreme attempts to attain beauty - both to become beautiful ourselves and to acquire an attractive partner - suddenly become much more understandable. Moreover, if we understand how the desire for beauty is innate, then we can begin to work in our own interests, and not just the interests of our genetic tendencies.

©1999 Nancy Etcoff (P)2019 Tantor

Educational and interesting

Enjoyed listening to this book. The author makes some very good points. Really enjoy the fact that it’s grounded in scientific research.

Candid observation of beauty in society & biology

ut's interesting to discover how beauty has progressed through the centuries and how strong biology is to favor and cultivate this gift of genes. A candid view of beauty in sociological and biological terms.

who is this lady?

this book deals with it all..... political influences racial influences geographical influences, societal influences, Anatomy, physiology, biology. The amount of statistics and evidence used to support her argument are amazing. She also seems to have some genuine insight into various ethnic groups. It is a straightforward and clear read but yet loaded with thought-provoking ideas! You have to read and reread it to be sure to capture everything she is trying to communicate. best read of the year so far!

Immersive

Filled with evidence, humorous and intriguing anecdotes from notable figures, and written in a way that gracefully captures your attention. Donna Postel does an amazing job.

iluminador

te ayuda a comprender muchas cosas que día a día te ayudan o no en la vida

Insightful, interesting and informative...

·Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons from the Myth of Boyhood - William Pollack, Ph.D
·Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say - Warren Farrell
·You Just Don't Understand - Deborah Tannen, Ph.D
·The Female Brain - Louann Brizendine, MD
·Men On Strike: Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood, and the American Dream - Helen Smith, Ph.D
·The Rational Male - Rollo Tomassi
·The Myth of Male Power: Why men are thr disposable sex - Warren Farrell, Ph.D
·The Rational Male: Preventive Medicine - Rollo Tomassi
·The Relationship Dismount: How to Stick the Landing When Exiting a Toxic Relationship - Renard 'Zo' Williams
·Sex, Time, and Power: How Woman's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution - Leonard Shlain
·Sex And Racism In America - Calvin C. Hernton

📚....

An intriguing read

Despite being published originally 20 years ago, the science of “why” there’s “survival of the prettiest”, still remains firm over millennia ... an excellent performance and compilation of everything from why we curl our eyelashes, to the color and style of fabric that’s chosen - based on displayed signals explained in selection through survival of the most appealing conditions across the planet. Explaining the features fluctuating and correlating with environmental conditions like sunlight reflecting off snow (causing fatty pads around the eyes) or cooler climates supporting the longer, warming nasal passages in comparison to warm areas with wider, open nostrils seen in varieties of the human race.

A bit dense but I learned a lot and very interesting

I really enjoyed it. Highly recommend. Moved fast, a bit dense but well written. I learned a lot.

There were no blondes in the stone age

The narration is great. But this book is what most people would call "very good at arguing", by which I mean, it reminded me very much of Jordan Peterson. It starts out by mentioning a few facts we all agree upon, and then uses those to construct an argument that is... not so straight forward. In other words, it uses scientific language to ease you into its own biases.

As an example, (out of many!) it mentions that men prefer women with wide hips because of inborn biology, citing a study - and then ignores the fact that, in this study, what men prefer in waist to hip ratio is quite different when looking at one culture to the next. Asia it is 0.5, USA is 0.7, and Norway is 0.8. Yep, pretty sure that doesn't do anything but reject the book's own thesis - men are not born with a set idea of what is beautiful in a woman; he is affected by social norms in the place he was born.
This is what a vast majority of the book is like. It offers an alternative to feminist theory of beauty norms, but it is not serious work.

Great content but not a fan of the reader

It may just be me but I struggled to get through this book because of the reader. Originally at first listen I thought it was a computer generated voice and not a real person. I managed to press on because the content was super interesting to me and the book is super informative! However the tone, cadence, and style of the reader were so bad that I had to take breaks and jump around to other audio books. It felt like a chore to listen even though the topic itself is so interesting to me.